Why can't Heather follow a recipie?

My friend Kelly hooked me up with Tamara the Trapeze lady who let me set up a table outside of her "Frighteningly Kinky" Halloween Cabaret show to sell baked goods. I chose to bake for the "Great American Bake Sale" charity that's fighting to end childhood hunger in with "the Child and Adult Care Food Program, the Summer Food Service Program, and the National School Lunch Program."

There were alot of unavoidable bumps in the road and mistakes that were made that caused me to ultimately not be able to cover my costs.  In the end I only got $55 of the $120 or so I put into it.
Here're some of the problems:
-When I found out it was okay-ed I had less than 48 hours to do it all so I ended up buying pre-made cookie dough which, although delicious, cost me a bundle.
-I got to the show late because there was such a time crunch so I was not able to get there and get set up to sell to the incoming crowd in time, only to the people that came out during the intermission and to the people leaving the show.
-I didn't have a jelly roll pan or decorations / tablecloths / napkins / gloves / small, disposable, covered containers.
-I made the mistake of buying too many ingredients so not all of them were used which explained why I'd spent so much more money than I made.
-The amount of cookies/cakes I made was too high. I sold very little of my yield of 136 cookies, probably like 25 cookies. But most people gave extra for the cause which's why the total was $55.

-I experimented last minute with recipes that didn't work out. I wanted to make green witches fingers with almonds for fingernails. But since I didn't have time to make the cookies from scratch I tried to do it with the sugar cookie dough I purchased. This was a flop because that particular dough flattened and spread out so much you couldn't tell what it was supposed to be.

But the experience taught me ALOT. For example:
-All the little cookies wrapped up individually for $0.75 went the fastest by far. They were cutely decorated which might have had something to do with it but I think it was mostly that they were less than a dollar.
-The Pumpkin Roll, the best of them all, did not sell to anyone. This could be because they were $3 or it could've been because they weren't as easy to eat. I priced them so high because they were the only thing from scratch and they took the most time. (But Tiffany said that they were worth $3 ha ha. She will be eating almost all of the two cakes I made.)
-People were turned off by the fact that the peanut butter cup cookies were sugar cookies and not peanut butter cookies.
-I made $40 of my $55 during the intermission. I think that this was because people came out during intermission and felt like they needed something to do so they bought something cheap. Compared to the other vendors my stuff was the cheapest by far. It could have just been that Tamara had just got done telling them to go buy stuff from the vendors so they went the cheapest route.

-Bring change. I totally forgot about this and list minute scrounged for dollars and quarters. Next time I'll have a box and everything

-Cut costs by making things from scratch. Looking around the internet I found that my prices were way higher than normal. But at the same time, I think the internet's prices are really low. While I was making around $0.80/cookie they want people to sell them for $0.25 - $0.50/cookie. I think that people are willing to spend a lot more than that for charity.

-Bake sales are very time intensive and they should be prepared for as early as possible. More time would've made things much easier, prettier and more profitable.
-People don't ask for change from charities. If something is $1.50 most people will let you keep $2.00 as long as you make it clear that it's for a good cause.


Things I liked about my sale:

Decorations: I think I pulled off the decorations very well. I stopped at all the sales going on right before Halloween hit.
-I got an awesome black owl that's about 7 inches tall for only $5 at Cost Plus World Market.

-I also got a skull and crossbone tray and some ghost cookie cutters for $1 each at Ross (I did not get a chance to us the cookie cutters).

-I got some uber discounted harvest-y sprinkles at Ross too that I can thankfully use for Thanksgiving stuff since I didn't have time to make anything with them before the sale.

-I got two round black table cloths from Cash-n-Carry to cover my big rectangular table and stretched some fake spider web across the table top which looked pretty sweet.

-I also got some crinkled strips of black / orange / purple decoration-confetti type paper from C+WM and tossed them around on top of everything. It looked great, the only problem was that when I went to clean them up they got totally caught up in the web.

-I got two black posters for only $0.65 each at Fred Meyer. Since he was sick I put Joe on poster duty. He didn't get very creative with it or use the whole poster but he did it willingly when I needed him to so I can't complain.

I made at least one really cool thing from scratch: that was the pumpkin roll. Next time almost everything will be from scratch. That way I can be way more creative. And things can be more delicious.

The leftover baked goods will mostly be given directly to kids who are related to friends of mine. I have to figure out what to do with it before it stops being fresh so that's my plan.

One really great result of the bake sale was meeting Miss Oblivious. She had a table set up next to mine selling handmade dolls and some other art and she was very nice. She told me about something called Mourning Market happening on Dec 13th. She said that I would be very welcome there because they need someone to sell sweets since the only food they sell is burgers and stuff. I think that'd be awesome so I shot her an email. Hopefully that works out.

If I do end up doing that market thing I already have a few things planned out. I want to sell my home made chai. This might require a little help from Ezra and his hot water boiler thing. I'd like to add something savory like a cheese/herb bread. And I'll totally be able to have fun with the whole dark theme. I can make rice crispies in the shape of skulls, that would be sweet. I have a plan that involves tinfoil and ice. And a make your own cupcake station would be so cool but messy ha ha. I'll keep thinking about it and we'll see how everything goes.

And I just found out about a punk rock flea market on Dec 5th. I'm dying to go. I'm also trying to reserve a spot for the next one.