Frequently Asked Questions

The Edge of Liberty Craft Fair was started in 2020 as a way for neighbors to share their lockdown crafts with each other and to have a way to safely socialize in an outdoor setting.  We called them "Open Farm" events and were supplemental to the Market Days events we used to have at our home, Batshit Crazy Farms.

The first three years we held our craft fairs monthly and limited participation to people we knew personally or who were customers at our Market Days.  In 2023 we changed to bi-weekly and opened up participation to any local home-based artisan in Porter or bordering counties and hosted an exhausting twelve fairs in a single season.

We survived and, call us crazy but, we're going to do it again in 2024 - kicking off the fun on Mother's Day so we can have 13 events in a single season.

Our main goal with our craft fair is to provide an affordable venue for home based entrepreneurs to get their name out there, build up clientele, and learn what it takes to "go pro" with their chosen art.  

We've been through this journey ourselves as market garden and shelf-stable food vendors and we know how hard it can be to get started with "basic" things like signage, social media, credit card processing, advertising, online shopping - when all we really want to be doing is practicing our "art."

This website is part of the benefit of joining our family of artisans and crafters as we invest in advertising to bring traffic to our sites, which gets your individual business page, images, and related links to your website, your Facebook page, and your shop exposure in various search engines.  

If you don't have any of those things right now - that's fine - you can leverage what we're doing here to just get your name out there and just find out if what you make is something anyone would buy and if this is something you want to pursue closer to full time.  You get the side benefit of working side by side with true professionals who might look like competitors but who are incredibly supportive of where you are right now and love talking to people who love doing the same things. 

If you're already a pro at this - we'd love to have you with us.  We're one of the few Sunday markets in the area, our location is perfect for Sunday drives, our historic Bible verse sign attracts after-church traffic, our booth fee is low, and your expertise will be greatly appreciated as we all try to learn together.

We're a family - sharing common goals of bringing beauty to the world through our "art"  and joy to our community through celebration and education and participation.  Making money is just a side-effect of creating happiness for others and a truly free economy ends with happiness on both sides of every transaction.  We're right on the edge of that kind of freedom and our goal is to push it over and leave nothing but smiles in our wake.

Explore this site to find out everything you need to know about our vendors and events.  

Our menu has "2024 Vendors" who have reserved spaces for specific dates for the current year, and "Past Vendors" who have previously participated in our events.  Each page has all the information we have on how to contact them outside of our scheduled events.

The "Dates" menu links off to all of our future dated events with links to the vendors who are committed to attending that particular date.  Once the event is over, we move it to "Past Events" menu and add the Facebook Live video tour of the event to the page.

We have quite a few of the same crafters you can see at other local venues since we are one of the only Sunday markets in the area, but in a more relaxed atmosphere where they can take the time to talk to you about their craft - something we all love to do - and in a beautiful location that just seems to create more smiles all around.  

We also cultivate the entrepreneurial spirit and have quite a few new vendors - your neighbors and friends - who aren't quite ready to "go pro" - who could use your encouragement and support as they work out the kinks on what it takes to start a small business.

The Edge of Liberty is a great place to meet up with friends and family and wander about all day long.  We have formal gardens for exploring where we can fresh pick for you herbs, greens, flowers, and root vegetables in season.  We have informal plantings scattered about the property along walking trails through wooded areas and near our pond.  We invite you to explore this privately owned space any Sunday that we're open to the public.  You can also schedule a private tour any day of the year at https://edge-of-liberty.com/private-tours.

We have a farm stand with other freshly-picked, locally-grown, pesticide-free produce where we also sell our signature pepper blend, and fruit jams and jellies from our own mini orchard.

Fill out this form to give us enough information to build a vendor page for your business. 

Work with us to review and approve the content of your business page via email or through our private Facebook group

Pay the $20 per event fee in our online store to reserve your space.  Click here.

Your fee covers the rental of a vendor-only deluxe portable rest room for your convenience. 

We also invest collected fees in locally targeted online advertising and prominently placed signage and flyers to attract customers.

Your fee covers a minimum 12x12 spot; many spots also have space for vehicle parking nearby.

You also get a page on this website dedicated to your business with links to your Facebook page, your website, your preferred method of taking orders (email, telephone, online store), up to ten product photos - and all the SEO optimization that comes with it.

As one of our vendors said to us "Any event where you make back the fee you paid is a good day...if you more than double it, it's a great day." 

Our fee is as low as we can make it to help you have as many great days as possible!

We're a small four acre farm in the middle of a rural residential area with a one acre residence nearby.

Because we're in a rural area, we do not attract the larger crowds you will find with downtown events in Chesterton or Valparaiso, but because we're off the beaten path, those who do visit us are buyers not lookers.  Historically we've see between 100 and 200 vehicles per event but have also seen that number slowly increasing with expanded advertising and word of mouth.

Our craft fair area is too far from the house to support electrical hookup or running water for most vendors.  You should bring your own water to keep hydrated, but we do have a rental restroom for hand washing.

We try to always have a food truck booked for every craft fair where you can purchase lunch. We will notify you via email and Facebook group if there will be no food truck and whether you need to provide your own lunch.

If you need electricity you will need to bring a generator or be positioned closer to the house and farm stand, away from the main shopping area,

There are no permanent structures so you should invest in a 10x10 or 12x12 popup canopy. Most of our vendor spots are designed to have space for your canopy and a regular sized vehicle. We have a limited number of large truck areas, We also have more centrally located spots without nearby parking for those who would rather forego convenience for maximum exposure.  

We are a rain or shine event, and have never cancelled.  You should make sure you have appropriate protection for yourself and your products if inclement weather is predicted.

We do not provide tables or chairs for vendors, but we do have seating areas for our mutual customers to eat or converse.  

We have a private Facebook group for vendors only where we can have open discussions and ask questions and help each other out.  This is also a good place to connect with other vendors who may wish to share a spot with you if you don't have a canopy and your product selection is still small enough to only need a single table.

If your products are inexpensive, we can run credit card purchases for you and give you cash at the farm stand until you can get yourself set up with your own purchasing systems.  We do recommend for those selling more expensive items that this is something you should do first!

We can help with signage if you don't have access to a computer printer or laminator.

If you don't have a Facebook business page yet, we encourage paid vendors to post to our public group about their products to generate interest.  

If you don't have a website yet, your vendor page on this site will be a good start to get your name out there on the internet and take orders via phone or email in the interim.

We're here to support you in your self-employment journey to independence and we want you to take that first step - sign up for an event and let us know what we can do to help you succeed.