WOYWW: If you can't comment on the post below...

...please feel free to to talk here...

Dunno what has happened to the earlier post, but it has decided (without consent) not to allow comments.  And I would so miss hearing from you!

WOYWW: After the Craft Fair

Every Wednesday, the lovely Julia at Stamping Ground hosts a tour of crafters' workspaces.  If, like me, you are insatiably curious about how other people work, then pop across to see more at What's On Your Workspace Wednesday.

Today's crafty snoop is what's left in the hall following Saturday's craft fair.  Because the fair was for gifts as well as crafts, I took along the pirate box, which isn't one of my makes.  It attracted a lot of interest, but didn't sell.  You can also see part of two painted mirrors in the bag behind.

To the left are my new stock boxes.  I went with three packed full and came back with two.  I didn't think I had sold that much in volume terms, so perhaps I just packed better on the way home.  I did load up at about 1am on Saturday morning before the fair, so I'm not sure that I was thinking too clearly at the time...  There was a lot of very unnecessary packing material.

Just before I packed I was much less concerned than I should have been about burning my fingers on the heat gun whilst making decoupaged candles with tissue paper.  The brain was very slow in receiving signals from my left hand.  *Calling brain.  Left hand is a bit warm.  Left hand now hot.  Left hand is burning and very pink.  Aarghh!  Move heat gun.*   You can see the culprit candle above looking sweet and innocent and peeping out of its holder.

Above is one of my decoupaged hearts.  It's made with little mosaic pieces of tissue all glued down and varnished.  I have also made some picture frames with the same technique.  The frames are much easier as there are no curved edges to smooth out.   Think I'll have a go at some more of these this week.

First Craft Fair: What I Learned

1.  It is possible, in 24 hours, to make sufficient stock to cover a 6 x 2 foot table.  It won't be easy.  You won't have much spare to fill in any gaps after sales, but you will have enough.  

2.  It is more than likely that there will be people who sell more than you.  Equally, there will be people selling less or even nothing.  On Saturday, I reckon I fell about in the middle of the sales (having chatted to about half of the stallholders), which was reassuring for a first outing.  But I must remember not to panic on the day when I will, undoubtedly, sell nothing.

3.  The number of people lingering at a stall is no indication of how much is being sold.  I had an interesting time when my stall was quiet watching the balance of lookers and buyers.  For my own stall, I got the impression that people either loved what the saw and spent a long time looking at my makes, or alternatively gave me a wide berth.  A lot of people didn't realise that my decoupage items were handmade, and I clearly need better signs to indicate this.

4.  As per the experienced stallholders, there is no rhyme nor reason as to which craft fairs are quiet and which busy.  Saturday's by general consensus was quiet, which was just as well as it gave me time to look around, ask questions of browsers, and learn in a not-too-hectic environment.

5.  I took along some crafting, as I had heard that people like to see you working.  I came to the conclusion that this is quite tricky when most of your work is "dirty": stamping, painting, glueing and decoupaging are all messy when you need to wrap up someone's purchases.  Also, there wasn't a great deal of room for me to stamp in a little section of the table.  I envied the stallholders happily knitting away (anything involving needles not being my forte).

6.  I was surprised how delighted I was when people liked my work and wanted to buy.  And I could have hugged the lady who bought three of my more expensive items, two for herself and one for a gift.  I just hope I didn't scare her by smiling too much.

7.  There was a real sense of camaraderie and the sharing of knowledge amongst stallholders.  I learned about other fairs, picked up some new skills and had some great laughs when things were quiet.

Pictures from Saturday's Craft Fair

 We were up, packed and on the road by 8am.  OH had kindly offered to come with me to keep me company and to be - as he described it - a horny handed son of toil.  Despite both a very foggy morning and roadworks on the motorway, we arrived exactly on time to set up.  It took about half an hour to get unloaded and set up the stall, then have a quick breakfast of coffee and delicious home made stollen cake before the doors opened.

This is what I had on the stall.

The chest at the back is a pirate toy box, and you can see the teacup candles to the front.  Behind is a hurricane lantern and two wooden candlesticks decorated with red gingham ribbons and berries; these sold early in the day.  The decoupage candle in the hurricane lantern shows up a bit better in the picture below; because of the reflection, you may not be able to see the pattern of pastel birds on branches.

The decoupage frames are made with small pieces of tissue and craft paper.  During the course of the day, I added a note explaining how they were made, as people didn't realise they were handmade.  I also moved the turquoise one on top, as the Rule Britannia version may have been a bit too funky.

Below are some decoupaged hearts (magnets to the left) and a gold painted mirror.

The petal candle holders have more decoupage candles, as does the cherub hurricane lantern on the right; these were popular.  At the bottom right you can see silver plated goblets turned into candles.

There are some bronze foiled goblets in the middle; I bought some battery tea lights to put in these and then forgot them.  Doh!  They would have looked lovely glowing on the stall.  Next time... The silver painted boxes at the front are filled with pot pourri. The cellophane to the right is the stall next door; we were all close neighbours!  This was great because we got to have a chat when it was quiet.

At the bottom are journals covered in silk paper and bound with ribbons.  I wondered whether they needed more decoration, or if they are better as they are, so you can see the texture of the paper.  What do you think?  This is the silk paper I brought back from Gent, and it's a dream to work with.  So glad I spent all that time in the hotel lobby unrolling the paper and bagging it up.

So that's my first fair done.  I sold more than I expected for a first time out, and learned loads - of which more in the next post.

First Craft Fair: After the Party

I did it!

My first craft fair arrived rather unexpectedly.  I had an email late on Thursday afternoon offering me a cancellation spot, and after a couple of very deep breaths, I replied and said yes.  That gave me a paltry 24 hours to ensure I had enough stock to cover a 6 foot by 2 foot table.

So I got cracking.  First up, decoupage: picture frames, magnetic hearts, and more hearts without magnets.

 

You can see the little pieces of tissue and craft paper all chopped up and ready for sticking with the large gloopy pool of PVA at the bottom.  The decoupage medium is the pot at the bottom left.  This stuff  is brilliant although not exactly cheap; it goes on easily, dries quickly and gives a great finish.  I used a mixture of craft and tissue papers, and they worked together well.

Then on to the candles.

I spent a long time at the stove watching over pots of melting wax to make teacup candles and candles housed in silver plated goblets.  One of my not so bright moments was using a black pan in which to melt the wax, as it's difficult to see the exact colour of the dyes.  Won't be doing that one again.  What looked like a pretty mulberry colour became a bit more sludgy than I intended.

I also made some hurricane lanterns filled with decoupaged candles.  I had read about a technique for embedding tissue paper in wax using a heat gun and greaseproof paper.  

See what you think of the finished makes in the next post.

On Friday morning, I headed out with a very long list to pick up all the things I thought I would need including change from the bank.  I bought 4 60 litre storage boxes which just fit in the car, so that's the amount of stock I can take to any event.  (Plus what I can sneak in the gaps and behind the seats).  I also bought a set of drawers to house all my bits and pieces so I could make some items while I was there.  I thought this would help keep me occupied if there were quiet spells, and had read that visitors like to see you work.  The three drawers swallowed lots - and even had room for lunch and some water to comfort the inner stallholder - and I think they were a good buy,

We already had arrangements to go out with some friends on Friday night.  By the time I had removed the layers of PVA glue and ink from my hands (which were a delicate shade of stagnant pond water) and scrubbed up, I was so ready for a great evening.  Thanks P and J for lots of laughs and a really relaxing time.  It was just what was needed.

Back home to pack everything in trugs with lots of bubble wrap.  And to set the alarm for 7am.

We can now return to our scheduled programming

Firstly, apologies for my lack of blog posts.

What I thought was flu got shared around the house and then turned into bronchitis for me.  And I followed that up with what can only be described as a comedy accident; I was so sound asleep that I rolled over and fell out of bed, managing to cut, bruise and generally mangle my left hand side on my bedside cupboard and a pile of books.   As I took the very fluffy duvet with me, I was also so trussed up like the caterpillar from Alice in Wonderland that it took me a few minutes of howling (with laughter rather than pain) to manage to disentangle myself from my fluffy prison, while OH stood by in shock (and minus a duvet) asking how best he could help.  Two weeks later, I'm still showing bruises and other wounds in glorious technicolour.

Lesson of the day: reading in bed can be bad for your health.

Anyway, I've got lots to talk about.  On with the posting.

WOYWW: Belgian Stash & a dose of La Grippe

It's been a little while, but it's good to be back to show my latest acquisitions as part of What's on Your Work desk Wednesday.  WOYWW is hosted by the lovely Ms Julia Dunnit over at Stamping Ground, and enables all us crafty voyeurs to snoop at other people's desks and projects.

First up, a look at my lovely Belgian stash...and yes, it is a bit different from British stash.  You can see some beautiful silk paper (which I had to unroll in the hotel lobby and fold, donating a lot of cardboard tubing to the hotel's recycling bin...), embossing and stencilling plates, card, pretty turquoise patterned tape, and some boxes of assorted bits that I just love.  In the bits boxes are reindeer, little snowballs, pretty polka dot butterflies, frogged closures, silk bags and all kinds of goodies.  All priced at three for two as well, so it would have been rude not to.  Can't wait to start playing with that lot.

I found some very Flemish papers, including this fabulous set of houses with gables aplenty.  

I also did my best for the Belgian economy by eating copious amounts of chocolate.  We had the misfortune to stumble across a place called the Chocoladehuis, where the OH and I sat by the kitchen watching the plates of chocolate goodness being put together.  There was a lot of heavy breathing at our table before we finally managed to order: sachertorte for the OH and a Chocoladehuis Koffee for me.  Don't be fooled into thinking it was just coffee; the house special has two pralines with it, and somehow I managed to acquire a further three chocolates (white, milk and a biscuit) on the same tray.  Swoon...

Very unusually for Belgium, it was sunny everyday, and we were wandering around in t shirts.  This is the beach at Knokke where we sat and watched people on pedalled conveyances of every conceivable variety (bikes for any number from two to ten, skateboards, unicorns, fish, go-karts) zooming past.

Since we arrived home, I've been suffering from a nasty bout of flu; I've been barking better than a Labrador, and my tissue consumption has been prodigious.  So looking forward to getting back to work now.

Photography and chocolate assignment

We're off.

To the city of stunning Medieval architecture, cherry beer and chocolate, otherwise known as Ghent.

We're leaving at silly o'clock and by lunchtime on Friday should be sitting not far from the comfy terrace where this picture was taken.  I'm charging up the camera ready to take lots of pics of the stunning architecture.  I've even been to Craftster and found the addresses of the local craft shops, just in case Belgian stash is different from British stash.  Despite all that, I can hardly call this a business trip...

To those of you I have not managed to visit on this week's WOYWW (see previous post for the link), my apologies, and I hope to catch up next week.

WOYWW: at the speed of a sprinting snail

So the papier mache desk tidies are not exactly proceeding apace.  Could this be the slowest ever project shown at What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday?

Not only is the painting taking an unprecedented number of coats, but it looks as though it has been done by my lovely 4 year old godson.  Ah well, onwards and upwards.

Looking a little better is the Paris box file, which is not far off being complete.  I used a spotty background paper (recycled wrapping paper), some pages out of a French dictionary, a couple of old Paris images from Karen the Graphics Fairy, some printed paper, and spotty ribbon.  Plus some slightly sepia coloured Promarker.  Left to do: consider adding a couple more pieces of text, sealing, sew an Eiffel Tower charm to the ribbon, and she's done.

For more workspace goodness, pop over to Julia's.  I did manage to get round to every workspace last week, and a fascinating tour it was.

Getting down to business

Much as I love my big ideas diary full of things to make and do, sometimes the former accountant in me needs to emerge.  And today has been one of those days.  I was feeling a bit out of control as I needed to sort out my end of month money, do my books and generally get on with business things for the new business.  So today I have:

• checked bank balances and moved money around as needed
• done September's accounts and balanced them, which makes me feel a teeny bit smug
• sorted out all my receipts
• fully costed out my new piece of kit (those three big boxes from Artisan), so I know what to charge for its output.  More on this when I am back from holiday and have done my first piece of work.
• Moved a little bit closer to just maybe selling my first piece of furniture.  Photos have been sent to the potential buyers.
• Done some research online to make better use of my camera.  I have big plans for photographic backgrounds while we are away, and I am still using only a percentage of the features of my camera.

I have also had more fun:

• catching up on back issues of Craft Stamper magazine that I picked up at the Artisan show
• practicing my calligraphy, which I am hoping to use on some projects.  My old diary is now full of quotes, poetry and lots of themes for projects.
• visiting more workspaces at Stamping Ground.  I am getting more hopeful that I will have visited all of the WOYWW (What's On Your Workspace Wednesday) participants from last week before Wednesday rolls round again.  Phew!

Hope you've had a peaceful and productive Monday.