Craft Fair Bore?

All I seem to be thinking about these days is craft fairs - having many lined up is great, but I am wondering if Christmas is getting too close for comfort all too quickly now!

I did a fair in the small town of Hedon at the weekend - it's got quite a lot of different shops on the main route through, and I expected it to be quite a busy day for me, especially with passing trade - the venue is situated on the main road so I really hoped we would see a high number of visitors. However, this was not to be, sadly. Despite the large hall and good variety of stalls, it seemed most shoppers were going elsewhere and we just chatted amongst ourselves a lot of the time - which was pleasant enough, I admit, but does your creative soul no good when you've spent a lot of time making new items!

However, I did at least make a few sales and the more my work is out there, then hopefully word will spread and more people will start looking for me at fairs (that's how I like to view it, anyway).

Here's the selection of items I sold:

I also sold a numbered birthday card from my range featured previously in this blog post: New Range of Cards - it was the number 10, which a young girl bought for her friend.

I'm busy preparing now for a full weekend at a venue which already has an established gift shop and art gallery, so hopefully there will be plenty of people visiting this time. I've just finished a commission for six tree decorations, and painted two more hardbacked notebooks, now I need to get some more tree ornaments decorated.

Sorry for sounding like a craft fair bore, but since that's mostly what I've been creating for recently, I'm afraid there's not a lot else to say!!!

"Mesmerised At Midnight" painting in Etsy Treasury

Many thanks to Chitchatdesignsllc on Etsy for featuring one of my mini paintings on her Treasury recently, entitled "In The Midnight Blue". She has skillfully selected 16 items created with the colour midnight blue and they look really striking as a group (even if my painting wasn't there!).

You can view the Treasury on Etsy and click on each item individually by visiting it here.

Christmas sales picking up...

I sold a couple of trinket boxes amongst other small itmes yesterday at the Christmas Event with a twist, held in a local villlage hall.

Organised by my talented friend Nichola from Nichola Foster Designs - whose delicately crafted jewellery can by seen on her facebook page or in her Folksy shop online, there were so many visitors that for the first couple of hours I don't really remember all the faces! I was lucky enough to receive lots of lovely comments as well as making a fair few sales, so all in all a really good day.

I was actually rather sad to see these two trinket boxes go - the weird thing is, they are my most recent ones, so I'd only "lived" with them for a short time before they were sold.

"Twinkle, Twinkle" trinket box.

The lady who bought this made a bee-line for it straight away. I smiled when she picked it up, showed it to her husband and said "Isn't this gorgeous?"  I've not yet heard a man who would honestly reply with a "ooh, yes, dear, that's gorgeous". He did the expected nod and wry grin which, as I'm sure you've all seen before, means "if you like it, buy it, it makes no difference what I think to it".  I just knew she was going to buy it, and I'm so happy that she did, as she obviously liked it so much.

The other trinket box sold yesterday was "Heather". The lady was having trouble deciding between that and "Carousel", which has similar colours - in the end she went for Heather, but she did say she may be back for more!

I now have to make some more trinket boxes for the next fair - and a few more notebooks, too.

Colours to Cheer

Without wishing to sound like a moaning old woman, I've been feeling a bit crap lately. I try to stay positive as much as possible and generally do achieve this, but this lead up to winter and the prospect of cold, dark days and even colder, darker nights for months on end really do depress me. On top of that, I've been feeling pretty fed up of the cold I developed last week, which is making me ache and has given me a sore throat which in turn prevented me from going out to sing last night as usual.  Not really something to complain about, I know, but I thought I'd cheer myself up a bit in a creative way and spread some of that cheer to others by curating a Treasury on Etsy. Entitled "Seasonal "Cheer", I included items that I liked the colour of and that appealed to me for various reasons. I simply had to have a cat in there, for instance, and some knitted/crocheted items - that is something that I don't think I will ever be able to do with any success so I always admire those that can!

You can view the Treasury in detail by clicking on the link to it here.

Please feel free to click on the individual items in the Treasury and check out the rest of each member's shop - also, you can share this treasury on your web-site if you wish, or on your FB page, twitter etc - just use the link I've provided above!

Sales at the Craft Fair

The first Christmas Craft Fair of the season, which I took part in yesterday, wasn't as hugely successful for me as I'd hoped in terms of sales. However, I was pleased that I'd taken the time to create these new Christmas Tree decorations, since half of them sold on the day, and I've got a commission for six more to do!