Christmas

Me, Hannah and Sally at Roz's surprise birthday party!

I've not written a blog post for a couple of weeks, the main reason being how busy we all are in the run up to Christmas. Having recently attended a surprise birthday party in fancy dress - which was a first for me, actually, followed by my own birthday which on included watching one of my step-grand-daughters in a dance show and then singing in our Musical Society's Christmas Concert, this week is no less busy! After spending a couple of hours on Sunday morning tidying up, cleaning and putting the chairs out at the theatre between us, Keith and I were running the final rehearsal last night for the Junior Section's performance at our annual "Oscars Night" on Wednesday. Straight after that we rehearsed (rather badly, I have to say) for the adult section's next play. Tonight, I am singing again in our second Christmas Concert with Hull Musical Society, tomorrow night is the aforementioned Oscars Night, Thursday will be spent building the set ready for the January play at BADS, Friday is allocated last minute shopping and wrapping presents - although I've yet to wrap the gifts for the children at drama for tomorrow night, having bought them on Sunday.

I wrote our Christmas cards on Sunday evening/Monday morning - posted yesterday. This year I've only made a few, having had less chance to do any more, so the rest of them, which I bought, are charity based. I may even stop sending them next year - lots of people donate to charity instead or simply do not send them, but I must admit I still like to receive a card through the letterbox!

Last night, Keith took the photo we will be using in the poster for our next play - he is currently manipulating it ready for when I design the poster a bit later on.We are performing "Fringe Benefits" which is a comedy by Peter Yeldham and Donald Churchill. It is the very first play I performed in at BADS nearly 23 years ago - this time round I am playing one of the older wives instead of the scantily clad young female I played back then!. Where did those 23 years go???

On Saturday 22nd I will be at my last craft fair of the year- at the UpMarket in Prospect Centre, Hull. I have not yet made any new stock so my table may be spread out a fair bit! Sunday 23rd we will be looking after my 3 year old niece, and plan to take her to see the Christmas Tree display in our village church in Preston. It's always an excellent display and I'm sure she will really appreciate it this year as she is really, really excited about Christmas!

Christmas Eve may be a relaxing day, although I'm sure I will still have some presents to wrap and we will probably spend some time planning our festive quizzes for when the family are here over Christmas!

I will leave you with the reading I have prepared for the concert tonight, considering it's apt:

The first thing that came to my mind when I was asked for Christmas memories from my childhood was an overwhelming sense of excitement. I think I felt it more than my brothers and sister because my birthday is only ten days before the big event itself.

Specific memories of mine relate to the pleasure of giving gifts and the disappointment of one year in particular – the year I desperately wanted a horse for Christmas. Watching Black Beauty on the television probably influenced my desire, and I couldn’t understand why I didn’t get one. I thought it would be easy to keep a horse in our little back garden (we lived in a terraced house) and had vivid visions of me trotting along down the ten-foot and round the block on my personal steed!  I remember Mum trying her best to explain how impractical (and costly) the idea was, but it took me a while to appreciate that fact.

I particularly loved giving gifts to family members, especially ones I’d made myself. I started a tradition of making sweets to give as gifts, and look back with such happy memories of spending time in the kitchen with my Mum to make them. I would create batches of peppermint creams and coconut ice. I never liked coconut ice, but loved making it – particularly the part where I added the food colouring. Mum encouraged us to think of presents for others that we believed they would appreciate, and for some reason I will never forget being proud of a pair of red, spiral shaped candles that I spent 19pence on for an aunty!

Food and family were a big part of my childhood Christmas – combining the two for Christmas dinner when our Grand-dad, Grandma, Nanna, Great Uncle Fred & Aunt Olive all joined us. I honestly don’t know how we all squeezed round the table in those days, or how my Mum managed to cater for everyone, but she did so without fail and our Christmas days were happy times – until the arrival of the sprouts. I’ve always disliked them; despite trying them in different ways (disguised in a cheese sauce, for example) and my Christmas dinners will probably always be sprout free!

I have two brothers and a sister, so we used to share the opening of the advent calendar – although I always opened it on my birthday, whether it was my turn or not! On Christmas morning, it was usually a race between me and my younger brother, Daniel, to get downstairs first to see if “he’d been”! We continued this up to the time we were adults, and that excitement is still there when I wake up on Christmas morning.

I can clearly remember one or two of my favourite presents from my childhood – in fact I’ve still got one of them now. “Connect 4” was my main present in 1974 and I have played it again recently with my 3 year old niece, Charlotte. This game of strategy and planning is somewhat simplified with her, however – I think her favourite part is letting the counters out at the bottom when the game is finished (or more often than not, whenever she feels like it).  I also remember getting a “Potter’s Wheel” one year, which I was so pleased with, but I think I expected to be creating masterpieces in my first attempt, so was quite disappointed with my misshapen mound of mud! My other memorable gift was a creative game called “Construct o Straws”, which I’m pleased to see you can still get today. This game involved connecting many flexible plastic straws together to make as many different shapes and constructions as you could. As with most of our childhood games, we usually shared them, and I think we all got a lot of pleasure from that game. 

 

We used to put our Christmas tree up and decorate the house with streamers and/or tinsel as close to my birthday as possible – that’s a tradition I’ve maintained to this day. The whole family were involved, I loved arranging the little felt elves on the Christmas tree. These elves were three dimensional, with porcelain faces (I think) and long, spindly legs that could be tucked under their arms at the front.

Christmas seemed to go on forever when we were children, and there would nearly always be some sort of party on New Year’s Eve at our house or a neighbour’s house. If it was held at our house, we got to stay up really late and Daniel and I soon worked out that if we were quiet enough and stayed under the dining table, we could stay up even later – out of sight, out of mind, I think!  I always remember loving it when my Nanna started to play the piano at these parties – most of the songs I didn’t know at all, but the adults did, and used to sing along with her. Over the years I got to know the songs – a lot of war-time classics such as “We’ll meet again”  “The White Cliffs of Dover” and  “White Christmas”. Although I didn’t really like them at the time, when I hear them now, I feel quite emotional.

Christmas in the 1970s wasn’t complete without watching the TV “Specials” as a family. We loved Morecambe & Wise, The Two Ronnies, Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em and The Generation Game. All firm favourites in our house, and in those days, I actually liked watching Sir Bruce Forsyth on the TV, so much so that I longed to go on “The Generation Game” with my Dad, but it never happened.

If I had to summarise my childhood Christmas memories in one word, it would be “magical”. That’s what Christmas should be for children and I’m glad to say that mine always were.

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!!!

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.

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!

Latest Craft Creation

I've just uploaded some photographs of my latest matching wooden trinket box and mini canvas painting. They are sold separately, but I'm always willing to give a discount if anyone would like to buy the set. Please contact me for prices. More to be created soon!

Both the easel and the mini canvas are painted with acrylic paints. The trinket box has been painted on the outside and inside with acrylic paints, and I've created a funky foam base and lining for the trinket box in complementary colours. I've named these PC Plum, and will be uploading more shots of them to my FB page and my Etsy Shop too. If these don't sell before-hand, I will be taking them along to the Christmas Craft Fair in Bilton on 5th November so you can check them out there if you are in the area!

Christmas Commission, anyone?

I've just been sorting through my photo files on the PC, in an attempt to unearth some images that I was going to use for another blog post - and I discovered a couple of images that I took of a commission last year for a Christmas present. I'd taken a hurried photograph before it was delivered then completely forgot about it!

However, if you are thinking of buying a unique gift as a stocking filler or as a gift for your child's teacher, perhaps, then I'm sure one of these magnetic notepads for the fridge wouldn't go amiss. This particular one was created on the basis of someone wanting a floral design to give to a friend. I called it "Anniversary Flowers" because it is very similar to my large canvas painting of the same name.  Painted in acrylic with two coats of satin varnish, I only hope the recipient was happy as I never did ask!

I will be selling these and other smaller items at the forthcoming craft fairs I plan to take part in during the run-up to Christmas in the East Yorkshire area. If you would like to see before you buy, please follow me on facebook (Arty Aitch) or check out my website for details of these within the next few weeks.

New range of greetings cards...

Here is a preview of my newly created batch of cards aimed at children aged 1 to 9. I took inspiration from my notebook designs when my sister asked me a while ago if I did birthday cards with numbers on. I've created a few with numbers on them previously, but these take advantage of all the space possible on the front of the card, and I am pleased with the overall design.

They take about 20 minutes to do each one, as I sketch the outline of the number first in pencil, rubbing out any marks that I don't want seen, if possible. You will still see some of the pencil marks in the finished card, but in my view, that adds to the originality and unique aspect of hand-made cards. I then decide which two colours I'm going to use for the outline, as they need to be painted on very precisely in alternating dots of colour. Finally, making sure I don't smudge the outline (as I very nearly have done on occasions) I fill the centre of the number in using 3 or 4 colours - usually the 2 already used in the outline and one more. I love the textural nature of these and I'm sure they will appeal to children because of that, too. I plan on creating lots of these for the next Craft Fair I attend, which will be at the beginning of November. I am also planning on increasing the range to include older ages (but probably by using the card in a landscape position instead) and then possibly names or perhaps titles such as "Mum", "Dad" etc. I have deliberately avoided using a stencil or template to create the numbers, as I rather like the fact that they are not perfect in shape - it adds that bit more character and individuality to each card. These will only be for sale at craft fairs at the moment, but I will quite happily take orders for specific cards by post if you wish!

Craft Fair Cancelled

Well, after much deliberation and discussion with the other participants, I've decided it's sensible to cancel the Craft fair I'd organised for this coming weekend. The weather is causing so much disruption that it would be hard enough just ensuring we all got there safely - never mind any potential customers!

I am fairly gutted about this, as I was really excited at the prospect of meeting all the other artisans, and I'd planned competitions and demonstrations of my work for the days, too. Plus I was confident that a lot of my smaller decorated items would have done well.

However, as I am by nature an optimist, there is at least some good to come out of it. Most of the artisans involved are happy to post-pone rather than cancel, even though it will now be held in the Spring of next year. This means I get more time to publicise, plan more competitions and hopefully encourage more of the artists to hold demonstrations of their work.

We would actually struggle to get our car into the village where we live at the moment - the snow is thickly laid on our street (we live in a cul de sac, so hardly any traffic at all comes down here apart from the residents' own cars) and up to the main street in the village even. Several cars have just been skidding along the street this morning and getting stuck. It's at times like this that I do think it would be good to own a 4wheel drive vehicle!

The snow looks lovely in the fields behind our back garden, but I am actually getting a bit fed up of it now!

Thanks to SAA!

I received a lovely surprise in the post this morning from the SAA (Society for All Artists). Earlier this week, having failed to get a response locally from craft suppliers, I emailed the SAA with a request for a couple of art related items as a donation. I didn't receive a reply, so assumed that they too had decided not to contribute. How wrong I was!

In the parcel was a black long brush case (seen on their web-site here) and a Derwent black A5 sized sketching journal. These will be used as prizes for a competition at the Christmas Craft Fair I'm running at the theatre in Bilton on 4th & 5th December. The competition is for children to design a Christmas card and already it has generated interest from the members of our Junior section at the theatre. I have also invited the children from the local primary school in Bilton to come along - they run an art club at the school so I'm sure there will be plenty of children interested in joining in.

I also received a lovely box full of items yesterday from fellow Rogue Gene Collective artist, Andrea Farmer. Her hand-made brooches, hair accessories, bib necklaces and some small paintings on canvas board are all coming with me to the craft fair. I'm sure a lot of these will sell - particularly to the teenage girls who I know will be attending. Andrea usually sells these crafts on her Etsy store here.

Christmas Craft Fair

The organisation is in its final stages now for the Christmas Craft Fair I am holding at the theatre in Bilton, Hull. The theatre itself has been home to the Bilton Amateur Dramatic Society for the past 60 plus years, 20 of which I have been involved with!

The craft fair started out as an idea to bring together all the local crafters on Etsy, Hull. I have since had to widen the net a tad to include a few more local artisans, but I'm sure it will create a varied fair with affordable yet quality gifts for all.

Excluding myself, there will be a photographer specialising in floral subject matter. Her name is Katie Railton and you can see more of her work on Etsy at http://www.etsy.com/shop/katierailtonphoto or on her personal web-site here. As well as selling prints of her photographic images, Katie also supplies personalised or blank greetings cards. She exhibits regularly in the Yorkshire region and also has a blog page on her website. You can follow Katie on Twitter , too.

Jonathan Le Vine is a jewellery maker  who has a shop on Etsy, where he sells "Unique hand crafted jewellery.... Gifts for ALL occasions.... I sell hand crafted items worldwide from my Yorkshire workshop in the UK.... including.... Pendants, Cufflinks, Earrings, Brooches, Tie pins etc. Tactile Thuya Wood gift boxes & geology specimens." You can visit his shop by clicking here. I am particularly looking forward to seeing some of his ear-rings and cufflinks - I feel a Christmas gift for my Dad emerging there (that's the cufflinks, not the ear-rings). Jonathan also sells a lot of his work on ebay - I love the Thuya wood box he has for sale on there.

I will be writing more in the weeks to follow, promoting the fair and the people taking part as I do so. Please make a note in your diary for reference and if you know anyone else who may be interested in attending, pass the details on.