Craft Fairs - Pain Or Pleasure?

Welcome to Handmade Monday 13 organised by Wendy of 1stuniquegifts which welcomes crafters, each week, to share their week of crafting with fellow readers.
I missed last week as was busy preparing new stock for the long awaited and most anticipated Pennine Fairs first event of the year at Sywell Aerodrome, Hangar One in Northampton.
Over 60 exhibitors travelled this weekend to this well acclaimed fair with high expectations of a successful and profitable weekend.
Run by "The Anns" these fairs promote handmade crafts and all stalls are personally vetted to maintain a high quality fair.
I arrived rather late on Sunday morning and was pleasently suprised to be next to my lovely friend CJ from Curious Cat. I set up quickly and had a quick look around the fair.

As always the stalls were of a high standard and there was a lovely variation and a few faces i hadnt seen before as well as many that i had.

My favourite stall of the day was run by Irene Campsill with her gorgeous "handbags for individualists". These photos dont really do the bags justice but believe me they are beautifully made and very individual.

Irene spent a lot of time sitting sewing and i spent a lot of time observing, fascinated by her work and such attention to detail. You can find her designs on her website www.1-off-handbags.co.uk

As always the fair was well attended and had a high footfall.

I found myself, quite often, people watching.

I love to sit and watch as exhibitors explain their crafts in detail and the visitors keenly listen and take in everything being said.

Crafters at work are amazing to watch.

Even in quiet moments you will see stall holders chat, laugh,share experiences and knowledge and quite often good friendships are formed. And we all share with each other joy when our goods are purchased and dismay when the day is not so good.

But there is a downside to this crafting world. As i said you have high hopes that this fair will be your success story. You are passionate about what you do, it excites you and suddenly you have a bad day, few sales, and you start to question the worthwhileness of this journey that you are on.

I have witnessed today one stall holder at such a low point after not reaching their weekend goal that they were actually reduced to tears at the sheer frustration of spending hours creating something new and original
and not reaping the rewards that they truely deserve.

So does the GOOD outweigh the BAD?

And just for your amusement let me share with you 3 ignorant public remarks from this weekend, i'm sure you have heard plenty more in your time!

"Would you give me a discount on your bag as the straps are too long and i will be adjusting them myself?"

"I know this is cheeky but if i bought 5 pen cases would you give me a discount?" "I cant really as they are only £3"" Ok i thought i would ask, i wanted to sell them in my shop"

"These tooth fairy pillows are gorgeous, bit expensive though" "You wouldnt think £8 expensive if you had sat for 3 hours making them!"

Thanks for stopping by today, hope you enjoyed the read. For more interesting craft tales pop by Wendys blog and read what other crafters have been up to this week.

And incidently the lady bought the tooth fairy pillow!!!!!!

Until Next Time

xxx

Handmade Monday Week 4

This week i have been to heaven!

Heaven to me comes in the form of my favourite fabric shop The Bramble Patch in Weedon.

If you ever want any of the fabric you see on my blog The Bramble Patch has an online shop containing all the material they sell.

So i had a £20 loyalty voucher to spend this week so i really treated myself to this lovely bundle of fabric.

Only thing is my head is now swarming with ideas of projects to do and i am now forcing myself to do one job at a time and complete all half finished projects before starting something new. So i put together the teddies from last week, plus i made a couple more so i have a collection now! I love them and they will be listed in my folksy shop over the next couple of days.

Next project i finished were the kids pin cushions that have sat on my work bench for a couple of weeks. My idea is to make a childs sewing bag and include a sewing kit, pincushion, needle case and possibly a small button bag. Watch this space for the finished article!

All sewing completed and now to try and get marketing again.
My new folksy shop CottonsAndDreams is looking a little sparce so i am attempting to add items on intermitant days this week as this keeps me near the front page with the hope that sales start coming in.

Today i have listed my old faithfuls the tooth fairy cushions. Big sellers at my fairs and such a brilliant idea. Wish i'd have had one when the boys were small instead of rummaging around under the pillow looking for that all illusive tooth!!!!

And that's all folks!!

Handmade Monday is organised by Wendy at 1stUniqueGifts ,and organised very well i might add!!

Please make time to pop along to her blog and check out all the other crafters joining in with this weekly item.

Until Next Time.

xxx

New Tooth Fairy Pillow Design

Day off today in the snow, tho thankfully there is not much left now the sun has shone all day. Haven't really done much, tho looking at the devastation of the house where i've concentrated on craft and nothing else you would think i had been busy all day.
But i have finally created a new tooth fairy pillow that has been in my head for ages but never put into practice. Hopefully it's a little more boyish than all the others but time will tell on that one. Still needs stuffing but will put on at the next craft fair and see whether it sells.

Tooth Fairy Pillows

Well i've made my angels (tho still need hair)

I've cut out all the letters!

Material cut, ironed and ready to sew!


Now all i need to do is to put it all together!!
xxx