I've Managed It Again...

... somehow almost six months have past me by and my last blog post seems to have been July! First off let me wish you all Happy New Year and I hope you enjoyed yourselves over the festive season as much as I did!

If you are interested here is a quick summary of the more exciting things I got up to in the last half of 2011 (other than reading, I did an awful lot of that!). 

In August I managed to nab myself a table at the Boutique Market in Portsmouth's Guildhall. It was a good experience and I got to meet other crafters from the local community, which was really nice. I was there for about 4 hours and my stuff seemed to get quite a lot of interest which was really encouraging and by the end I'd made £40 (which was even more encouraging!). The day itself was a bit of a logistical nightmare as I was supposed to be working! Luckily 'the management' were kind enough to let me skip work (as I was owed some lieu time anyway) for a few hours. So I ended up starting work at 9am leaving the shop at 10 o'clock to attend the market, only to return again at 3pm and carry on working til 5.30!

My very first table at my very first craft fair!

My table presentation will need some work though!!

In September my boyfriend's parents very kindly took us on a little holiday to Bruges. It's a really lovely city and I had such a relaxing time! I pretty much spent most of my time following everyone else and enjoying the beautiful architecture, it was so nice not to be in charge of the holiday and just go with the flow. The people were so friendly, the food (especially the hot chocolate) was delicious and the best thing of all, people thought I was under 26 years old - we were told you can get discounted tickets for galleries and museums when you are under this age, unfortunately I'm about five years too late to receive that, but it's still nice to be asked!!

Unsrprisingly I've hardly done any crafting (apart from a couple of custom orders) in the last few months! October, November and December were pretty uneventful and merged into one long month as the bookshop got into Christmas mode. Although I can tell you that I managed to sell about 90% of the stock I had on display in Waterstones and I completely sold out of my russian doll totes about a week before the big day! I even had people asking when they would be in stock again (that did made me feel quite proud!) 


Oh, one thing I can show you is something I made for my friend to give to her fiance (the guy I made the felty batman for). As they loved the other one so much she commissioned me to another superhero. He's not a character I'd ever heard of so I had to do some research, and I found he was a bit tricky to make but I got there in the end!

His name is Etrigan The Demon, who looks a bit like this....

...and here is my interpretation in the medium of felt! 

Apparently when my friend saw his gift he was speechless (which is quite a thing to achieve) and I received a lovely text message something along the lines of BEST. SOFT. TOY. EVER! So all the time and effort was all worth it.

Anyway I think that's enough for now, I'll try and blog again soon I'm aiming for one a week but whether or not that will happen is another thing.

Happy crafting everyone!! :)

Oh well..

Oh well no sales at the craft fair (boooo!) but I'm not too upset due to the bags I sold at work last week and I sold another one today! (wooo!) Also I let one of my colleagues take the rest of the bags home for her daughter and her friends to peruse (as she really loved the bags her mum bought and even nabbed one for herself!) ... so that could mean a few more sales! In the mean time I should really get going on the making.... especially trying new things not just sticking to the safe, straight forward totes that I could probably make in my sleep! So that means taking this crafting malarky a bit more seriously in the new year. Starting by getting my personal graphic designer/boyfriend to make me some lovely business cards so I can appear to be a bit more professional than scribbling my etsy address on random scraps of paper for people. I'm also thinking of maybe getting some leaflets printed up as my lovely colleague suggested that she could put them in with the catalogues she delivers which would be awesome!

I got some really nice feedback from FluffysStuff (the lovely lady who was my first folksy sale) and was just thinking what a shame it was that some people who have bought stuff from me haven't left feedback! I know that I shouldn't worry about it or take it personally but I guess it's just nice to know what people think and I admit I'm paranoid if I don't get any feedback from someone but they have left it for other people.... it kinda says to me that the person didn't like their purchase but are just too nice to say!!!!! Oh well....

Why didn't I think of it earlier....

As Alix is kindly taking my bags to this craft fair on Saturday I took my them into work to pass onto her other half as he is going with her (mostly for moral support as it is her first craft fair). I had been toying for a while with the idea of putting up a poster at work advertising my wares and I just decided that I should just ask around to see if any of my colleagues were interested in buying and amazingly they were!! In the space of a couple of hours I had sold 5 bags to 4 people and made a grand total of £28!! (not all that much I know but that is definitely my best sales day  ever!) I hoping to flog some more tomorrow but I guess I shouldn't wish to unload all of them as there won't be any for Alix to take to London!

Book group choices for December and January are - 'Thirteen' by Sebastian Beaumont and the 'Lucifer Box Omnibus - The Versuvius Club/Devil in Amber' by Mark Gatiss.

Running out of time....

Well the lovely Alix of Big Blue Bed is off to the WeMake London craft fair on Saturday and she has very kindly offered to take some of my bags to sell for me. It has come round sooo quickly, I intended to make lots of bags but (as usual) I kept putting it off and only ended making 2 new ones in the past few weeks! It was my day off and I only manage to make one today (see photo below)

I'll try to motivate myself to make another one tonight when I get back from my book group and maybe attempt a couple more tomorrow after work. I've unlisted pretty much all the bags from my etsy shop so I'll take them and hope to make at least another 3 bags but really I shouldn't make too many as I don't want to overload poor Alix on her journey to London! 

Currently reading - 'Oscar Wilde and the Candlelight Murders' by Gyles Brandreth.