Christmas Craft Fair

I've been so busy getting ready for the one and only craft fair I'm doing this Christmas. I didn't realise it was going to be so much effort! However, it's done and dusted now and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was at the local school and it's got a reputation as being a really good fair to get some decent handmade stuff at reasonable prices. There was so much nice stuff there that I had to resolutely stay behind my stall for most of it or I would have spent a fortune! Anyway - this is what the stall looked like on day 2 when a lot of my stuff had gone:














Here's a close-up of my brooches, a couple of pouches and you can just catch a glimpse of some hand made buttons I made at ceramics class. I might make some more if the tutor will let me use white clay. The teracotta is fiddly to get nice colours on.

Someone asked me if there was one particular thing which sold the best. I have to say that it was pretty even across the range of stuff I had with me. I sold a couple of shibori felted scarves, the felted soaps flew off the stall - I could have sold twice the amount - and the brooches and cards were popular as well. My husband and my eight year old turned up for a while and I took the opportunity to look at some rag rug brooches at a stall across from me. I couldn't decide which one I liked so I called my husband over. When I went back to my stall my eight year old was handing a woman some change - he'd only sold a hat for me! He's very chuffed and has decided that he's going to be my manager. I'll make it, he'll sell it. Seems like a good idea to me.

Anyway, I'm hoping to have a bit of time in the next couple of weeks to catch up on other people's blogs and find out how everyone is doing. Right now I haven't got time to scratch my backside. I have someone interested in stocking my brooches and I have Christmas orders for felted soaps and kits coming in. It's all gravy as they say but it means I've somewhat neglected my blogging duties and not had time to read what other people are doing. I mean to rectify that as soon as possible and will turn up at your blogs with mulled wine and mince pies very shortly!

How to make felted soap

It's been a year since I started this blog so as a thank you to my loyal readers ;) I''m making the instructions from my felted soap kits kits available as a pdf.

HERE

I know the design isn't all that but it's taken straight from the leaflets that I put in with the kits. I hope they're clear enough and of course if anyone wants to buy the kits themselves they're HERE

Happy anniversary darling - rofl!

Felted soap kits

Just a quickie. I've managed to get the soap kits together and I intend to put them up on the site today. Just waiting to clarify postage and go into town to get the lamination puches for the instructions sheets and then we're cooking with gas. This is a quick pic to show you what they'll look like:





















The instruction sheets will have photos as well as written instructions and I'll laminate them so they can be reused. In the kits there's a bar of high quality pre-certified glycerin soap (various fragrances) enough wool to more than cover the soap, a pop-sock and the laminated instruction sheets. The soaps are labelled with ingredients and the packaging (muslin tied with raffia can be re-used if you want to give the finished soap as a gift. I'll also include a small info sheet on how to use them etc which can also be given to the recipient of the soap :)

Any thoughts?

I intend to retail them at £5 +p&p as they have so many bits and pieces which have totalled up.

Anyway - that's your sneak preview my bloggy faithful friends :)

Have you seen this tea cosy?

It seems to have taken on a celebrity life of its own - lol.
It's in this months Craftsman magazine and also in this months Simply Knitting. As I said in the last post it's under my real name in Craftsman and it has no name attached to it at all in Simply Knitting so as a piece of advertising it's pretty useless. However, as a warm fuzzy glow of seeing my work in print it's priceless.