Monday 16 December 2013

Craft Fair and Some New Pieces

I did my first craft fair on Saturday. It was only a small one, the nice people at the LGBT Centre in Manchester asked me if I'd like to take a few things to sell between the Carol Service and Christmas Dinner at their Festive Funday. For the past couple of weeks I've done a lot of blanket stitching, a lot of printing and a lot of cutting out of tags and business cards. And who'd have thought writing and attaching tags could take a whole day?!
I didn't think to ask what size the table would be and not knowing which items might be popular, I decided to take pretty much everything I've ever made! Ann from The Felting and Fiber Studio talked about getting ready for a show a few weeks ago, well I don't drive, so I have to walk or get public transport everywhere, so over the last couple of years I've relied on my 'granny trolley' to cart things about:


Using a shoe box, old toaster box and a couple of smaller cradboard boxes, I managed to fit in: 7 x A5 Diaries/notebooks;  8 x A6 notebooks; 3 x iPad/gadget cases; 10 x camera cases; 6 x glasses cases; 4 x credit card cases/pouches; 9 x coin pouches;  7 x coin purses/wallets; 2 x mirror cases; 2 x ring pouches; 4 x placemats/coasters; 23 bookmarks; 4 x felt pieces; 2 x shoulder bags and a woolly vessel. I think I took too many things! This is one of the diary covers I finished in time for the fair:


This is an iPad case. I was going to use the felt for a diary cover, but it didn't shrink as much as I expected, so I searched online for the dimensions of the most popular tablets and made this. It has rainbow felt on the front and back and also a piece of neoprene stitched to the back:


This is another piece of felt I made last week. I made two the same, and sold one at the fair:


It was a great experience doing the fair and I met so many nice people and got lots of compliments. Although it was only on for about an hour I managed to sell more things than I have in the last 9 months on etsy :) I'm looking forward to my next one.

8 comments:

  1. Really pleased it all went well - your colourful items look so great no wonder you had so many sales and complements!
    Love your transportation device - must be Tardis-like to fit all your goodies in!
    I completely understand the day-long task of tagging...
    Hope your next fair is just as good - if not better!
    Ali x

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  2. Thanks, Ali :)
    I think I just got lucky with boxes that fit in so well and luckily felt presses down, but I was surprised how much it fit in there!

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  3. Really glad you had success at the fair zed and hope the next one is just as good, so much fun xoxo

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  4. I love the 'rainbow' pieces - they make good covers!

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    1. Thanks, Lyn :)
      I loved all the rainbow pieces I made.

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  5. Piękne prace, dawno nie zaglądałam.
    Pozdrawiam.

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