Crafty

Today was the day of the craft fair. In true Nic style I had a massive list of things to do to be ready for it and wonderful people that they are Davies, Scarlett and Ady managed to be supportive and helpful :).

Davies and Scarlett were largely self-entertaining, with Davies doing a fine line in distracting and amusing Tarly for me when she was being fed up with lack of attention from me. They did some drawing, some playing and some DSing. Actually I think the quiet day at home did them both good really, Davies particularly has been in need of some downtime so he got that today with plenty of dossing around.

I had to finish the Tasha doll I’d made including giving her a face, a tattoo and some clothes which all took ages. I was fairly happy with the result including the facial piercing made using a paperclip I’d nicked from work yesterday 😆

I dressed the Scarlett doll in a pair of pyjamas made from some of Scarlett’s own old pyjamas. She wants a whole wardrobe made for it eventually but this was a good start:

I sort of know where I want to go with the knitted dolls but am not there yet. I may or may not have another go with them…

I also spent some time making daisies to go on the green rag rug I made yesterday. I was pleased with this one (although it’s very small as I was making a sample rather than a full size rug)

I also made some cards from gold card with my email address and phone number on to give out and Ady printed me off a load of photos of previous rag rugs I’ve made. I also took along a handful of needle felted bits including a couple of Very Hungry Caterpillars, a bee and some flowers.

Chopping up and stitching materlal sort of dominated my day really with occassional cups of tea, lunch for the kids, cuddles when we all felt neglected from each others company and brief forays outside to check the chickens and hang washing out.

Then Ady got home and I collected Tasha and we went into town. We got a parking space right outside the venue where the Craft Fair was being held, nipped into town to get some change as we’d realised if anyone bought anything neither of us had any money to give them change and then went into the deli where it was being held to get set up.

It’s a really nice deli, selling gorgeous food and loads of home made stuff like chutney and jams. It’s pretty small though and the 10 stalls selling stuff filled it really. Aside from us there was a woman selling pretty stitched things like pomanders and bunting, several artists, someone selling cards, another selling bags and scarves, one selling jewellry and another with poetry books about Sussex. We were tagged ‘the funky stall’ by someone and did seem to get our share of people stopping to peruse and chat to us.

Tasha sells clothes and accessories all made from recycled material with her trademark items being funky skirts made from kids duvet covers, fairy skirts and wrist warmers. so my recycled rag rugs sit well alongside her stuff and I think in the future we’d like to make some collaborative stuff too.

We both had a sale – I sold one of the caterpillars and Tasha sold some wristwarmers which meant between us we recouped the cost of the table twice over which was good :). Mostly though we had a really nice couple of hours without the children, laughing and chatting about people around us. I’d definitely do another one, we’d plan our layout display better and ensure we had more space and I’d not bother with the dolls but make more of the needlefelted bits as they got a fair bit of interest. I have plans for other rugs and hats with needlefelted bits on them aswell as bags. I know I don’t want to make a living from selling crafty stuff and I don’t want to lose my overall enjoyment at being creative and making stuff for the enjoyment of making it but I do think tonight showed us there is a market for the sort of things we’ve been making which is good :).

We packed up, I droped Tasha home and came home. Ady had been loading my car up with tent and tranglings ready to head off camping tomorrow afternoon. I helped him dig through the understairs cupboard to find the camping crockery and cutlery and aside from digging out warm pjs for everyone and chucking all the clothes into a bag we’re ready too go.