Card Stall Craft and other News

Well it's been quite a week. Feels much longer though, more like a whole season. There is a dramatic change in temperature as I write this. Today it is more than chilly and my knitted blanket is keeping my legs warm. Last weekend I worked sleeveless, with open windows, preparing for and working at my craft stall for the second Arts & Crafts Market at Hackney City Farm. The glorious weather also contrasted the sun and rain during the previous market. This time there were even some stalls outdoors though I and most of the other stalls were indoors.

One element of my preparation involved the creation of some projects to occupy my hands during inevitable quiet periods. I printed a sheet of my potted plant drawing to cut out. It needs very careful cutting so doing this while sitting watching early visitors pass through was very soothing.

I also brought some other projects...

On my stall I created a small work area with my craft mat, scissors, sticky pads, double sided tape, regular tape and a small bottle of wet glue. Beside these I placed a small pile of unfinished cards each in their own cellophane envelope with all the elements needed to complete them. I call them 'kits'.

Other stall holders were creating new jewellery, red and white silk roses and painting little ornaments while greeting visitors and responding to questions and admiration of their work from fellow crafters as well as visitors.

Facebook fans will have already seen my status about my 'kits' as I was so pleased with the way it worked out. I'll definitely do it again.

I was also inspired to try to think of something else I could create by Ms Cat who organises the craft fair. She likes us to make good sales and keeps a check on how we are doing through the day. Sales were quite slow for me but my neighboour had a really good day. Not surprising as his stall had a wide variety of items and attracted a lot of attention from all visitors. It was very quirky and much were made from recycled materials.

As the market drew to a close Ms Cat asked me if I made any other things to sell besides cards but at first I could not think of anything I could do. My cross stitch cards and knitting projects are not really for sale as they take so much time to create and I generally give them away to family and friends. She did get me thinking though...

The next Arts & Crafts Market will be on the first Sunday in December which as the one before Christmas, it's easy to see why many stall holders booked their stalls before leaving. I was not one of them as for the next month or so I must focus on my health as I face a period of medical attention.

I've got my knitting project to work on and I am also doing a little cross stitch work for Christmas cards. However after much thought on what I could make to sell on any future craft stalls I have an idea of a product that will make use of my paper scrap stash and even pages from old magazines. You can see I was inspired to recycle by my stall neighbour. I'll tell you more about that in a future blog post. At the moment I am practising the skills needed for my idea, which is not as easy as it first appeared.

There will be a short break in blog posts, even shorter on my Facebook page and Twitter for a while but you can be sure I'll be crafting when I can.

Before I finish this post though, just in case you didn't see my posts on Twitter, Facebook and so on, the winner of the My Memories Digital Scrapbooking Software is Julie C who said...

"I just watched the video I know its not my usual craft but this looks quite fun to try. I like the idea of a calendar since just seeing yours which looks really good. I have just checked out the packs at the mymemories.com and I like the All Summer long pack."

A very deserving winner as Julie regularly comments on my blog posts and bigs me up on her own blog including writing about the My Memories giveaway. She's already enjoying her prize and is very pleased to try something very different from her 'usual craft'. She makes beautiful knitted pincushions among other things and also loves to sew. In fact it is Julie's work that inspired me to get my knitting needles out after not doing so for many years. Check out her blog Julie's Knit and Sew Corner to follow her craft.

Speaking of knitting, the deadline for the Big Knit 2011 is this Friday the 14th so I'd better get my mini hats in the post...

To keep in touch with what I'm doing during the time before the next blog post you can follow me on Twitter and my Facebook page, send me a message, make a comment, show me what your making or any tips you have for managing your craft stall...

Thanks for reading and keep in touch :)