Treuddyn Festival 2012

Just thought I'd quickly blog the photos of my last fair in Treuddyn. It took place last Saturday, 14th July. Yes, I've been a little lazy and slow with up-to-date blogging as my last days were pretty well busy. It's the end of school year now and we've just broken up and started our summer holidays! Woohoo!

Coming back to the festival - it was a public event with some music, dancing, barbequing, archery plus there were some stalls with the car boot junk, jewellery and hand bang stall and 2 stalls with hand-made stuff - mine and my Polish friend, Grażyna :)

This is what mine looked like: (wish you could see all that mud on that day!!!)

Sorry, this bundle of hanging clothes (a nice photo spoiler, eh?) doesn't belong to my stall. It was the car boot junk table top that seemed to be sprawling everywhere under the tent. Somewhat oppresive but what could we do? Home junk sells the best at fairs these days.

Grażyna's lovely stall with hand-made decoupage. She brought her daughter with her too. Probably to boost up her sales! :P Hope, she will like the photo, when she comes here ;)

Some other entertaining places :)

This is the last summer fair for me this year. Think, I'll stop for the time being. Not impressed with the sales. Poor interest and clearly a pinch in people's pockets. May give it a go at Christmas fair later during the year.

Offa Festival

What a buy week and what a busy weekend! Yesterday for the 3rd time this summer I had taken part in a summer fair. This time it took place in Wrexham under the name: Offa Festival. A few crafty stalls were gathered there - there were quilts, sewn items, jewellery, a cake stall and a bric-a-brac and of course mine with the painted glass. My place looked like this:

and here's a view from a seller's perspective, through the sweet pink glass ;)

This fair was special in a way as for the first time I'd been accompanied by my friend, Sue :) who had a lovely stall with sewn items.

Other stalls:

I won't make comments on the sale profits as we were short of customers, BIG TIME!  Very few who entered the building where we were selling in showed any interest in crafts. Dunno why, all the 3 fairs (must admit: not typical craft fairs but rather summer fun days) I've done so far have one thing in common - poor interest in buying hand-made items. Is it the case with all fairs these days or is it just me being unlucky with the spot and customers? Single sold items can hardly be called a good sale, can they? Let's hope my 4th one will be more successful.

time for Hand-made Monday at Homemade Harbour. Heading over there to see what others have been up to this week! Get clicking!

Fun day in Plas Coch

Last Saturday I took part in a fun day organized around the Plas Coch school in W. Had my stall again, this time under a tree in case of rain. I didn't rain but it was windy A LOT! The wind kept knocking off my glass on and off which kept me worried and on my feet all the time. Also at the end of my selling time the wing blew so strong that one of my painted bowl got chipped by another glass item :(((( Again, I realized that selling glassy items doesn't work well outdoors in rough weather as it does indoors. Sale? Not impressive, I must admit. Think everybody is feeling the pinch these days. Enjoyed it myself tho! I treat every fair like a sort of a lesson on your marketing skills and a feedback on your crafts and people's likings. Still 2 Fairs to go this summer!

Diamond Jubilee Fun Day

There's been definitely lots of going on in Britain recently. We have just finished celebrating the Diamond Jubilee and now there is another big event coming on  - the Olympics. This keeps us, crafters, very busy and inspired. Yesterday there was a village fun day where I live (literally almost at my doorstep) and I took part in it by having my craft stall. I mostly sold my hand-painted glass but also some hand-made Jubilee-themed cards and I also took some of my woolly knitted Norwegian balls to see if people are interested at all in buying them. 

I decorated my stall with Union Jacks flags and bunting, which added a nice "Britishness" accent to the whole thing.

To tell the truth, I didn't sell that much, just several things really (people must be feeling the pinch these days and not ready to spend more than a couple of quids on food and drinks) but considering it was a last-minute event in a tiny village, no wonder the sale wasn't impressive. However I did enjoy myself. It was just simply nice to be out again with my stall in my own village, meeting people and catching up with the news. The weather was just perfect on that day, the organisation was good, the burgers smelt so nice :) A nice warm-up leading to another fairs awaiting, I'd say :) Fingers x it will go even better next time.

Butterfly Glass Cube. Hand Made Monday

Hi all. Hope you're all well and in a crafty mood :)

This week has been extremely busy for me due to the craft fair, which took place yesterday inWrexham. I dug out my painting pots again and had been painting fresh new glass like mad all week, from Monday to Friday after hours to have some fresh and festive stuff on my stall. The fair was all right, not a big wow though. Rather poorly advertised and on top of that (apparently) there were some other 2 fairs going on at the same time somewhere in the area. Some pics for you to have a peek:

And here is my new creation from this week - a small glassy cube with a pink/purple butterfly motif on it. It sold quite quickly on the craft fair yesterday :) I wonder what a future owner is going to do with it... :) keep flowers in it? sweets? seashells? Turn it into a tealight candleholder?

The butterfly motif has been painted 3 times but in different colour arrangements. The 4th side has been deliberately left blank for the personalised words Specially For You. 

Thanks everybody for all the comments you've left under my last posts. Pleasure to read them x x x. Welcome my new followers too!

I'm feeling stitchy tonight, after such a busy weekend full of craft selling, shopping, driving round and helping with some home repairs I feel like putting my feet up and relax for the rest of the day with my festive stitches. Shame Sunday is almost over!

Hand-made Monday tonight! Join in and see some other lovely crafty places! I'm curious what others have been up to this week!

Grapevine Vase

One of my recent creations - a square vase with a purple grapevine motif. Simple and minimal in decoration as it meant to be. Fine! Now, that I've finished it, I feel like revamping it a bit LOL Maybe with some more grape vine leaves on the side walls? What do you reckon? As you can see, sometimes my visions for the painted glass are very prone to fluctuating...

So, does that happen to you too? That feeling to change something once you've just finished creating it? Well, it's not all said and done for me, as I still can add some new painting to the existing one ;)

Some details of the painting...

This week has been moderately busy for me. Spent the last days of it preparing for another summer fair - Offa's Festival in Wrexham. This one turned out to be a little more successful than the disappointing one from 2 weeks ago as more people at the event equals more potential customers. It also seemed like my Houses of Love and the Seahorses were the most eye-catching and intriguing motifs of all. (Should I paint some more of them then?) The weather was fab today! Also the location was pretty good. The other craft stalls were interesting and it was great to see so much variety of crafts. Made friends with some new crafters and enjoyed my selling time today!

Oh! And last but not least, thank you Anna of Puppy Fly Boutique blog for your lovely blog award x x x Pleasure to receive this one! :)

Get clicking guys and see what others have been up to this week. The link-up Hand made Monday party on Wendy's blog :) Check this out!

Summer Fair

Yesterday I took part in a fair in Wrexham. For the last week I had been preparing myself for it and it was the only thing that really occupied my mind. Was getting really excited to go! I devoted all my after-work afternoons to finishing up the projects and prepared a list of painted glass and beanbag chicks that I wanted to sell. Sadly, yesterday's fair turned out to be a big disappointment to me due to some unlucky circumstances. First of all, we (me and other "crafters") were put in the furthest corner of the event area (yes! yes! the location of your stall DOES MATTER, it's one of those things you learn and experience in your life as a craft seller) and as a result not many people were bothered to come up and see our stalls. We were simply very much out of the way, put behind the school instead of the front of it. The only good thing about our location was that we were right under the school canopy in case it rained. Only people going to the school toilets at the back of the building were passing us by! Instead the carboot sale took place at the most strategic place. Secondly, people didn't show much interest in buying hand made stuff as these were mostly mothers with buggies and little kids. Also, I had an impression that people weren't prepared to spend more than a couple of quids on a bacon butty, cup of coffee and some car boot junk. In fact there were only 4 crafty stalls - me with my painted glass, a pyrography crafter with his wooden products, a lady with her jewellery (which was ready made anyway) and a lady selling gadgets for the Air Ambulance Charity. Standing a few hours in the windy weather made me almost freeze so my bf was helping with some hot freshly brewed tea. And the last straw that made me leave the site quicker than I planned was a bunch of school boys who decided to play football right in front of my table with the displayed glass!!! Their ball kept rolling right under my table! (Surprise! surprise! For some reason I'm very "lucky" with finding myself and my table with painted glass in the proximity of men playing football, which was the case last time I was selling my crafts). Fed up, cold and disappointed we left the site and me were off to Pizza Hut for some food, warmth and consolation :)

It was the 3rd fair I took part in but profitwise the worst one. But, hey, that's life! Chin up and I'm moving on now :) especially with another fair in W. on the horizon. In 2 weeks time! Just trying to arrange it at the moment :)

Good or bad, I'll show you my craft stall :) This is what it looked like:

And this is what I'm currently working at - a wedding sampler card with folky birds for my cousin in Holland:

the sampler card is going to look like this:

I just decided to swap the blue canvas for the light pink one!

And now! Time for Handmade Monday. Tonight I'm linking up the 1st Unique Gifts blog for this crafty link-up. See what other crafters have been up to!