craft fair

Be my Valentine

~ DMWCarol ~ Leave a comment

I’ve been making a few Valentine’s Day themed bracelets to go on the Ramsey Crafters’ stall at Potato Day on Saturday.  Potato Day is an event organised by the Cambridgeshire Self Sufficiency Group, it’s a chance to buy seed potatoes to grow at home.  They have over 60 different varieties and you can buy just one or two of the ones you fancy.

There are some nice simple memory wire bangles, they fit pretty much anyone and are really easy to make, you literally just thread beads.

The black stars are hematite which is supposed to be good for grounding and helping people cope with stress and depression.

I also made some seed bead bracelets  with words included. Aren’t they cute!

Hopefully someone will like them as much as I do and they’ll all be sold!

Festive Fascinators

~ DMWCarol ~ Leave a comment

This morning was interesting. I have a rotten cold so am finding things like breathing and talking a lot harder than usual – however I was down to run the Ramsey Crafters session so I had to haul my sorry self out of bed and go be sociable.

The plan was Christmas fascinators for the craft fair. I’d intended to pick up some baubles and tree decorations which would then just be attached to headbands with bits of wire; however I have yet to find anywhere selling tree decorations so I had to come up with something different.

I spent ages looking at Christmassy crafts online and eventually decided that I liked the look of felt poinsettias and that they would make a suitable hair piece which could be blinged up or left quite simple depending on what people fancied.

I sort of cobbled together several online tutorials into one and that’s what we did. Unfortunately I forgot to take my camera with me so the only photo I have is this one of the one I made as a demo model. The others were glammed up with feathers and ribbons and beads to make them really party ready but this one is very plain.

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Snowflake

~ DMWCarol ~ 2 Comments

Last week’s craft group was a lesson in beading from Dawn.  The idea was to make festive snowflakes that we can sell at the craft fair.

I’m not a big fan of beading.  The results are lovely but I find it really painful working with anything that fiddly.  After doing this little bit of beading in the craft group my hand was absolutely throbbing.  It’s taken until today for it have calmed down enough that I could go back and finish it off.  I really can’t see me making many of these.

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It is very pretty though 🙂  I do like the way the beads sparkle.  It still needs to be dipped in varnish and left to harden so it can be hung from a christmas tree or in a window.

Feeling autumnal

~ DMWCarol ~ Leave a comment

I love this time of year.  There is something so satisfying about picking fruit from the hedgerows.  Free is always my favourite price.

We just stopped the car on the way home from work as I spotted some sloe bushes – these beauties will soon be turning into sloe gin.  There were loads of sloe bushes and all of them had oodles of berries.  I might have to go back for more!

sloes

We’ve already picked a load of apples from the garden.  I had the idea of putting them through the juicer which meant we had loads of pulp which was turned into apple sauce, (add sugar and water, boil and sieve) and the juice is busy turning into apple mead. (I used this apple wine recipe but substituted honey for sugar).

mead

I’m planning on making a load of jams and chutneys over the next few days, I have a huge amount of ginger since we were lucky enough to pick up a small mountain of it from the reduced bin at the supermarket so I’m going to try making crystalised ginger, ginger honey, ginger curd and possibly ginger wine

Some of the jams/chutneys are destined for the Ramsey Crafters Christmas craft fair which is being held on my birthday.  It feels a bit early to be thinking about Christmas but it makes sense to take advantage of all the free food in the hedgerows, we had a busy morning yesterday harvesting willow from Sue’s garden and twisting it into wreath forms, we’ll be having a wreath making and decorating session at one of the Crafters sessions soon , hopefully these will have time to dry out nicely first.

wreaths

We’ve already had one craft session on christmas makes – we made some festive tea light holders from old glasses and jars.  They are really simple – just cover the glass in white pva glue, layer on tissue paper (the white ones are just tissues like you would use for blowing your nose the coloured one is cut up bits of coloured tissue paper) cover in more glue and decorate with sequins and/or glitter.  They don’t look like much until you put a lit tealight inside, but they are really effective when they are lit.

tealights

I have loads of ideas for Christmas makes, the next few months should be fun.

Busy busy busy

~ DMWCarol ~ Leave a comment

It’s my day off today – which of course means I shall be busy all day getting things ready for a craft fair tomorrow.  There are so many things I still want to make, and I need to do the labelling and work out how to display everything I’ve already made.  Just to add to the fun I get to see darling daughter this evening and darling son arrives for the weekend soon after that

At the moment my to do list looks like this:

  • Kitten earrings & bracelets – at least another dozen
  • Add wires to the sides of a mirror for hanging the earrings
  • Make more flowery headbands – another 6 would be great
  • Assemble artwork into cards and sleeves
  • Frame Tracy’s pictures
  • Make another 2 – 4 art canvasses
  • Sort out table clothes,
  • laminate the letters and assemble Ramsey Crafters banner
  • make flyers for the craft group
  • pack car
  • assemble picnic stuffs and drinks for tomorrow
  • Go have dinner with Vicci
  • Collect Dale from train station
  • Make price tags and labels
  • Sort through everything left over from last stall and check labels etc

Better get on with it then!

Flowery headbands

~ DMWCarol ~ Leave a comment

I’m trying to decide how to price these headbands.  They’re made from bits and pieces I had laying around so I have no idea what the materials actually cost.  They don’t take long to make and I’m actually doing them while between tasks on my actual job so I’m already being paid for my time.   I’m thinking they should be cheap and cheerful as I like the idea of kids wearing them at the Craft market /summer festival I’m going to this weekend.  What would you expect to pay for something like this?

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Craft Fair Update

~ DMWCarol ~ Leave a comment

It’s been a busy few days of making.  I’ve just about got together enough for my first attempt at a craft fair tomorrow – hopefully it will go well and I’ll sell a few things.

Here are a few examples of the things I have made – you can see some of the others on my new facebook page

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Wish me luck 🙂

Exciting times

~ DMWCarol ~ Leave a comment

First – I have a craft fair on Saturday.  Am going to be spending the next few days frantically making stuff to sell.  My aim is to end up with a couple of display boards filled with earrings plus a few necklaces and earrings.  Today I also bought a couple of packs of canvas so if I get enough made tomorrow and Thursday I will try and create a few mixed media collages as well.

I’m really nervous, selling is not something I am at all good at so this will show me whether I have actually learned anything from this course I’ve been doing.  Fingers crossed and all that!

In other even more exciting news, my lovely daughter Vicci announced her engagement a few days ago.  She’s marrying a lovely guy who I am sure she will be very happy with so I couldn’t be more thrilled for her.

They’ve picked a date just 5 months away so it’s going to be a whirlwind of preparation. We’ve already been dress shopping and she’s bought a beautiful frock that she looks amazing in.  I only cried once, which is pretty good going I thought.

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That is not THE dress, just one of the many she tried on.

I’m not even thinking about what I’m wearing yet, I want to try and get some serious dieting in before we reach that point.  Vicci has suggested that I wear something with plum tones which is her bridesmaids colour so it will probably be easier to find something in that colour once the autumn gets here.

I get the fun of doing the flowers and maybe making some jewellery for Vicci and her bridesmaids.  I love wedding crafts so am looking forward to it  She has some lovely ideas for what she wants.

Since this is supposed to be a crafts blog, I shall end by sharing the card insert I made for Vicci’s engagement card.  She likes sheep and thankfully found it amusing rather than cringeworthy 🙂

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