IT'S A BEAUTIFUL DAY

Hello everyone

Lots of gorgeous sunshine - hope it lasts a few more days.

First of all a big thank you to everyone for their comments last week, particularly for the advice given regarding my weekly foray's into a local country market.  A special thank you to Stephen (Soy of the North) for his great advice.

I have decided that I will attend the market this coming week as I have been advised that out of term time (half-term here next week) is always very busy.  I will do the following week, then take a break for a week and after that may go for either every other week, or perhaps one week out of three.  I have been able to talk to people who regularly attend two other local markets, ones that are much bigger and more popular than mine, and their sales (of craft items) are either low or non-existent.  I feel my time can be more profitable either looking out for other events or making stock.  I wont; abandon it completely because sellers at the event say Christmas is always a good time for craft sales.  Can I wait that long?  The people there are so friendly and helpful and it makes the morning go quickly, however, as sociable as they are I am in business and need to sell.  Oh, I nearly forgot, I sold another candle!  Two in four weeks!

I attended a Willow Heart making course at the Farnham Maltings on Thursday evening - it was great and I hadn't anticipated how hard it would be.  Even when wet some types of willow are hard to bend, and I kept snapping mine!   The tutor was great and I would definitely sign on for another one of her courses.  I made two hearts - one very big and one small in comparison - and brought home more willow to finish them off.  I also made a start and here is a photograph of it:

I have also been busy in my pottery class making a mix of outdoor candle holders (for citronella candles) and hanging snowflake ornaments for the Christmas tree. I know it is rather early, but making, firing, glazing, etc takes a long time, so I need to begin early.  Here are some photographs of my makes:

A square pot with two sides cut away - the back can act as a sort of windshield.

A tall, narrow pot which I have painted brown - a flat base has been added as I felt it was rather narrow and may topple over in the wind.

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These have been made of porcelain and I have painted them white on the 'front' side - depending on how they turn out I will probably not fire them at a higher temperature or glaze them.

I also made a card for a friend for someone who was moving to their new home.  The brief was the recipient was moving into an Edwardian house, liked to ride their bike, was a computer person, and walked/ran a lot.  So I had a bicycle leaning against the wall of the house, a computer sitting inside the window and a pair of trainers on the door step and yes, I forgot to photograph it!  Oh, and the person it was for is a web-designer so the salutation on the front was in the form of a website address.

Still on the subject of making things, don't forget to nip over to Handmade Harbour and catch up with the lovely bloggers taking part in this week's Handmade Monday linky party.  Great reads and fabulous makes.

I met up with my cake-making friend, Linda, and we planned more things to do for our end of year events.  Lots of work to do, and we wop it will be successful - lots of new things from both of us.

I had some requests left on last week's post asking for details about being a guest blogger and I do apologise for not contacting each of you.  However, I hope you are still interested.  Each post should be approximately 600 words long, although I am happy if it is longer.  you need to include lots of photographs to promote the content of your post and don't forget to include your links to your Blog, Website, Twitter, Pinterest, Facebook, etc.  This is a great opportunity for some free publicity.  I tweet about the post every day, more often than not twice in one day and lots of my followers kindly RT the post for me too - so you could be read by thousands.  If you would like to be a guest blogger or need some more information, please do contact me on christmaspiecrafts@virginmedia.com.

We went to one of our regular family get-togethers yesterday at my sister's.  As always it was great fun and lots of laughs - we grew up with these particular special cousins (Maralyn and Evelyn) so we share lots and lots of memories and very similar senses of humour.

Enjoy the rest of the Bank holiday everyone, I will be back next week and Milly will be here on Wednesday.

Jill