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Sunday 27 October 2013

BATTENING DOWN THE HATCHES

Hi everyone

A wet and windy week and just hoping the weather men have got tonight's stormy forecast wrong.  In the last 'great storm' we spent two weeks without electricity and don't fancy going through that again.  We do have frequent power cuts here, mainly mini ones thank goodness, and think it may be due to having overhead electricity cables - no not the 'great big pylons' in my garden ones, but no underground electricity delivery around here.  good job one of my makes is candles - might just need to get on and make some more.

Thank you to everyone who visits and comments on my blog - I do love to read your comments.  Very often they are great advice too.

This last week has been (almost) wall-to-wall card-making, bag-decorating and fabric wreath producing.  I was booked into two events yesterday - tricky I know, but one was going to be covered by my cake-making friend Linda.  Because of my involvement with the Woking Cats Protection branch, I managed my stall there and it was a good day, despite the frequent bouts of rain.  My mini-cards sold well, Christmas gift bags also sold and another one of my decorated jute bags was snapped up.  It was, naturally, a cat-filled event - as someone said to me it was one of those rare occasions where you can talk non-stop about your cats and not have people look at you as if you were completely bonkers!  there were lots of cat-themed stalls there and I know the branch raised some much-need funds, so a good day for everyone.  Here are some photographs of my stall including one of my Scottie Dog jute bags - I had made and sold one the previous week and felt another one was a must-make.




Sadly, Ripley Craft & Food Fair was a different story.  Nothing of mine sold - I don't think I can recall experiencing a 'no-sales event', so at this stage in my craft business life it came as a big shock.  The weather was pretty grim and as stall holders are housed in summerhouses, sheds and gazebos, not always the best places to be.  Apparently at least four stallholders didn't turn up or bother to notify the organisers - so unprofessional and unfair to Claire who works hard and always has a waiting list of stallholders to be involved.  As the products that didn't sell have always sold well before at this venue and sell well at others, what was the problem this time around?  

Linda and I shared this event each having our own items - was this a bad idea?  Could it be that the cake/bread buyers saw only them and didn't think other items would be for sale at that spot?  So disappointing and we have made the decision that apart from our joint venture in the Secretts Christmas Emporium, we will manage our own stalls but each offer a very limited amount of each others stock.  We think it is the right decision and to be honest, less confusing for customers.

Despite the forecast, the weather here is gorgeous at the moment: sun, a little wind and mild.  It's time to do some gardening - have to make the most of that time before it gets too wet.  I hope you all have a great week and don't forget to nip over the read the blogs taking part in this week's Handmade Monday.  If you fancy promoting your Christmas stock or an event, please do get in touch about being a Friday Guest blogger - it would be lovely to have some Christmassy-themed posts.

Jill

14 comments:

  1. Fingers crossed the weather will be kind to you this time around !!! I can't imagine what it must be like to have no power for two weeks.

    Your stall looked lovely. I love the scotty dog bag. So sorry to hear about your other stall. It must be so frustrating, especially when you don't know why.

    xx

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  2. Good luck for tonight - not supposed to be too bad in the northwest but you never can be sure! It is possible that sharing a stall confuses visitors but if you've done it before successfully then you'd think it wold work. Hope so as I am sharing a stall with my sister's photography tiles at the London 02 event and am bit worried we might have a similar problem.

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  3. We get power cuts too, but they've only ever been for an hour or two and that's bad enough!! I hope you don't suffer again. I love that Scottie bag!

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  4. Well done for your stall it looks lovely! Dont let the no sales day put you off these things are quite unpredictable, at least you know that your products do actually sell. How do you manage to find all these local craft sales i can never find out about these, in fact i felt i was living in a no craft zone, and yet youve proved that i dont!

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  5. How disappointing. Your stall looks lovely, so I think it is very hard to tell why some fairs go better than others. I had one last Christmas that I was so looking forward to, as the table fee was low, and although the room was buzzing, I did really badly. Still have no idea why.

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  6. I've had quite a few 'no sale' fairs over the years. Fairs were few an far between because I never made much time to craft for sales so stalls usually ended up being a bit of a mish mash. At least it means it doesn't phase me too much anymore.

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  7. ooh your stand looks fab! I love the contrasting table cover you've used it shows all your creations off beautifully. The scottie dog bag is gorgeous, definitely a design worth repeating!

    What a shame that your regular fair in the sheds didn't go so well this time, the general public are such mysterious creatures! x

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  8. Fingers crossed you keep your power - or at least only a minimal amount of outage. I love the way your stall is set out, its not too overcrowded or fussy which means people can see things clearly.

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  9. Scottie looks fab x.
    Take a deep breath, the frenzy of Secretts awaits :-)

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  10. Your stall looks wonderful! I always love your positive attitude about your craft events, regardless of your sales.

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  11. Your stall looks lovely. Really like the Scotty bag too. I wouldn't let the no sales thing get to you as you sell well normally. By some quirk of fate, we avoided the storm - though no doubt ours will come sometime! x

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  12. Sorry to hear about the second fair, but I've heard that sometimes fairs can be a bit up and down. Your stand looked great though so its obviously the customers and not you :-) Hopefully your next one will go better. I'm making lots for Christmas at the moment so may be interested in a Friday Guest Post if you will have me ;-) I'm making stock for a fair in Dec though and due to a wrist problem I'm not sure how much I can make which would impact on when I could do it.

    All the best at future shows x

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  13. I hope you are ok after the storm.

    Sorry to hear about the no sale event. Sometimes unexpected things like this happen for no practical reason. The weather probably did play a part in it.

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  14. Your stand looked lovely, I really like the scottie bag! Sorry about your stall me and Mum did one like that the other day :( but I hope things pick up for you soon. :)

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