MAKE, LABEL, PACK. MAKE, LABEL, PACK

Hello everyone

How are you?  I hope you survived the storm of last Sunday night/Monday morning.  Quite a few trees were uprooted around here, but as far as I know no damage sustained by homes or people and no loss of power.  I know there are lots of moans and groans about the 'event' being over-dramatised by the media, possibly because it was under-dramatised back in 1987.  It, did, however give us a chance to prepare for potential problems.  Because of past bad weather, loss of power, etc some time ago we invested in a generator - it's a small one, but at least it means we are not lit just by candle-power during the frequent power-cuts we have.  It was interesting to see people in supermarkets shopping as though they were never ever going to be able to get to a food shop again!

An event free weekend, thank goodness, but the last one for a long time - I think my next event-free weekend is the one after Christmas.  After my three-day Christmas Fayre at Secretts Garden Centre, I am

having space in the Christmas Emporium  (doesn't that sound good?) and on Friday of last week, Linda (who shares the after-three-day-event space with me) and I attended a lunch and meeting with our fellow emporium-ists to review the floor plan, marketing and promotion, duty rota and all the other little bits and pieces that needed to be dealt with.  We may all have different products to sell (not all handmade) and certainly we all have different ideas, viewpoints and plans, but we all want to sing from the same song sheet throughout the event.  We talked about having Christmas carols playing when we were open - perhaps we could form a singing group?  Uhm, perhaps not.

This week I have made what seems like 100's of mini cards, some more jute bags (one which has a lovely owl as the design) and loads of Christmas cards - no photographs unfortunately as I am pricing and packing them as soon as I have made them.  I already have 4 large cardboard boxes full of stock and that's without all the loose piles of things everywhere, the large laundry bags full of table and wall coverings, bags and all the other things needed at an event, and the tables, racks, etc.   Thank goodness Secretts is near to me as I have a feeling it might involve at least a couple of trips to offload what I need for just the three-day event, let alone the longer one afterwards.

Now it is back to make, label, pack and even more make, label and pack,  A little light relief from making Christmas stock is my final wedding fayre of the year at the Old Thorns Hotel, which takes place next Sunday.  I haven't done a wedding fayre this late in the year and I am wondering if it will be as busy as those I have attended recently.  I want to make one completely brand new range in all white with a ribbon trim - haven't decided on the colour yet, hope to have photographs for you next week.

Thank you everyone who visited my blog last week and an extra special thank you to those who commented - I love feedback, its always helpful and often gives me ideas of things I need to change and/or new things to make.  Don't forget to drop in on this week's Handmade Monday blog party and read what everyone has been up to during the past week - lots of lovely Christmas makes are appearing each week.

If you would like to be a guest blogger, now is a great time to join in.  You may have events or a new product range that you want to bring to peoples attention - how about a blog post here?  Get in touch if you would like to join in or would like more information.

Have a great week - see you next Sunday

Jill