THE TEMPERATURE'S RISING

Hello everyone

Do you think summer might be just around the corner?  We still seem to be having very mixed weather and the forecast for the end of this week says the temperature will be low, but I am very hopeful.  Everything in the garden is growing well, including the weeds which never seem to suffer from high or low temperatures, cold, frost or anything else Mother nature throws at us.

A dilemma.  My time at the Jacob 's Well Country Market was unsuccessful again, despite being slap, bang in the middle of the hall.  So many people there tell me they can attend for weeks without selling anything, but can I continue do this?  I know I have only taken part for three weeks, but having sold only one candle during that time the motivation to turn up is beginning to dim.  It is not a case of 'I could be somewhere else selling my work' but it really is 'can I spare this time of not doing anything?'  The sellers are a great group of people, very friendly and so helpful and I have been given lots of good advice and great ideas to work on, but does that justify losing 3.5 hours (the market is open for 1.5 hours but we are asked to help set up and close down) every Friday?

Initially I had thought I could use the market as a way of promoting my work - having been told sales are low, profit little, etc.  However, despite a lot of interest in my candles, this has only turned into one sale.  Last Friday I was opposite a lady who makes the most stunning stained glass items: swallows in flight, dog's faces as well as framed pictures - she didn't sell anything on Friday and said she rarely does.  I think one of the reasons why I feel so frustrated about this market is that card-makers do very well.  Despite there being three sellers there, they all sell, every week!  A couple of sellers told me that out of term-time more buyers attend the market, and as it is half-term next week I will leave my decision about whether to continue or not
until then.  I don't like to abandon this, it feels like I am letting the organisers and other sellers down as well as possibly missing out on potential sales, but I have to be realistic, I want to sell and make some profits.

It has been the usual busy week here: making, workshop promoting, planning and preparing for meetings and  as the weather has been very generous this week, gardening.  Celebrated a friend's birthday on Saturday and celebrated it again with other friends on Sunday - a nice way to spend the weekend.

No photographs of work this week as most of the time has been spent on not producing, but planning.  However, I must recommend a visit to the bloggers taking part in this week's Handmade Monday linky party as I know they will have lots of photographs of gorgeous work they have made during the past week.

I have booked a spot on a Willow Hearts making course this Thursday evening at the Farnham Maltings.  Looking forward to it as hope it may be something else I can add to my range and I will let you know how it goes and hopefully may have photographs of what I make.

I received a copy of Homemade with love at the beginning of last week.  It looks a great magazine and has lots of lovely things to make.  On my list (supplies already purchased so no excuses) of things to make this week are the fabric covered flowerpots.  Apart from being lovely for me to use in my work room., they will make lovely gifts too and who knows could be something else to add to my range.

Have a good week everyone, I am back next weekend, Milly is here on Wednesday and if you would like to be a guest blogger, please drop me an email on christmaspiecrafts@virginmedia.com.  I love having guest blog posts, lots of lovely interesting reading.

Jill

SPAM BUT NO CHIPS

Hi everyone

Typical British weather again this week - can't make up its mind whether it is winter or spring!  A lovely day yesterday, chilly but good gardening weather.

My blog posts are attracting more and more spam every day.  If I ignore the content I could take them as compliments in that more and more people are reading my blog.  However, I don't want their comments, their visits are unwelcome and I am extremely glad I have a 'subject to moderation' proviso on my blog.

I took part in the give-aways organised by Wendy of the Handmade Harbour blog to celebrate 100 weeks of Handmade Monday and I was so pleased to learn that I had won one of the 'prizes': the book Commercial Creatives by Mike Carthew and Anna Ward.  Having read some reviews about the book I am very much looking forward to reading it - especially the section about how to price craft work.  Never too late to take advice.  Many thanks for a week of great give-aways Wendy.

Many moons ago, I bought (possibly the first or second issue) the Craftseller magazine.  I decided it was perhaps time to re-visit the magazine and am glad I did as it has become a very good magazine with lots of helpful content and also lovely pieces by some of my Handmade Monday colleagues.  This issue has a very good give-away, the Start-up Guide.   Although it is aimed at newbies, it never hurts to re-visit some of the basic rules about going into business.  It is easy to forget some of the very important aspects of running a small business and it has lots of advice-type articles written by crafters and other business people.

I am a member of the Crafts Forum, not a regular visitor, but I do like to drop in and catch up with how everyone is doing.  In my visit yesterday I came across a topic posted by Ros, one of my fellow Handmade Monday bloggers; the post was about professional or hobbyist.  It is a great post and I know this is a topic that can cause intense debate and I am not going to venture into the minefield here.  My reason for mentioning this post was because of a point made by Ros: '.......there are very few original ideas, all you can do is work with the basics and add a personal touch'.  I am a butterfly crafter flitting from one craft to another (but never abandoning my original paper-craft products).  I really enjoying trying new crafts, but sometimes wonder if other crafters may view this as deliberate or straight-forward copying.  I hope not as I like to think of crafts being for everyone with, more or less, no boundaries.  I think we are all inspired by others work and put our own 'spin' on things - thank you Ros, your comment of 'there are very few original ideas......add a personal touch' is so very true and makes me feel less like an industrial spy :-).

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that I had been sent a copy of a new crafting magazine, Homemade with love.  I said I would review and feedback about this magazine but am embarrassed to say I haven't done so yet - time has disappeared rather quickly recently.  Tax return, card orders, workshop stock and life in general has got in the way.  I will read it and promise to add my review to my next weekend post.

I have been working on Valentine's cards this week and have added some stock to my wall at Bourne Mill - yet again I forgot to photograph them!  I bought some Kanban flower circles and admit to being very embarrassed when I realised that I could quite easily have created them myself without having bought them already cut out .  However, I decided to have a go at doing something different with them and these are two examples:

I cut diagonally at intervals around the edges of the 'petals'.  I laid one colour on top of the other, trimmed the top one, stuck them together and added a centre spot to match the under colour.

Some of the pre-cut shapes had rounded edges.  I used a cream one for the centre and cut appx 2 cm all the way round and then 'fluffed' the edges.  I again added a centre of a colour to match the base shade.

My plan is to create a bunch of flowers - using my own circles of course - add some long green leaves to them and place them in a vase for a card.  They are very simple and easy to make and I think would be ideal for beginners to tackle in my card-making workshops.  I am also thinking of making some with newspapers or magazines - think they might look rather snazzy in print.  While I am on the crafting role, don't forget to visit the Handmade Monday blog - lots of great posts with beautiful work to see.

I continued working on my landscape in pottery - I keep moving and changing bits and I am still not 100% happy with it, but there is plenty of time to change it again.  Here is a pic in its bare state - the boulders on the left will have glass seed beads added to them.  These will melt when it is fired and should hopefully create the impression of water running down the hillside.  Everything else is work in progress, especially the sky, the hills and trees.  As always the sessions are very enjoyable, go too quickly and make me want to do more crafty things.

Have a good week everyone.  Milly will be here on Wednesday with her mid-week post -she is off to the vets tomorrow for 'the op' so she might still be a bit woozy by then.

Jill