Sunday 9 December 2012

Getting bored already !!

Well it's only been 4 days since I said I was going to pack away all my messy crafty stuff, and I'm bored already lol !! I'm just no good at sitting around either surfing the net, reading books or doing housework. I need to occupy my mind doing some arty or crafty, I guess that makes me a craftoholic, well there's worse things to be addicted to I guess :-)

It hasn't helped that we went to the post office to pick up the parcel of china paints that I mentioned in my last post. They are sitting there calling to me on my little pc table. Who can resist those beautiful bejewelled colours ...not me by the looks of it lol. I shall have a go at decorating my herb and spices pots for myself first, just to get my hand back in again. China and glass paints have, for want of a better word a gloopey consistency, so you can't just use them like normal paints, they tend to streak very easily. Also you have to be extremely lucky to do more than one coat of them, as one layer tends to pulls off the layer below. So they aren't exactly the easiest of paints to work with, but I'm sure I'll get better the more I practice.

I'll share with you the mistakes as well as the successes of course. But for the time being, I'm off to put away some of the other boxes of crafty stuff so I needn't feel guilty about the china paints lol. These paints by the way can be fired in a normal oven, which then makes any designs fix fast and they even stand up to being put through the dishwasher. There are glass and china paints that you can just paint on and leave, but they tend to peel off if they're washed, which seems a bit pointless to me.

Anyway that's it for today.

Tuesday 4 December 2012

It's that time of year.

It's that time of year, where I pack most of my crafty stuff away, and have a break from making things to sell. I do this every year, because I tend to spread anything I'm using to make creations, all over the place lol. Which of course makes the place messy, and no one wants a messy house at Christmas do they ?

Last weekend was our last craft fair this year too, so that's another good reason to pack most of my stuff away. Sometimes I just need to recharge my batteries and my idea's too. I've already started thinking about what to make next year. I think I might have to minimise the amount of stained glass I do as the arthritis in my hands is getting worse, and I know by experience that cutting and copper foiling glass aggravates it badly. I've been enjoying painting my cards, so maybe I'll think about going back to doing some glass and china painting.

One thing that needs addressing for sure is the layout of our craft stall. I want to be able to show off any stained glass things with the light showing through them. One idea I've thought of is getting some acrylic type stands, so the angels can be hung on it so the light shows through. It would also give some added height to the stall too. Jims also going to figure out a way of getting some light on the stall, which doesn't need an electrical socket as well.

The fair we did last weekend, was the first one for the organiser. I think he learnt some very valuable lessons. For one thing the stalls were way too tightly packed together. For customers to buy things they need to be able to stand and browse, this was NOT happening at the weekend. As soon as someone stopped to browse at one stall, there was pretty much no chance of someone standing and browsing at the opposite stall, without blocking the whole aisle. Most of the stall holders were pretty vocal about this, so it won't be a mistake he'll make again lol. The lighting also was pretty dire, for some people, it wasn't too bad for us, but some friends of mine had terrible problems, also lack of advertising for the fair was a key mistake too. Luckily the organiser asked for feedback and I think he's someone that will take on board what people will say. Despite all the problems, I only took five pound less than we did the weekend before, so on the whole I was happy with that.

Only a couple of  photos today, this is of the main hall at the craft fair, taken by the organiser. For me it was a pretty good idea to do this as it gave me a proper chance to see the stall as customers see it, which you can't really do by just standing in front of it. 

That's our stall bottom left hand corner.

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