Well I am back from Oakwell Hall and it was a great success. I have spent all day sitting in the lovely barn with lots of other crafty people, I have finished hand quilting my Xmas hanging while talking to lots of lovely people and selling my stuff. So all in all a great day.

The hall looked beautiful this morning in the winter sun.

We were in the barn which is used for wedding receptions – my first customer was one of the bridal party (don’t know if she was actually the bride) who bought two baubles. In terms of what sold it was very interesting as I only sold one complete tree. Lots of people admired them and took the tree part off to look underneath which I think confused them as a couple asked if it was for a candle (which you could do after but not while the tree is on the top!). I think next time I make them I will try to use twigs in a piece of sawn off log so they look more tree like.

It could have been the price, it is always difficult to know what the charge for hand- made goods as I had to factor in the cost of the pot, charm, fabric and time so I priced them at £4. Maybe that was a bit high, I could have reduced them but I wasn’t that worried about selling any more of them as I need lots to give to people this year as their Xmas card and if I’d sold all of these I would just have to make more.

I did sell quite a few kits, all but one of the stockings – could have sold more of the little ones as 5 went in one go, half the gift bags and about half the baubles and pine cones so another donation will be going to Community Action Nepal.

It was a very good experience seeing how people react and what else people are selling at events like this.  There was only one other person selling ornaments and she didn’t sell that much of her stock , she had lots of lovely padded ornies and hangings. There were two fab cake stalls there, one selling Xmas cup cakes and the other more traditional mince pies and Xmas cakes and lots of jewllery/ handbag and gift stalls.

For a copy of the instructions to make the tree please click on the link below, this will open up as a printable Word file with colour pics.

Xmas tree ornie instructions

Altogether a lovely day.

Thanks for visiting and don’t forget to comment on my blogaversary post to enter the giveaway – I will be picking a winner next Thurs the 9th.

Well the craft fair at Oakwell Hall  tomorrow is still on (fingers crossed there will be no more snow!). The show is melting at the moment so huge chunks of ice are falling off the gutters which is a bit alarming but so far all seems well (i.e. no holes in new conservatory roof!)

I have spent the day finishing off the last of my stock, printing off the instructions for the ornament kits and packing everything up to go. I am very excited as this is my first proper venture selling my designs. I have done a craft fair before at Scouts to sell my ornies to fundraise for Project Nepal and sold them at work for the same reason but it will be nice to see if people like the things that I have made as well.

Yesterday evening and today I made two batches of little Xmas stocking backed with felt. The little ones are meant to be just tree decorations but I thought the bigger ones could be used for giving Xmas gifts of money – they can be hung on the tree as well but I though they might be more festive than the cards and envelopes you can buy for that.

 I did promise myself that by the end of the year I wanted to design something and have a pattern published – well this is not really publishing but I have put together the instruction sheets with all pics all by myself so it sort of fits!

I am very pleased to be doing this (not only as it has given me a chance to play with loads of lovely Xmas fabric) as it has been a dream for a while to be able to run a textile creation business. I was hoping to do that a couple of years ago but life got in the way but if I can do bits and pieces that makes me very happy. I spend lots of time looking at blogs like Hen House  and wishing I could craft full-time (not that the job isn’t lovely but playing with fabric all day would be heaven!). However one day it will happen.

I don’t think I can add downloads onto this blog but if anyone wants a copy of the instructions for the Xmas Trees pot ornie  (it is a Word file) then please leave me a comment with your e-mail address and will send you one.

Will take lots of pics at the craft fair so that you can see my little stall – I do love Xmas!

Thanks for visiting and don’t forget to leave a comment on my blogaversay post to win some Xmas goodies.

Well like the rest of the UK we have lots and lots of snow! I have just logged on to the WordPress site to do this post and they have virtual snow on the page – not that we really need that as we have about a foot of it outside. As usual it has caused endless disruption at work and home – though lovely son Jake is very happy that college has been cancelled for the last three days and he has been able to stay in his room in the warm playing on his computer!

Regular readers will have seen lots of pics of my garden in the snow so I am not going to post any more of those – suffice to say it is looking a lot prettier as the snow is covering up all the dead leaves! We have a new addition this Winter though as these amazing icicles have grown on the new conservatory roof. They must be about 3 foot long!

I have been busy finishing my things for the Xmas Craft Fair this weekend at Oakwell Hall . I am concerned that it might not be able to go ahead though because of the weather as lots of stuff is being cancelled. If so I am going to have a lot of little trees, baubles and pine cones going spare!

Here are the ones I have finished this week in their little pots – they just need the snowflake charms sewing on the top which I will do this evening. I have had to go with a range of pots as I couldn’t find many gold ones – these are a selection of votive holders that Ellie I and found by scouring all our local pound shops. I think that the red ones look really pretty as well, especially the ones with the snowflake design which were from Poundland.

 I have great plans for ornie making for next year. I have made some more Xmas gift bags for this year using some ‘labels’ fabric which matches some of my other Xmas fabric which have worked really well and am thinking of extending this to make some quilted Xmas stockings.

Have just taken delivery of a lovely new book (and of course I needed more craft books kids!)  on Redwork called Redwork Twitterings by Pearl Louise Krush which has given me some good ideas. She has a quilt shop in the USA that I would love to visit as it looks so cute. Here are the pics on her Thimble Cottage web site . I would like to design some of my own redwork and incorporate that into some pieces.

Looking on the bright side I do now have more crafting time because of the weather as a social event I was going to and cooking for has been cancelled and if the craft fair doesn’t go ahead I will have all of Sunday for textile loveliness – might do something with my new Xmas fabric – make it feel love and wanted!

Hope you are all keeping warm and coping with the weather where you are.

Thanks for visiting.