The Craft market was well attended with many people turning up throughout the day and lots of wonderful people exhibiting their work. However the best stall, in my opinion, belonged to Gifted Hampers – genius idea!

I sold a few prints, a couple of bits and pieces and managed to palm my business card off to a lot of people! It was quite fun – but there are calendars left – so if you’re interested in bagging a 2013 calendar – with Photographs taken this year as part of the 365 challenge – then do let me know!

Many people have asked if I’ll continue to take photographs every day – the honest truth is I don’t know. I’d like to at least blog something weekly, before I started the challenge in January, I took photos sometimes once a week, sometimes once a fortnight. Now that’s all changed. But with my full time work and my double year of Uni taking off after Christmas, I honestly don’t think it will be possible.

However, I’d like to delve into writing again – so who knows what combination of challenge could be created.

I only managed to take a couple of photos of my stall on my phone, I was pleased with how it all came together and I received some lovely, positive feedback.

My Mum is making some ceramic Christmas decorations—porcelain snowflakes and birds—as well as some other ceramic bits and pieces to sell at my stall too.

Here’s a sneak peek of the things I’ve been busy making this weekend … bracelets! I made TEN yesterday—those lovely colourful Czech glass ones in the photo below. And there are several with Gaea‘s lovely ceramic beads knotted on leather.

I’ve got loads of earrings too, and will be making more this week, along with some necklaces. I’ve been madly ordering supplies so that I can whip up a bunch of cute necklaces for little girls—rainbows, butterflies, hearts, lockets, mysterious keys and flowers. I’m aiming to spend no more than $2-3 on each one and with luck I can sell them for $10-15. And I’ve started working on how to display everything too.

Oh, and I’ve also come up with a name for my jewellery “business”…

BOHO BIRD JEWELLERY

What do you think? I’m hoping that if I sell some of my designs I might be brave enough to open an online store on Etsy or Madeit, or even sign up for one of the local craft markets—there’s one around the corner from us every month that could be good for a newbie like me.

In the time that I’ve spent selling my craft products via a market stall, I’ve learned a few lessons.

Before I started off, I had set myself a few conditions. I would limit myself to two local markets without travelling far and wide. These two markets are held once every month for half a day and are just 10 minutes away from home.

I would consistently be at these markets no matter the weather conditions. That means, I was going to commit to going even if I didn’t feel like waking up on cold and dark winter mornings and tearing myself away from a warm and cosy bed.

Choosing to do these two markets just by their virtue of proximity to me meant that I was not going to be in an exclusively craft/handmade scene but one mixed with second hand/trash & treasure items.

The other aspect that also has a bearing on me is that of geography and population. This is a small town that I live in, with a population of around 30,000 excluding the areas on the periphery. It’s the third largest town in Western Australia (or perhaps nearly the second largest). This is in the context of the entire Australian population of around 20 million. All this essentially means that the benefit of numbers as far as potential customer base, does not translate to me here compared to other areas of the world.

The other crucial factor that I operate under are my family responsibilities. My crafting and market stalling has had to fall in to place within the environment of homeschooling three children – apart from managing a home and garden for my pleasure and sanity.

Finally and very importantly, I craft and sell with my husband’s moral support. He gives assent to what I do and steers clear of crafting activities, not because I wish him to but because he has other interests. We depend on his modest full- time income to support our lifestyle.

In the end, the outcome has been this. I’ve been able to earn some income from what I’ve loved making and creating. Having customers come back for more has been a real buzz.

The feedback from some regular customers continues to motivate and inspire me. It has been satisfying to provide people with products that have been made with a lot of thought, love and effort. It has been good to provide items of quality that people can trace back to a place not too far from them.

Insofar as this part time business becoming a significant income source, it would be unrealistic to expect that at this stage.

There have been good days interpersed with some very slow days. This I’ve come to notice is an inherent part of the ebbs and flows of the market stall life.

As I’ve gone along I’ve also learned the benefits of diversification. Again nothing ambitious. Just products and produce from our garden and kitchen that form a part of our lives.

We’ve often bemoaned the lack of hot chilli products in our local shops. So, we started making our own with our backyard grown chilies. I began selling some of these and realised to my amazement the number of people mostly of Anglo Saxon descent with a penchant for very hot chillies!

I’ve also given people in search of bargains some of what they’ve been scouring markets for -a vintage bag or two, crockery and china no longer being used…in other words getting rid of things and simplifying the material situation in our household. When you’re counting the dollars at the end of your market day, these often help to add up the numbers.

Finally, my observation about market stall holders. Majority of them are retirees. A few of them have been doing this for years. Some frequent all the markets around the area and can travel over two hours to get to their destination. There are others who give it a go once and never come back. Maybe they expected much more on their first attempt. Some have not let a disappointing start stop them from trying again and having the pleasure of good returns.

I don’t see many people younger than the above demographic stick to market stalling. I’d imagine it would have to be a part of a lifestyle choice -willing to lead a slower, simpler, less materialistic way of life amongst a few other radical choices. Market stalling does go hand in hand with earning less money compared to being in a full-time paid employment.

Peter the clockmaker opposite my stall summed it well for me…”I’ll stop when this becomes work…”

i’m preparing for the forthcoming festive craft market in bournemouth,
so there’s no time to spare. it’s been days of sewing sewing sewing!

the craft market will be on 11 november in littledown centre, from 10am-1pm.
if you are around bournemouth, please come and have a look.
there will be all sorts of handmade stuff to keep your winter warm :)

but if you can’t wait until then, or make it to the market,
you can also order this tea cosy from here ;)

3rd November Make and Mend

Hurrah! In these cold, wintry days (I thought it was still autumn, but oh no. It’s winter) there is a warm glowing feeling to be had at Make and Mend craft market.

Come say hello on Saturday 3rd November at Grainger Market in the very very centre of Newcastle upon Tyne, innit.

Sneaky-canny

I bet you’re clever enough to click onto their website to see the full image of this stunningly beautiful (and awesomely terrifying) artwork by the elusive Cuttlefish.  Is he a man?  Is he a fish?  Is he a snackfood for budgies?  If you find out please let me know, these questions are starting to cause me concern.

Our weekend began with a trip to the cinema on Friday afternoon…..Adam got off work earlier especially as I just couldn’t wait any longer to go and see Skyfall. For those who don’t know, I’m a MASSIVE James Bond fan. I got into the films as a teenager, and spent entire school holidays watching them all back to back, and then a couple of years ago I got all the books for Christmas and became hooked on them. So it’s fair to say I was fit to burst with excitement to see the much-awaited new film, and owing to my enjoyment of the last two, my expectations were pretty high (not to mention the fact that all the reviews were saying how they’d pulled out all the stops!).

But alas. I probably couldn’t have been more disappointed. Whilst I enjoyed the pure entertainment value of the film, and even liked its nostalgia and naffness, the more I think about it, the more I feel let down. I know there was backlash from the amazing Casino Royale, because the die hard fans all missed the innuendo and tacky gadgets. But I really felt that the new films were going somewhere, and building up to something….and in fact were far more like the books than the other films. But it’s like they forgot all the progress of the last two, and merely went back to the Roger Moore and Pierce Brosnan cringe-worthy naffness. The whole thing looked so cheap, with locations we’ve seen too much of lately, as well as bits of London disguised as Shanghai etc. And without wishing to spoil anything, I think they’ve lost the two best things that ever happened to the franchise….one I can’t say without saying too much, but the other being David Arnold as composer. His scores have been so intelligent and filled with clever nods for us super-geeks, and although I usually love anything Thomas Newman does, his score was brash and immature and utterly cringey. I just don’t think that Sam Mendes was the right choice to direct a Bond film (despite my loving his other stuff), and the loss of some of the other regular team too have really left a dent. Anyway, I won’t go on about it….I’m sure it’s rather dull for anyone who is less into the films than me anyway, and I’ll just get myself more riled up!

The rest of the evening was rather more successful, as I cooked up a massive Broccoloni Cheese in our new huge Le Creuset dish. Adam’s Mum came over to help us eat it (with the dogs too, who polished it off!). Then it was an early night ahead of a very early start on Saturday….. I was hosting another stall at the Hitchin Riverside Craft and Farmers Market, and had to be up and out by half past seven! It was SOOOO cold, and despite the incredible amount of layers I put on, I was still freezing and losing feeling in my fingers whilst setting up! Still, it was lovely to have such a great stall right next to the river and overlooking the church…..and with some rather loud ducks and geese for company too!

It was lovely to see some of the stalls I’d encountered at my last stall there, as well as some familiar faces, and ever so nice to meet some new people (and chat to them to make the time go faster!). My neighbors to the left were the lovely Christine and Bridget, who make beautiful hand knitted and sewn gifts and homewares…. whilst to the right was the wonderful Jo from Breakheart Hill Farm, with a wonderful selection of their produce. We chatted to Jo for hours about the farm and their dogs, and were delighted to find we could order some of their gammon joints too! That’s Christmas sorted! We also indulged in some huge back bacon from a local farmer who rears his pigs in the woods, as well as some delicious cupcakes from the award winning Crumbly Wumbly.

Rather annoyingly, it kept dry and fine all day just until we started to pack up! There was a fierce down pour that caught me off guard and unfortunately got to some of my paintings too. I managed to salvage most of it, and just need to do a couple of repairs to my Pet Pawtraits (more on that later!), but it was still rather miserable walking home with all my stock in the wet (despite it only being two minutes away!). Thankfully, Adam’s Mum invited us round for a nice stew for supper, followed by home made apple crumble and custard, so after the warmth of her Aga and a hot bath back at home, I finally warmed up again and was fast asleep in bed by ten!

My early night didn’t stop me from sleeping in though, and making use of the extra hour from daylight savings simply to snooze! I think I must have had about eleven hours sleep in total, but I felt great for it…especially after yumming up a massive fried breakfast! That set us up nicely for a walk round town and the car boot sale in the market place, and we rewarded ourselves for venturing out with cream cakes for lunch!

After that we did a little DIY at the house, then went for a lovely walk in the woods with the dogs. I so love this time of year, with all the stunning golden leaves, and so being in the woods was just wonderful. We did a little shopping after that, then headed home for a hearty sausage casserole for supper before watching Black Adder on the sofa under blankets, whilst I did a little knitting. Pretty perfect Sunday actually!

How did you use your ‘extra hour’? Hope you had a wonderful weekend!

Ems x

Blue Wool Hand Dyed Scarves By Jenne Rayburn

Needless to say, it did rain. And at times the wind blew so hard Josh had to stand in the middle of the tent and hold it down. Yes, we had at least 25 pounds of weights on each tent post, but at a certain point it doesn’t matter. Incidentally, at our first craft show this year, a two-day affair, we encountered a “microburst” which is similar to a tornado, characterized by a quick burst of high winds. We saw it coming at about 3 pm of the first afternoon and we packed in a hurry, taking all our products with us. Many venders left everything. We arrived the next morning to discover that the tent across from us, which sold knitted hats and accessories, was completely blown away and most of the hats were up in the surrounding trees. Many other tents had been blown into the trees as well.

Carmel Leather Clutch With Antler Clasp By Jenne Rayburn

We started the season with a tornado and ended with a hurricane! When you factor in the time it takes to do a show, the incidental costs such as food, gas, advertising, etc., the cost of the space, and then the potential of loss due to weather or other uncontrollable events (earlier this year we were at a market where a sick dog pooped in the middle of an aisle, impacting four vender booths – it was one stinky mess!) one wonders if it is a viable way to make a living. Posing this question to other craft artists, musing on the revenue one should expect to bring in at a show, I got this response: Back in the 1990’s, if your expenses totaled only 10% of sales, then you’re in good shape (i.e. booth cost $100, sales were $1000). Nowadays, it’s more like 25% (booth cost $100, sales $400). Ofcourse, it depends on the state of the economy, how the work fits with the aesthetic of the show, the price point of the work as well as the size and location of the show. And, I know you can’t forget about post-show sales.  People will remember you, even if they aren’t ready to buy at the show. Nonetheless, if you do the math and you gross $400 in one day, subtract for the booth, overhead, cost of materials, etc. – you make roughly $200 for about 10 hours of work at the show, to say nothing of the work it took to create the products. Wow.

Metalic Gray Embossed Leather Clutch With Antler Clasp By Jenne Rayburn

A few weeks ago we finally watched the movie Singin In The Rain. We loved it, our kids loved it, and as we stood in the rain and wind, trying to be happy, we channeled Gene Kelly and sang the title song. I think I will put it on right now… (Actually I am going to find Kelly Clarkston so I can listen to What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. After that I might put on Bon Jovi Its My Life.)  Integrity !  Always, Integrity !

Cotton Trimmed Scarves By Jenne Rayburn

Jenne Rayburn SoWa Craft Booth – Before It Started To Rain

A late night at my desk finishing off some necklaces and earrings. © Katrina Newman

The eyes show that it was a late night of tidying up and finishing off some new pieces for Somers Arts Fair.  The marquee is now in place, some last-minute cleaning to do and we’ll be set up for tomorrows start at 10am. You’ll find me right next to the flag pole at the front entrance. I’m looking forward to seeing you there. Somers Arts Fair is held each year at the Somers Primary School in Camp Hill Road Somers. Click here for details

Finished lampworked glass beads awaiting the final assembly. © Katrina Newman

The good thing is I’ll have my very own little studio. A small room with shelves lining the walls and a desk running under a bright sunny window. I can’t wait to get everything set up and organised. Finally everything will have it’s place and I can feel like I finally know where everything is.  As soon as it’s all set up, I’ll post a picture. But for now, I have a picture of Charlie’s favourite part of the new house, the pond! Here is he meditating.

Then the next exciting step is my first ever market. And why start small, I’ve jumped in with a big leap to a huge event, Boutique Market combined with Mathilda’s Market is a huge Christmas event at Caulfield  Racecourse in Melbourne. These markets celebrate the best local talent in art, craft and design with retailers handpicked to ensure exquisite products that are genuinely handmade or from a small production line. I was chuffed to be accepted on my first application, apparently it can take awhile. The market is on Sunday the 25th November. If you’re in Melbourne, come along! Here is the link to full details of the market: Boutique Market

I was beyond excited when one of my best friends asked me to create a business card for her. She just needed her name and email address but I went a little further then that. Her buisness name is “Paprika” which is a nickname she’s had for most of her life. She makes really bright, poppy, fun baby accessories, clothing, and toys as well as super funky women’s clothing, home dec and well I’ll stop listing as I’m sure I can’t get them all. Anyhow, her work is great, vibrant and full of life; much like her. I couldn’t resist the fiesta inspired tagline, logo, and banners. She just wrote me the other day asking how to order more cards – 200 gone in one year! Not bad for a spicy little crafter. Wishing her loads of success in this upcoming holiday market season! Want to see more of her work? She too will be at this year’s Freedom Holiday Market December 8th in Old Town Fort Collins at the Bean Cycle Cafe & Wolverine Farm Bookstore.

For those of you with a jewellery business this should be a busy time. Alternatively, if you have been thinking about setting up a jewellery business, now is a good time to try a stall at a local school etc to get an idea if what you are making will sell.

Over the next few weeks LJS tutor Anna Campbell will be offering advice to help you prepare for a bumper Christmas for your jewellery business.

Craft fairs and markets

LJS tutor Chu Mei’s beautiful stall for her business Grace and Firefly at We Make London handmade market, Old Spitalfields market

Christmas craft fairs and markets can be a great source of income and are fun to do. Keep an eye out in your local press for fairs in your area in schools, community halls, markets etc. Also, have a look at stallfinder, an online resource for searching for stalls by area.

Do a bit of research before you commit yourself to a stall. Find out where they are advertising their event as more advertising should equal more customers. Ask around and see if other crafters feel that it is a good event to go to.

Craft fairs and markets can be a bit hit and miss. They can be very lucrative one year and not the next so it can be a risk. Bear this in mind when budgeting for your stall and perhaps share a stall with another crafter to spread the cost.

Preparing your stall

If you decide to do a stall you need to think carefully about how to make it attractive to potential customers. Make sure you find out exactly what is provided by the organisers e.g. how large the table is, do you get a table cloth, is there power for extra lights? When you know what is provided you can start to plan what you will need to take.

Stock

It is really hard to gauge how much you will need, so be realistic about what you can make in the time you have before the event. Ensure you stick within your budget for materials e.g. beads, findings etc.

Prices

These can be on handwritten notices. A lot of potential customers don’t like to ask the price of items so make sure they are clearly displayed.

Your display

Think carefully about how you will display your jewellery. Do you need to buy a bust to put a necklace on? Do you need a stand for earrings? Have a look online to see what you can get e.g. on eBay, at Cooksons etc.

Once you’ve got some inspiration for your display think about what you already have at home that you can use to show off your work. I have a pretty jewellery stand on my bedside table that I take to markets. A jewellery box with your pieces in it makes a lovely display. And don’t forget to take a good sized mirror so that people can try pieces on.

Consider using boxes or stands to add some height to your stall. It stops everything being on one level and means that people can see your pieces from a distance which can attract people to your stall.

Practice setting up your stall on a table at home. It is easy to forget something obvious and this will help you identify this when you’re still at home.

Remember some change and a secure money purse/belt. And a calculator is essential if mental arithmetic isn’t your strong point!

Comfort

Make sure you wear warm clothes, take a camping chair and a flask of tea! Organise for someone to come and take over from you at some point during the day so you can go to the loo!

Have fun!

Hopefully you’ll have a busy day but if not, ensure you take something from the day by chatting to other crafters and makers; get networking! It is a great opportunity to connect with like-minded people from your area and could lead to other opportunities to collaborate.

Anna Campbell

Anna is an LJS tutor teaching beading classes and PR for your Jewellery Business. She mentors artists and crafters in using social media to promote their businesses for Crafty Websites and runs her own jewellery business, Light Boat Jewellery.

The Old Cromwell Craft Market will be in the lower precinct, Scotts Bake House Courtyard from 9am until 1pm, Sunday, October 21st. This market will be every 3rd Sunday of the summer months, with possibly an extra market close to Christmas.

The Central Otago Farmers’ Market will be in the upper precinct from 9am until 1pm, every Sunday thru the summer months until February.

Come on out to the Cromwell Heritage Precinct today to have a coffee and a lolly while perusing the unique shops and galleries!

We look forward to seeing you here.

Minti the horse