CHRISTMAS CRAFT FAIR 2012

Another great craft fair. A lot of items sold out and I raised 1220.00 euro over the two days for a very worthy charity. All the hard work and extra effort on the stand presentation paid off. I have been offered another craft fair in a couple of weeks so I'm busy replenishing the sold out items.
The following is an idea of what I sold and for how much.

4 Christmas wreaths at 15 euro each
13 Christmas Stockings at 8 euro each
4   gift tags at 2 euro each
1 Advent Calendar at 40 euro
17 ribbon ornaments at 4 euro each
12 sets of tile coasters at 6 euro each
9  Desk notepad and pen at 6 euro each
74 Chocolate Snowmen bars  (Absolutely brilliant sellers. Sold out each day in first hour.2 euro each or 3 for 5
11 Wall coat hangers 8 euro each (reduced some to 6 euro towards end of last day)
63 Magic Reindeer Food 1.50 euro each
19 Fabric covered notice boards 8 euro small and 12 euro large
14 Pincushions 8 euro each
24 Herb Pot markers 4 euro each (reduced to 2 euro at end of last day)
4 Fridge magnets 2 euro each
12 Notebook and pen at 4 euro each  (reduced to 3 euro at end of last day)
11 Gift sets of cards at 6 euro each
5 Clipboards at 6 euro each
7  Santa's Magic Keys at 4 euro each

Hope you enjoy the video. Happy Weekend.

Christmas Craft Fair 2012

Well the car is all packed and ready for my 2012 craft fair. The above photo is one I took this week as I did a quick mock set up in my kitchen! Thanks to my very talented hubby I have a wonderful backdrop for my table. I am really pleased and delighted with the finish. I have made lots of new items this year. I am especially proud of my sewn items.  Do you see the Santa figure sitting in the background. It is from the Tilda range. I had so much fun making it. It will just be used as a prop and will not be for sale. All my stock is kept in big plastic containers hidden under the table and behind the tablecloth !

Fingers crossed now that there is a good turnout at the fair and that the weather improves.  As soon as I get a chance I will blog how the fair went and give more details of the items sold and prices etc.

Happy weekend.

Pincushions for Christmas Craft Fairs using Tilda Fabric

One of my favourite craft designers Melissa Phillips, owner of Lilybeans Paperie creates the most beautiful pincushions. I just adore her work. On a wet winters day a little sunshine lights up my day just by clicking on her blog.  Some of her work is sold at her etsy store here.

I was so enamored with Melissa's pincushions I  had to try and make one of my own  using some of my treasured stash of Tilda fabrics. The Tilda fabrics I used were Tilda Fruit Garden Berrie pink and Molly Pink.

My pincushions do not have as many of the delicate little extras that Melissa added to hers. Enjoying myself  I continued on and  made  forty of them  to sell at this years Christmas fund raising fairs. I am really pleased with how they turned out and hope the Christmas fair visitors will be too. As 100% per cent of the funds raised go to a very worthy charity I hope Melissa does not mind me pincushion lifting hers !

The following photos give a little tutorial on how I made mine.

I laid out a 5.5-inch strip of Tilda fabric( Tilda fabric is 55 -inch wide)  and added lace and ribbon. I sewed it as one piece and then cut it down to 5.5 -inch squares.  

I prepared the same amount of co-ordinating fabric squares.

Pinning right sides facing , added bobbin trimming in between. Then sewed around the outside with 1/2 inch seam allowance and left small opening for turning.

When turned right side out I  pressed each of them to get rid of the creases.

I filled with soft toy filling and sewed up the opening.

Added white felt roses.

and little labels embellished with scraps of Tilda patterned paper.

Lovely bundle of fun.

All packed and ready for fairs.

A Summer Crop

While it was a beautiful sunny day in Dublin today I didn't mind spending some of it indoors. I was attending a local monthly crop. Jackie Campbell, a very talented Irish scrapbook artist gave our group a tutorial on altered art. I made the above altered canvas with her guidance and following her original layout. I was pushed out of my comfort zone as  I mixed colours and painted with my fingers !  It was a thoroughly enjoyable day as we all crafted  with great concentration and happily went on our way with our completed pieces.  I'm delighted with mine. It will make a nice gift for my two little nieces home from the UK for their summer holidays.

I used some papers from the Tilda range - Flowergarden and Christmas House. I mixed acrylic paints to match the patterned papers and Jackie provided the stamps, die cuts, and wording from a range by Theresa Collins

More Tilda by Panduro Hobby - Christmas House and Flowergarden - projects

I spotted these wall rack coat hangers in a local discount store at a reasonable cost and decided to alter some with paper from the lovely TILDA Christmas House and Flowergarden range. The papers are great quality and the designs go well with my plans for my stall display at the Christmas fairs this year. I was pretty pleased with results so carried on making 34 of them. I made a couple of boy racks using paper from K and Company - Rough and Tumble line. The racks cost me 1.50 euro  each and I hope to sell them for approx 8 euro each for charity. Will let you know how I do in December !

For my CRAFT FAIR IDEA followers - some samples and tutorial below.

While I enjoy pottering  away on crafting projects I also like to improve my computer skills. I was inspired by the layout of a tutorial given on Nichole Heady's Papertrey ink blog to go and teach myself how to prepare the layouts below. Though I think I need a bit longer to learn how to take better photos. Bare with me it might be a while ! 

Supplies:

Patterned paper by Tilda (Panduro Hobby) Christmas House and Flowergarden ranges,

Mod Podge - gloss

Pink ribbon from stash

Go Kreate label die

Farrow and Ball emulsion paints

Papertrey April Blog Hop Challenge

The inspiration for the challenge was from the following photo.

Well HELLO there !

Having had a VERY VERY  busy few weeks leading up to Christmas with last minute crafting for the craft fairs I am only getting back now to blogging. Thankfully all the hectic preparations and extra work for the fairs paid off and I raised 2002.30 euro for SVP Ireland (Dublin branch). A big sincere thank you to all my crafting buddies in Ireland for your support, motivation and encouragement.

I am back with this notebook cum desk note pad. I was shown this  idea of using an easel card on the top of the notebook by a crafting buddy. She had  learnt it at a card making class http://jackiesworkshops.blogspot.com/ here in Dublin. I adapted it to work on the long skinny notebooks as these are my favourite. For this sample I used my Tesco notebooks ( I just could n't open my little treasured set of  Papertrey Ink ones !)

I have prepared this project to partake in the Papertrey Ink April 2012 Blog Hop. I promised myself no matter what happened this week I was going to join in. I got inspiration for the top of the notebook from http://lilybeanpaperie.typepad.com/lilybeans_paperie/.  I hope you enjoy.

Papertrey Ink items used :   sentiment from Daydreamer Set and green felt.
Patterned papers from Flowergarden paper pad by Tilda, ribbons and lace from stash. Trinket pin made from fancy beads and long sewing pins.