Merry Christmas, folks!

baubles with character

I'm not a huge fan of Christmas baubles. I think it's because they're so samey. But these baubles are super cool:

Found here. You could put quotes from your favourite book inside one of them. Or some tiny snowflakes. OR FILL ONE WITH BUTTONS! Oooo now I want to get some and do that. What other cool things would you put inside them?

Christmas Market December 2009

To those of you planning to do a Market/Craft Fair for the first time, a word: there is such a thing as having too much going on.

Unbelievably, up until a couple of days before the event, I still wasn't sure that I had enough things to sell and was concerned that my table was going to look empty.

Oh. Dear.

'Empty' is certainly not a word which could have been used to describe my stall. I actually had so much stuff that I couldn't display it properly. Better to have fewer things and display them well than look like a jumble sale.

However, I only had one table. So I crammed it on. It looked a mess. But it looked a really cool mess. I had a lot of Oooos and Aaaahs and a few, "You do this regularly?". I enjoyed the look of surprise when I said that this was my first. I even got an invite to a craft fair in the Spring! Woop woop indeed.

My bunting kits looked super cool. Disappointingly, the printers who photocopied my little instruction booklets didn't bother to change their ink, so all of the booklets are faded. I couldn't very well ask full price with faded booklets, so I had to reduce them. An actual printing shop?! I was so angry when I got home. Well, angry is a little strong actually. I was in far too much of an exhausted daze to be angry. Mildly irritated would capture it better.

My bags (photographed at home because I forgot on the day). Mr Pippa did a sterling job on cutting out the sticky labels for the bags.

My business cards all pegged onto the branches. (Thank you to my helpers for pegging these.)

Inside those shelves at the back were pots of paint and ceramics for the 'Paint You Own' kits, which went down really well. Someone actually told me off for pricing them too low! How sweet! So, of course, I'll be hiking the prices up for the next fair. Well, we'll see. 

Finally, I got to use my mini easle somewhere. More business cards!

The sock cakes, for the sock monkey kits. I had quite a few people asking if they could just buy some socks. Others said, "Ooo now I need cake". They made me want cake.

The sock creatures got a lot of attention. Some had never heard of a sock monkey before (which, in my world, is like saying you've never heard of a microwave). One crying baby was brought to my stall and stopped crying. Oh yes. My creations have the power to stop babies crying. When the mother took the baby away, he cried again. She brought him back and he stopped, staring at everything. Impressive, eh?

People loved the bunting but I don't think they realised it was for sale (because I had too much stuff). 

This post has inspired me to do a Craft Fair: dos and don'ts post.


In summary: it was great and I made connections and had fun and it was so encouraging to look at the table and see a load of things that I had made (for someone who is ill, that's a big deal). The feedback from people was wonderful. However, I didn't actually make much money. 


(Deleted paragraph about illness and money and Christmas. Just insert your own boring rant here and it'll save me the trouble.)


Even without it being financially worthwhile, it was great to be able to try it out before embarking on anything too large-scale. Maybe I'll do a craft fair in the Spring. Maybe I'll put these things on Folksy (although it's too late in the year for the Christmas sock buddies! I doubt anyone would buy them this close to Christmas).


I would like to find out about craft fairs in my area though. How does one go about doing such a thing? I bet there's a weekly one in my city but I just don't know about it because I never leave the house.


More pictures to be uploaded to Flickr soon...

Christmas presents your friends

I was just given a gift voucher for one of these online 'buy-pointless-tat-from-us-for-all-of-your-relatives-NOW' shops and I actually found some alright things. I was going to blog about them and thought, 'NO. How is this helping the smaller businesses?" So instead, you'll never know what cool things I may have shown you. Apart from this which I really really really love:

So, in the 'let's-help-small-businesses' spirit, here are some of my favourites from Folksy:

It's a camera, but it's felt! Available here from Lupin Handmade. Great name.

Isn't it brilliant?! Pip squeak! That's me! Oh please, someone buy this for me! Find it here from Swirlyarts.

Make tea not war. Find it here from Miso Funky.

Tea cosy available here from Vintage Town.

I honestly didn't intend to have a tea theme, it just happened!

Has anyone else been wasting hours reading the stories from that Clients from Hell blog  since discovering it? No? Me neither.

Clients from Hell

Clients from Hell is  collection of anonymously contributed client horror stories from designers. It's marvellous and I've wasted quite a bit of time reading through their past stories. Here's one of my favourites (find it here):

And some of my other favourites here, here, here and here. Enjoy!

jingle jangle

I bought these as a Christmas present for my sister and I was going to force her to wear them. But then they whispered to me, begging me to turn them into some kind of sock creature.

I gave in.

They even have bells inside so that they jangle*!
*'Tinkle' would be a more accurate description of the sound, but saying that they tinkle when you shake them kind of gives the wrong impression. You get the idea.

This photo was to show the ribbon! They're not being rude. I thought ribbon would be nice so that they could be hung from a tree. Or just played with. 


I don't think I've got time to put them on Folksy though. Maybe next year?


Apologies for the blue photographs. I had my white balance on 'incandescent' - doh!

6 inch curls, honey

While watching Elf a couple of weeks ago, Mr Pippa wanted to make snowflakes (that film seems to have that effect on people, don't you think?). I might have wanted to make snowflakes too if I wasn't trying to finish everything for The Christmas Market. (I did and it was great, but more on that tomorrow. Maybe.)

His first few snowflakes looked like random playing cards. So it was off to the internet for some snowflake templates. Don't these look brilliant?! Snowflakes that actually look like snowflakes! 


I've been taking some time off. Lots of time in bed and staring into space... and trying to catch up on housework. Yesterday, the first few snowflakes went up, along with our Christmas twigs. Christmas twigs? Yes. Twigs. We don't have the space for a Christmas tree so instead, we're using the painted branches I used at the Christmas Market. I feel like I'm sitting in Narnia.

Christmas Market Update

Just one photo for today. 


I can't believe I actually thought I might not have enough stuff to fill a table...

I don't have time to be doing this

I have many, many things to do. 

But Andrea Joseph's first ever zine arrived in the post today and I am so excited about it! 

As I don't have time to take pictures and upload them, here are a few from the old photobooth.

1. This is my excitement on seeing the envelope. This was after I watched out of the window for a bit, willing the postman to come (which worked) and then opened the door and practically snatched the post from him. He thought I was insane, I'm sure.

I don't know why my lips look so red. Must be the sepia. I only wear make-up to weddings and parties. So, that's twice a year then.

2. The envelope within the envelope. There were tears of excitement by this point.

3. THE ZINE! 

And that's all your getting for now. There are more pictures on Andrea's blog. (Much, much better photos.)


I've had the teeniest flick through, but I'm going to save this beauty for after the Christmas Market when I can study every beautiful page. 


Right! Back to work!