Too organised?

Here we are at 9:20pm on Friday night… 36 hours before our craft fair in Weston Coyney Village Hall, Stoke-on-Trent and I feel surprisingly calm, relaxed and organised which really isn’t like me at all… usually I’m rushing around ten minutes before I need to leave the house trying to get everything sorted out lol.

Boxed up are:

* Greetings cards
* Keepsake cards
* Candles
* Crochet Blankets
* Crochet Hats
* Card Making Kits

I have my ‘craft fair box’ which goes behind my cards stand and has a highlighter, pens, paperclips, safety pins, blue tack, sellotape, scissors and my calculator. Beside that I’ve got my notebook.

My table top card stands and floor standing carousel are ready just to be put in the car on Sunday morning and I’ve got my change sorted out for my money tin.

I’ve got my candle info sheets printed and in a folder beside the stand for those and my business cards are with their holder. I’ve got table cloths and my banner sorted.

Tables and chairs are being provided at the venue so we don’t need to worry about those.

Hmm… I feel far too organised… I’m sure I must have forgotten something… any ideas what???

Wednesday words

Well, we’re half way through the week and ten days away from our first craft fair of the year.

So far this week we have seen lots of inspiration and motivation, which in turn has meant that both hubby and I have been doing very well with our productivity and have managed to create lots of cards and candles this week… although these have been for an order.

We need to get working on our stock cards and candles too otherwise we’ll have nothing to take to the craft fair next week which would be a total nightmare but I’m confident that we’ll get it all done without too much stressing!!

The sun is shining this morning and we’ve got all the windows open to the sounds of people mowing their lawns which shows that Spring is here… lovely

Let’s hope the positivity, productivity and sunshine continues!!!

Thank You Autumn Rose Crafts

Well, deliveries have been aplenty here this morning and my next exciting parcel was hand delivered by Sarah of Autumn Rose Craft’s hubby… excellent service!!!

What was inside the parcel? Some gorgeous fabrics which I’m not too sure what I plan to make with them but with my recent sewing machine purchase then I need to start getting some fabric so here is my first batch and I can’t wait to start creating.

Sarah has some gorgeous pieces available on her website so why not pop over and have a look at Autumn Rose Crafts, I’m sure you won’t be disappointed!!

Thank you Moonbeam Mosaics!

Well, this mornings first thank you is to the lovely Diane at Moonbeam Mosaics… I ordered this beautiful Unicorn mosaic which has arrived this morning and it’s absolutely stunning, the photograph really doesn’t do it justice!!

Diane’s work is superb… she is a very talented lady, so if you’re looking for that extra special gift then give her a shout I’m sure she’ll be able to help you!!

You’ve Passed!!

At the moment I’m working on a range of cards for ‘Congratulations You’ve Passed Your Driving Test’ – here are the first two that I’ve made… the red is the girl and blue a boy. Let me know what you think.

My Ideal Lifestyle

I’ve just been reading a post on the Crafts Forum which got me thinking… a fellow member has asked for people’s thoughts on the ideal lifestyle, so I thought I’d share my thoughts with you all.

If money were no object, I would love to be able to buy a large property, perhaps a barn conversion or something similar… somewhere with a acres of land, perhaps like this:

In an ideal world, our property would be located on the Isle of Arran as not only is there some beautiful scenery surrounding the island but I also have a lot of family history there, and I would love to go back to the place my Grandparents, their family and my parents spent so much time growing up.

Within our property we would have all the usual kitchen, diningroom, livingroom, bathroom, shower room, my office/craft room, hubby’s candle workshop as well as a nice hot tub in a conservatory to relax by candle light in the evenings. We would have a ‘relaxation’ room filled with soft lighting, soft music and a huge tropical fish tank. We’d look into solar power and wind turbines, etc too

Outdoors within our land I’d like to grow our own vegetables, perhaps have some livestock and a section as a nature reserve to encourage the local wildlife. We’d have an automotive workshop for hubby’s car and motorbike projects too. I’d also make sure to have a secure outdoor enclosure for our dogs and would no doubt have more than our current two dogs!! We would also like to look into either a B&B within our property or self contained holiday cottages depending on the demand and available land, etc.

We could run craft classes from our workshops… cardmaking, candle making, etc and pehaps open a small shop selling our handmade wares. Of course we would make sure we had plenty of space for when we hear the pitter patter of tiny feet (hopefully one day) and for all those visitors that we’d no doubt have!!

Our days would be spent tending to our veggies, livestock, pets, home and garden in between carrying on our crafting and if we were lucky enough, hosting some lovely guests to our accomodation and shop.

Looking around the Isle of Arran and the possibilities that are there for what we’d like to do one day, it definitely makes me stop and think “this is the life”… perhaps when we win the lottery but until then we’ll have to keep dreaming and perhaps one day our dreams will come true.

So… what would be your ideal life/lifestyle?

Just Another Manic Monday

Here we are… Monday again… time passes yet the ‘to do’ list doesn’t get any shorter!!

Anyway, we’ve got lots to do in the next two weeks but I’ve decided to split our big order down into more manageable sized sections otherwise I don’t think I’ll ever get through it. Also got a couple of smaller orders that came through at the weekend so need to crack on with those.

To summarise our to-do list for the next few days, we have got to:

* Finish and post a baby blanket

* Finish and post a mothers day card and two birthday cards (same customer)

* Finish and post an anniversary bookatrix keepsake card (awaiting payment!!)

* Package and sort out all ’stock’ cards which have been made then stock take to see what else needs done for the forthcoming craft fairs.

* Make six pagan/spiritual/gothic anniversary cards

* Make one pagan/spiritual/gothic birthday card

* Make six pagan/spiritual/gothic congratulations cards

* Make four pagan/spiritual/gothic sympathy cards

* Make six pagan/spiritual/gothic Easter cards

* Make six pagan/spiritual/gothic Fathers Day cards

* Make three pagan/spiritual/gothic get well soon cards

* Make five pagan/spiritual/gothic good luck cards

* Make four pagan/spiritual/gothic new baby cards (two boy and two girl)

* Make five pagan/spiritual/gothic retirement cards

* Make three pagan/spiritual/gothic thank you cards

* Make five pagan/spiritual/gothic wedding cards

On top of all of this we need to sort out more advertising for the craft fair on 29th March 2009, parcel up a few things and get those sent off (family birthday cards, pressies, etc), start working on hubby’s birthday present, try to get hubby back on his feet so he can work on his candle orders otherwise I’ll end up taking over that as well which I really don’t want to do!!

At the moment I’m looking for the recipe to 48 hour days or else the “how to stay awake for days on end” and “no sleep survival guide” … so much to be doing and I just don’t know how I’m supposed to manage to get it all done!!! Noth to worry, better to be busy than have nothing to do!!

Manic Monday

What a busy day it’s been today – thankfully everything went pretty much to plan and I got quite a lot done. Managed to make about twenty cards for our stock, need lots more for the craft fair and website though! And also made a start on the wholesale order that we have, in between some sketching and updating our website, as well as catching up with emails – have spent the whole day closed away in my craft room and it’s now just after 1am!! Thankfully hubby has been working on his wholesale candle order so he doesn’t feel too neglected lol.

Just finishing off the updates on Cards & Candles For All Occasions then I’m going to call it a night and head off to bed to hopefully get some sleep before I do it all over again tomorrow… lots of ideas, lots of cards to make for orders and the craft fair and not enough hours in the day but we’ll get there!!

Night all xxx

The end of a week, the start of a month

Here we are on the evening of Sunday 1st March 2009, where have the last two months gone? This year has got off to a rather turbulent start but things are slowly starting to look up. We have a couple of big orders in at the moment for cards and candles which are keeping us really busy and on top of that we need to get making some stock for our first craft fair of the year on Sunday 29th March… four weeks today, so at the moment it’s all systems go-go-go!!

Healthwise, it has now been six weeks since my surgery so I’m slowly trying to introduce normal foods back into my daily routine and hopefully now I’ll be able to start getting some exercise too to shift those excess pounds but time will tell. My depression is relatively mediocre at the moment, highs and lows… trying to stay on a level pegging at the moment though to work through everything that we’ve got going on as I could really do without any kind of breakdown lol.

Craftwise there is quite a lot going on just now… I’ve been doing a lot more drawing just lately so have uploaded a few examples of my drawings and paintings to our website if you’d like to have a look – all feedback is greatly appreciated as I know I’m no great artist!!

Last week I was asked to make a bookatrix card by a friend for a ’special sister’ who is a great cat lover, so here is what I came up with… they loved it, what do you think?

At the moment we have an order for over 150 pagan, spiritual, wiccan and gothic cards that we’re in the process of working on which is great fun as it is something totally different from the sort of images we would normally have chosen but I’m really enjoying this commission. In between working on this order and the smaller day to day orders that we are receiving, we are working frantically trying to build up stock for our website and forthcoming craft fair so we’ve definitely got plenty to keep us busy.

Does that stop me from thinking up new projects? Nooo… don’t be silly!!

Last week I took delivery of some gorgeous buttons from Peggy Crafts – I have no idea what I’m going to use my lovely new buttons for but I just fell in love with them and had to have them, since they arrived I’ve bought a few more really interesting and unusual buttons from our local craft shop… I’m gathering quite a selection, now I need to do something with them!!

Saturday morning brought the delivery of my nice new sewing machine… just a mini sewing machine that I’ve bought from Ebay but I thought it’d be ideal for trying out a few smaller projects before I decide if it would be worth my while investing in a full size machine. Perhaps I could incorporate my button selection into one of my sewing machine-fabric projects.

I have also just received some gorgeous fabric samples from Giesse Scampoli, Birmingham – the fabrics are divine, and so many to chose from! Once I’ve got all of our orders up to date then I’ll have to sit down and sort out which fabrics I want to order before they all sell out as I’m sure they won’t last forever!! Here is a quick swatch at the samples:

And a lovely friend has given me some material samples to try out too… not sure what I’ll do with these are they are relatively thick and not very flexible, I’m sure I’ll come up with something though:

So as you can see we’re being kept really busy at the moment and have lots to be going on with, in my wisdom I also started a new painting this morning – I have a habit of starting things at the most inconvenient times!! Not to worry, we’ll get everything finished in it’s own time then we’ll wonder what all the fuss was about!!

Hope everyone has a wonderful March and all of you who are getting back into the craft fairs for the year, good luck… here’s hoping they are a success for everyone!!