Sunday 2 December 2012

Craft Fair Number One

Rebejoo may still be young, but Christmas is coming (it's December so I'm now ready to acknowledge it) and yesterday - after a bit of umming-and-ahing on my part - was my first ever craft fair as a seller. It was also the first organised by local maker 'Queenie', along with a 'pop-up pub' courtesy of the Hampshire-based Hog 'n' Hops (which includes a brewer from the rightly famous Flowerpots), making it the wonderfully tempting 'Christmas Craft & Ale Fair'. I really had to go - and it was all of about a minute's walk from my house - it doesn't get much more local than that...

It being new an' all, I really didn't have much of an idea bout how popular it would be - would people turn up? If so, would they buy things? Much excitement, some trepidation. However, it didn't take long for punters to start appearing - and buying - and I think this was in large part due to some seriously good advertising by Queenie and her many festive elves - banners around the area, posters in pubs and shops, well-designed (by Duncan Wilson) cards through doors rather than badly photocopied fliers, plus some major social networking effort. Also, it was great to see a fair populated by genuine local craftspeople - as well as jewellery, there was graphic design (cards and posters), fabrics and cakes, among other things, but no tat shipped around the world to be resold, and all the stallholders live nearby. Bishopstoke may have been engulfed by Eastleigh in many ways, but it's still got a lot of village in it.
My first craft fair stall, ready to go! Includes honey made by Paul who lives just round the corner and kindly lent me the table. All the honey went...
Once things got going, it was fascinating to see which items people liked - I've recently started making ear-rings and these were very popular. That wasn't too surprising - I think they are pretty (OK, I know, I'm biased) and they make small, affordable gifts - plus I can make them at the stall. What I found more surprising was the popularity of stick-pins - I'd been making them to see how they came out, and was pleased with them, but I hadn't thought many people still wore them. Apparently I was wrong! I did think the cloth gift-bags would be really popular - a few went, but not so many, though my dad has now got the checked one in the photo - as a replacement bag for Scrabble tiles.
Stick-pins on their stand (which used to be a VHS cassette reel)
The steampunk pendants and brooches got a lot of attention (and some are off to new homes), and although the style is not what everyone might want to wear, it's something I'm going to keep on making - when the right people come along, they do seem to love them, and they keep challenging my creativity and metal-working skills, which has got to be good.

So, a great day - not just in terms of selling my shiny wares (more than I bought from other stalls, hurrah), but also socially. I bumped into an old school friend I haven't seen in a decade who it turns out lives mere minutes away, met some excellent local crafters (lots of mutual facebook liking followed!) and had a great celebratory (beer, rum, hic) time at the pop-up pub that the fair was transformed into for the evening, complete with the band Scallywag who were splendidly entertaining and re-formed for the event from what I gather. It went well from Queenie's POV too, so I hope that it's just the first of many - I fully intend to be there...
More of the stall - I'm gonna need a bigger board...

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