Hello friends,
I seem to have been missing in action for a few weeks, but I have been flat out preparing samples and kits for the Canberra Craft Fair that was on for 4 days last week. It is my biggest event of the year and along with my friend Lorraine from Papercraft To Inspire (http://lorrainespencer.blogspot.com.au/) we craft for months preparing for this event.
Once again we had many compliments on our display of wonderful Stampin' Up! products and samples we made to display and sell. Setting up takes us the best part of one day, but eventually it is all worth it. This year we displayed all the Stampin' Up! colour families as stars, creating a galaxy of colour winding across the back of the stall.
Kits were very popular this year and by the end of the 3rd day we had to start taking orders as stock had sold out. that's a pretty good position to be in. I find it really interesting to note the various trends of customer preferences - each year it changes a little and it is challenging to guess what will be our best selling items.
We were quite distressed to notice before the show opened that the Stampin' Up! sign had been printed incorrectly, and I had to try to re-create the background of the sign to get rid of the offending "g" at the end of Stampin'. It looked awful, but nothing else could be done about it.
As well as selling our creations we each present a Make and Take class. This year I did a class on a Shaker Card and one of my favourite Christmas ornaments. The classes were very popular and resulted in more sales for us. As an ex school teacher, I love the teaching part of crafting and find sharing my knowledge of these techniques lots of fun.
Interactive cards are right on trend now and the class participants loved them. Many of them went away with ambitions to create more for themselves at home. Mission accomplished!
The ornament presented some problems because of our time limits and glue drying, but I had prepared them to the stage of pegging and gluing the patterns and decided in the interests of the class following me, that I would not provide glitter, so we just managed to squeeze everything in.
It is now time for us to continue preparations for our stall at the Old Bus Depot Markets here in Canberra. We have a lovely client base that visits us each year and Christmas items are very popular.
Better get busy!
Until Next Time
Happy Crafting!
