All the fun of the (CRAFT) Fair

I attended a brilliant craft fair yesterday, which was superbly well organised and publicised by Jacqueline of JAustenJewelleryDesign, in Kingsclere Hants. In a previous life I used to have to recruit people for courses and that involved alot of work publicising them - so I take my hat off to anyone who has worked as hard as Jacqueline and her family obviously did in getting the word out there!
It was also a fantastic intro to other members of the Folksy team, notably Gemma from DamselflyGemma who kindly provided transport for me and her friend Jen, who's shop name escapes me, and is waiting for all her lovely stock to be uploaded :-) (very red faced here) who helped with all the fetching and carrying. I also finally got to meet Natalie from Nofkants Curio's who showed me her beautiful piece of fordite and raised £17 for RBL and Help for Heroes selling corsages - this will continue in her online shop for the rest of November, so if you've not bought your poppy yet or just want to give a bit more to the brave men and women who are fighting overseas, stop by and buy one!! Marie from Mushy Makes, brought along a huge range of gorgeous Christmas decs and gifts. And last but by no means least, Jessies from Jessie's Crafty Corner, who drove all the way from Plymouth to support her Mum at her first craft fair.There were also some lovely ladies who were running stalls for Naomi House and Cancer Research who I really enjoyed chatting to :-).
Having previously had a negative experience at my first fair somewhere out in the New Forest, I was really nervous the night before, but I had learned from the last time and made sure I was better organised by:

• Making a table skirt and name plate
• Pricing and labelling all items in advance - and of course putting a note on the back re their life stories, hence the large luggage labels
• Having some display boards for the smaller stuff
• Stuffing some of the bags so they were shown off in all their glory
• Using different heights
• Taking something to make that would start a conversation - gloves knitted using the magic loop method :-)

So all in all I had a very successful day and actually made a profit and made another small amount for Pulmonary Hypertension Association UK :-)by selling more of the charity makes - if you're interested in getting involved in their fundraising campaign you can find them HERE

I thought you might like to "share in the experience" - albeit without the lovely coffee and cakes Jacqueline and her family kept us all topped up with :-) and see some of the work that was featured yesterday :-)

1. JAusten Jewellery Design      2. Mushy Makes   3. Damselfly Gemma    4. Nofkants Curio's  
5. Jessie's Crafty Corner            6. Bits and Bobs Crafts

Tomorrow will be a photo's day so will be listing some new stock. Am also going to be busy with an exciting art project this week