Markets In the Wet

Today's market featured a guest that can be nice sometimes but spoils outdoor events, rain.

As we arrived it was dry (picture above was taken exactly 2 minutes before the rain began) and not too cold and we thought it would be a good day, but alas it began to spit and continued to spit on and off all morning. This of course meant that the crowds were smaller than usual, and most of those there were hurrying along under umbrellas and only stopping to go into actual buildings or to buy food.

However, while I did have my lowest number of customers ever, one wonderful woman saved the day for me by buying...SEVEN of my cards. Wow. I hope she enjoys them. Thanks to her it was another profitable market adventure, and I must get cracking on making lots more before I have the next market, which I believe would be the 8th of August. I do have two assignments coming up that month but I'll balance them out as best as I can and see how we go.

Before this market day I managed to make eleven cards, which was good, and six of them are baby bootie cards, only one of which actually sold today, but oh well, I've got them for next time I guess.

These are the baby bootie cards, in 'its a boy' and 'its a girl' varieties, I also have ones that just say 'congratulations' and are in non-gender specific colours for those who are giving them at baby showers or perhaps to a grandparent rather than the parents.

This cute little flamingo has gone off to a new home already.

This bunch of roses has also already been bought...

...As has this tree.

It wasn't a brilliant day seeing as the rain came and the sun never showed, but it was still a pretty good day seeing as both me and my market buddy made profits. So we'll be back on the 8th with rings on our fingers and bells on our toes. But the rain is not invited and will be very unwelcome if it shows up. Rain rain go away, Please don't come on market day!

Whatever craft you do, go do some!

xnata

Bags, Lessons and Markets

Well, I forgot my camera (again) on Sunday, but it was a great day at the markets!

I broke my record on profits (only by $5), but not on number of sales, 17 is still the winner there. It was a really nice day, not too windy, and while it was very cold when we first arrived, the sun warmed us up and it was lovely.

We had an unusually large number of requests for baby related cards, so I'm trying to get lots of those ready for this Sunday! Yes, that's right, this is our one off two weeks in a row at the markets! Next month we'll be back to the usual once a fortnight deal of every 2nd and 4th Sunday.

I like to learn and improve on my efforts when it comes to the markets, and do whatever I can to make it a smooth and easy service for both me and any of the customers. And on Sunday I made a final decision on one thing: my cash box was not working well. As brilliant and handy as it was in the beginning, (made by my husband back in his high school days), the bending down out of sight of the shoppers to fiddle, and the fact that it had no divisional compartments, and trying to get the right money out of the little sealed bags I had in there, was all just too time consuming and inaccurate. I felt like it all goes smoothly until someone hands me money, and then my salesmanship is replaced by an awkward clumsiness that undermines the whole transaction.

So I had a bit of a think about possible solutions, ruled out a cash box all together, ruled out the 'bum bag' look, I simply can't pull that off, and decided that what I needed was basically a wallet on a handbag strap. A small bag with lots of handy compartments to separate the silver from the gold, the pink from the blue, the red from the yellow. I did not know if such a devise existed, but yesterday I set out with my determined face on and lo and behold, I found something!

On SALE no less!

It is small, simple and cheap, yet not ugly! There's a combination that agrees with my wallet. So I've handed the cash box back to its real owner and divided up all the coins and notes in this little cutie.

I've adjusted the strap so that it fits comfortably across my body, and the husband likes it so it officially has been welcomed into my world. (note the beige door it's hanging on, right next to the beige wall? Yeah, THAT'S why I'm painting this place)

I also bought myself a very cute jumper that I've had my eye on, which I will be wearing at the markets this Sunday, AND, I stopped in at my favourite scrapbooking shop to find that they were having a sale, and that what I wanted was 20% off. A perfect shopping day.

Today I'll be making some baby cards as highly requested, and continuing the painting of the trim of my house. On the subject of the painting I've learned a lot from this experience and all the parts I've fully completed look wonderful, but in future I will paint the trim first, then the walls. Not that it hasn't worked the other way, it's just caused me stress that I didn't need at that moment when you have to pull the masking tape off. Once I've finished the trim of the living/dining area, I'll be moving on to the painting of the bedroom, and the husband and I will set up camp on the fold out couch for a couple of nights.

And lastly, once again I had several requests for lessons throughout the market day, so now I just need a place and a source for the tools of quilling, preferably at wholesale to keep it an affordable lesson for all these future students. *sigh* So the search continues for that part. The last place I looked at was very promising, until I found out it went out of business four years ago and just never closed its darn website.

See you at the markets on the 25th!

xnata

Eye Candy

Tomorrow we'll be down at the Petrie Markets once more, and I have made lots of cards in preparation, though not nearly as many as I wanted to have done, but there's not much I can do about that at this late stage. In the last week I've painted the walls of the dining, lounge and hallway areas of our house, and I did such a good job that now my husband wants me to do the whole rest of the house 0_o. This has taken up a lot of my time, thus leaving me only one full day to try to quill as much stuff as possible. But hopefully the items I have made are enough and we have another lovely day at the markets.

Come and see us please, we love our customers and friends :)

Now I'll quickly show you some of what will be on offer, and remember, if you want it you need to come to the markets to get it because the early bird catches the worm!

Speaking of birds...

He's so tweet.

And for the Christmas in July theme I've made a whole bunch of these gift tags:

Then there's a very girly rose card that looks like it'd be perfect for a girl with attitude:

And some lolly cards...

and some dragonfly and butterfly cards...

I love these long skinny cards and want to make more, but they are sooo expensive compared to the ones I usually use. Must seek out a source for them at a much cheaper rate, because these have turned out so very well that I desperately want to make them again.

These and much more will be with me at the markets tomorrow, and then we'll be there again the Sunday after, so next week I'll be making lots more cards to keep my stocks up, so watch this space for more pretties.

One last thing before I rush off to my saturday night plans - I've had a lot of requests for teaching quilling when I've been at the markets and other places, and I am attempting to find a way to make that possible I promise. If you are one of the people that wants me to do this, keep checking this site regularly and hopefully I will soon have the resources and a venue to be able to do this with you!

See you tomorrow!

xnata

Wordless Wednesday

xnata

It's Christmas in July!

That's right, the theme of our special market day on the 18th of July is Christmas in July! Yay!

I love Christmas, it is such a joyous occasion, but we here in Australia don't get to enjoy a traditional Christmas in July, all rugged up in beanies and scarves, making snowmen, eating cookies and milk by the fire. Here in Queensland it's even worse, because it doesn't snow here at all! But someone, I don't know who, invented Christmas in July just so that we can enjoy Christmas from the perspective of those on the other side of the hemisphere. So no koalas in christmas hats or santa wearing thongs and boardshorts this month!

At our special Christmas in July market stall I'll be displaying the cards about the cold Christmas only. Here's just three of the ones I've made so far:

We have a dapper little snowman in scarf, top hat and two types of cane. His little carrot nose really does stick out like a carrot!

Then there's the fully decorated Christmas tree, complete with tinsel, coloured baubles, and star. Very festive.

And finally, the favourite of the Christmas collection thus far, a wintery Christmas scene. The fire is going, there's snow falling outside the window, and the lights and Christmas tree stand out in this warming scene. There's gifts under the tree and cookies and milk on the fireplace's mantle. Looks like a great place to be doesn't it?

So there you go, Christmas in July is our special event! There'll be more like this and plenty of my non-Christmas stuff there too. Come down in your scarf and hat and buy some Christmassy goodies, and keep them to enjoy in December!

Oh the weather outside is frightful,

xnata

(signoff - Let it snow by Dean Martin)

A Whale of a Time

No, this isn't about our special market day's theme. Sorry, will post about that in the next couple of days I pinky promise.

I have started work on things for that special market day, but I've also been creating more cards that are not of any specific theme. And I'm afraid I've gone and made something I don't want to give away : (

I will put it on sale, I will be brave and sell it to someone who will give it a good home....and then I'll make myself a copy, probably a framed one rather than a card, and keep that one. Oh the pain of liking the things you are supposed to sell.

Do you want to see what it is?

Is that a yes?

Scroll and behold my friends

Isn't he tooooo cuuuuuute??!!

Oh I love him.

Now, I know that some people may be thinking "what on earth would anyone want with a card with a great big whale on it?" but I have several answers to that. I think it would be a good baby card, or a bon voyage type card, you could write 'have a whale of a time' inside, which could apply to a birthday card or any other happy occasion. I am definitely going to make a couple of him but in frames next, as I think it'd make a great decoration for a nursery.

As the paper has him in different colours I might do that too. The paper in the background is obviously the inspiration there, and I got that from my favourite scrapbooking shop "Paper Addiction", and there was a whole line in this theme and I loved it so much it took forever to pick just one page out of the selection...I might go back and get one or two of the others actually... Yep, I am addicted.

That's just one strip of the page, on the rest of it there are dolphins and starfish and tropical fish, all of which I hope to recreate in quilling! THESE are the sort of projects that I really love to do, it took longer than most of my designs but the result is so worth it. I intend to branch out to all sorts of animals too.

Where there's a will there's a whalebone,

xnata

(signoff - Where there's a will there's a whalebone by Islands - not the best song but good title)