handmade

The next handmade fair is just over 2 weeks away. I've had a lot of time to sew as I've been laid up with a bad back, so have sewn for a couple of hours most days to keep myself busy. The new woodland animal designs have done well on etsy; I sold the fox brooch and the mallard, so I've been making more of those for the fair. This is the amazing poster for the event by Kristyna Baczynski...

And the facebook event page is here
I'm excited, I just hope that people come! xx

the biz!

I'm not great at the business part of my crafting. I've been organising craft fairs a couple of times a year for about 3 years now, and have managed to make a small profit from the table fees each time, mostly because I managed to hire the venue for free. But this time I'm paying for the venue, and although it's a small charge I've also spent a lot on posters and flyers, and have had to buy some more tables because of a muddle-up, and I've kept table fees low, so I'm going to be paying from my own pocket to put on a craft fair. Eeek. That makes no business sense at all. I hope I sell some wares!

It's also the start of a new business year. I did a tax return last year (for the year before last) for the first time, and made very little profit after all the costs of materials and paying for tables at fairs. I've already done all my paperwork for last year's tax return and am happy to see that I've made considerably more (despite making a loss over the last few months because of this coming craft fair!). If the dream of crafting as a part-time job is to come true then I'll have to get a lot more savvy about profits, and more specifically about pricing. If I'm brutally honest with myself I know that my pricing is all off. I price items according to what I think they're worth/what I'd pay for them. But really I should cost up materials and the time it takes me. And when I do that it becomes obvious that I'm paying myself about £2-3 per hour for labor. I'm not planning on upping my prices at the moment as I don't want my stuff to be over-priced, but it's on the cards in the future. Maybe I could change prices according to where I'm selling items...for example at somes types of fairs I know that low pricing works, but other fairs would suit a slightly higher pricing, and maybe I could experiment with adding £1 to my etsy shop items to see how it effects things. With baby on the way etsy is going to be my sole selling avenue for a while (apart from a couple of brick and mortar shop who sell my items), so I want to get it right.

Money money money!

British Wildlife

Spring is in the air and it's nice to be able to get out into the countryside and enjoy some of Britain's finest wildlife. It's inspired me to make some brooches and finger puppets celebrating some of my favourite creatures. I've even been making a mobile with some "city birds" hanging down (pictures to follow when it's complete), and I've plans to make versions with different birds of prey, and maybe little garden birds.

Here's a set of finger puppets...



And a mallard...



And finally a fox. I've held off making foxes as they're such a favourite with crafters that I thought the market might be saturated, but I couldn't resist giving a brooch a go when I saw how nicely the finger puppets came out. And I think he's pretty darn cute...




All available in my etsy shop here

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