Archive for October, 2009

the flower girl

Well, hello there.  I’m back from Rome safe and sound and have plenty of photos to bore you with.  But for now, two photos from John’s sister’s wedding a few weeks ago.  Remember I’ve told you about John’s mum’s shaky health in the past, including her many heart attacks and miscellaneous ailments?  Well none of them were present when John’s sister threw her bouquet for the ’single’ girls.  As the brother of the groom commented, look at her go…

For those of you who haven’t guessed, she’s the lady in polka dots with a steely glint of determination in her eye x

shamless sister promotion

Firstly, thank you all for your kind words on my last post.  I’m certainly looking at the horse appraisingly if not quite back on the saddle yet.

And now for some shameless promotion of my sister’s new etsy shop,

Set of 2 Christmas Cards, Kawaii Girl in Dress

I think my sister is rather ace.  She makes hand-made cards for people who wouldn’t ordinarily buy handmade cards.  This means lots of manga and skulls and cute little Japanese inspired stuff.

Two Owls 'With Love' Note Card

Can you see why I couldn’t get my head round our hardly selling anything?! Positive thoughts, positive thoughts…

Set of 3 Mini Skull and Cross Bone/ Poker themed Notecards

Go and totally check her shop out, you won’t be disappointed.  Feel free to buy as much as your heart desires.

Set of 3 Kawaii Dinasaur Mini Note Cards

In other news, I have one more day at work until half term and I will be spending tomorrow afternoon watching my sixth form students horror shorts and giving out what we decided today to call ’slightly overcooked love’  or ‘boiled love’ rather than the tough love that tends to upset.  And then on Sunday I’m off to Rome for five days which all in all means that I really haven’t got anything to grumble about… x

craft fair rejects

Is it a craft show tradition that your first one should be a complete and utter failure?  Someone say it is, because mine was, it was on Saturday and boy, it stank.

stacking pots by you.

Of course it didn’t help that even though we’d booked it on the understanding that it was a handmade christmas craft fair only to find out that of the 20 plus stalls there only three were selling handmade and the rest antiques and mass produced chintz.  Or that the organisers of the fair were charging people to come in and so discouraging a number of people from even coming in to look. 

heart pin by you.

So we made enough between us – my mum, sister and I – to buy a Chinese for us all before John and I made the tiring trip back to Liverpool at 8 o’clock.  A Chinese is all well and good but it hardly compensates for weeks worth of sewing and embroidery through rain, shine, work and the flu.  I guess it was just completely the wrong market.  Wrong stalls, wrong location, wrong organisers.  We know for next time.

reuseable lunch bag by you.

So the question now is, what next?  There’s a couple of fairs in Liverpool next month and in December so I may give them a go.  It’s just so gosh darn disheartening to not even have people stop to have a look, just to walk straight past. 

trick or treat bag by you.

I’m just feeling blue I think because that craft fair came on top of a £250 catalytic converter, a rubbish time at work and John sitting on our bed this morning to have it collapse under his and Donald’s combined weight.  Still, everything I failed to sell has now been listed on Etsy and tomorrow after all, is another day.  I just hope it doesn’t rain x

(I’ve just re-read what I’ve written I realised I sound an awful lot like Droopy Dog.  To paraphrase another cartoon dog’s friend, good grief.)


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I Took The Handmade Pledge! BuyHandmade.org