Parties and Family

So this weekend we went down to Mums as it was my stepdads 60th Birthday. He is a very special person and my kids, especially Noah, absolutely love him to pieces. I miss my family alot and enjoy every minute when I'm with them, I just wish I lived closer!

So we spent some time down the beach watching the birdman of Worthing, I had my hair cut short!!! and we worked hard for Stepdads 60th Party, it was great and everyone enjoyed themselves.

Sunday was a day of cleaning, relaxing and spending time with the kids in the garden. I gave Mum one of my Poppy textile pieces which she showed off at the party and I gave my nephews a t-shirt each, so Sunday all 4 kids wore their t-shirts and I think they liked them. Aren't they cute!!!


Only 2 weeks to go before Grace goes back to Nursery so am going to enjoy time with them and then when she is back at nursery I will start my Christmas collection, unless I get fidgety fingers and just have to make something. Will keep you updated as to how its going.

xxx

Fruit and chutney

The house we live in has a paddock out the back that has fruit trees growing in it and earlier this year we had a plum tree that produced and we ate loads of stewed plums and plum crumbles. This unfortunately had to stop when the plums ran out, but we have another 2 trees with plums ripening as we speak and also a damson tree which is looking rather full. We also have some apple and pear trees which aren't fairing so well with the wet weather but I'm sure that there will be enough to get us through a few months.

However what I really wanted to talk about was the old cooking apple tree in the back garden, it has been dropping apples every day for weeks now because of the wet and slightly windy weather and I couldn't sit around and watch all those apples go to waste so I've been collecting them and the nice big ones have been made into apple crumbles which have been going down very well with Rob (unfortunately the children don't seem to like them but with time I'm sure they will come round!) but I have also attempted some chutney, and I thought I would share it with you here. Its a version of Christmas Chutney and whilst cooking it makes the house smell just like Christmas, which I absolutely love. Cloves, oranges, cinnamon, apples, mixed spice, ginger, mmmmmmm can't wait for it to mature (2 whole months) and then I can try it on some freshly aga baked ham!

Am going to have to buy a preserve book, any recommendations would be great. Am now going to look through my cook books for a runner bean chutney, something to make with damsons and plums. Will let you know how it goes

xxx

Sun Shining and Thinking of Christmas

I don't know what its like around the rest of the country but today is cloudy with the sun attempting to shine and managing it every now and then. So surely this isn't the right time to start thinking about Christmas, well it seems that this year is going rather quickly and I am now getting invitations to do Christmas Craft Fairs. As you are aware I'm still a bit worried about how much craft fairs are costing me so am going to be very selective in which ones I do this year, I did 15 in 5 weeks last year, some were great, some were ok but alot were really disappointing.

So whilst contemplating about which fairs to do and getting my website organised I've been thinking about what to do for Christmas and am going to have to get out last years work and do a bit of a stock take and some designing. Anyway along with some new textile art designs I think there will be personalised stockings as these are always popular and some new designs for tree decorations.





If you have any suggestions as to what else might go down well at fairs and on my website then please feel free to leave a comment.

xxx

T-Shirt and Textiles

Well some of you might have noticed from the photo of Brackley Carnival the new addition of T-Shirts to my stall. Well I sold those ones really quickly so have now added a few more to my little space of crafting Heaven (http://www.noahsarkcrafts.co.uk/) and here is just a couple of my childrens favorites.

Also added new to the website is some textile flower wall art and along with the water lily already featured earlier on here is a poppy.

If you have any other ideas for t-shirt pictures please let me know as I'm continually adding to the collection.

Still no decision on craft fairs but am looking at the ones I did before Christmas last year and how much the tables cost and how much I made and will decide soon which ones I will do if any.

xxx

Craft Fairs or not?

Well, I have been quite busy recently designing and creating and in the past 2 weeks I have done a couple of fairs.

I'm in a bit of a dilemma as I quite enjoy doing them but not really sure they are worth doing as I don't seem to make a lot of money once I cover the cost of table etc. But if I don't do them how do I get my name out there? Can anyone give me some advice please.

Here is a picture of my stall at Brackley Carnival earlier this year. Each show I do I change my layout according to the space etc and what items I take.


My last fair was in a craft tent and I had some of my textile art so it looked very different. I had 1 table with all my gift items, I had a couple of easels with my art on and I put 16 t-shirts on part of my gazebo so they were hanging just above my table. It seemed to work but I still didn't sell as much as I thought I would with the amount of people walking around. I would like to make enough that my table costs are only 10% of my takings but it seems to be getting harder all the time.

So any thoughts on craft fairs, outlets, how to get my name out there would be greatly appreciated.

Will catch up with you all again soon, hopefully with some more thoughts and decisions on what I'm going to do.

xxx