More Preparations and ‘finds in the cupboard”

 Making the Most of Your Stash

As I prepare my stock for the Christmas Craft Fayres, I naturally end up tidying the boxes that have been holding my makes.

Yesterday tidying another box of papers I made some more laminated folders. I did not need them,  but as I looked at the papers I realised they were perfect for the project, and I had a half hour spare so decide to make a half a dozen to use up the papers. Over the years I have finished off many paper pads this way. As a treasurer for my local W.I. I have lots of different pots of money to collect at meetings, so I allocate a folder for each project or event. I also use them to hold receipts, recipes etc in the home and to give money or small gifts.

So another little bundle of laminated folders.

I went to put them into one of my finished article boxes and came across a number of other items made over the last couple of years to use up the papers were perfect pads and fabric scraps.

I use up all the papers and fabric peices I can possibly find use for, and although I very rarely put them on my tables at craft fayres as I have little space,  I have a friend who sells them to neighbours and colleagues for Cancer Research, so nothing is wasted. 

As I have expanded to 2 tables for my fayres this year I decided to package up all these items for a stocking filler section.

These are envelopes that close onto a double front flap and I have added a card and tag

Here we have 2 laminated folders or wallets and the front blue one is a document wallet

This picture shows a set of three budget purses and a set of of 2 gift purses 

3 sets of a folder and matching bookmark made from pretty vellum papers

Lastly I found 8 tissue holders made from my fabric scraps. 

Altogether there were 46 bundles, all now labelled and ready to display . I have decided to charge one price and it will be just £1.50 an item. 

Happy Crafting 

Dee

Christmas Craft Fayre Report 2

 Marketing Paper-crafts

First Item for the Gift Table

The second table I have booked at the Fayres will be for Gifts and Paper-crafts. I have already decided the items that will be displayed and limited them to allow customers to see clearly the items available .

There will be 3 different single pack Christmas cards and a couple of 6-8 pack designs 

A selection of brooches and earrings  (Christmas and General) which are sold in a small fabric gift purse. 

Christmas napkin rings in a fabric gift bag 

And Blizzard books 

I have just finished making a few of each of the two sizes I make.

The small Blizzard book holds:

 Business card,   

Gift Card 

Supermarket & bank cards

While the standard Blizzard book is a lovely keepsake, you can have black card pages for a photo album or standard pages for a notebook, or water colour paper for a sketch or painting book. I add Black or white card.

Having finished a number of books, I started to write the packaging for selling. 

I am trying to standardise the point of sale paper-work. 

When selling at a fayre it is important to remember that customers need to be able to see your items, and their use, easily. That is the reason I want to keep the tables more sparse than usual with spaces on the table . The Blizzard books are packaged with a product description that includes my craft logo. I took some time to choose the lettering and layout of the product description. With my logo  - “Paper-crafts With Personality” centre stage and as these books were my own design I placed the word “Unique” before the logo.  

These are the small Blizzard Books that take business cards, Bank cards, Gift cards etc

I altered the description a little for the larger version that can be used as an album, art book etc. 

A sample of each size will be open on the table 

First item finished and packed away.

So now onto the next items. 

My choice of 3 Unique Christmas Cards 

Happy Crafting 

Dee

Expandable Storage Bags finished

 Christmas Fayre progress report 1

Hi all you lovely crafters out there. 

Well as promised I am crafting and showing as I work my way toward the Christmas fayres.

Over the last week the sewing machine has been out again and I have made 10 shoe bags (or expandable storage bags to add to my stock. This was one of the bags I decided to include on my table but only had 4 remaining in stock. 

I had to remind myself of the sewing sequence for them as I had not made them for a year, so I took myself on to YouTube to watch my favourite sewing lady. Her Chanel is called Christine’s Home Affairs. Of course nowadays you have to sit through 4 lots of adverts to see a video, or pay to remove advertising (and I am too tight for that), but Christine shares so much of her time and information it is a pleasure to watch her videos. She also shows you how to bulk sew, and how she prices her items to sell, so for anyone starting out there is a lot to learn here. 

I started by selecting the fabrics I was going to use and cutting 10 bases. 

Next I needed to cut scraps for the handles and zip ends. I am not a lover of sewing in zips buy putting a tab end on them makes them neater and simpler to insert, so worth the effort cutting out.

I tried to get a production line going but found it difficult to sit at the table for more than a couple of hours and the bags were taking more than 45minutes each, so I split the load into a 2 to be finished on the first day and then 2 lots of 4 to be sewn over the next 2 days. 

So here I am 3 days later with 10 finished expandable storage bags, ready to tag and bag. 

 These will be added to the stock list and I will check the next items to be made. It is surprising how the months creep on you. At the beginning of the year, after checking my stock and deciding on the bags and gifts I wanted to make for 2025, in my head I had structured the months ahead with a line up of makes to do. Needless to say these well made plans did not come to fruition and I found myself at the end of August starting the process again.   

During the process of tagging the bags I will need to work out a price. My sewing and crafting is not a business, it is a hobby and I do it for pleasure and to raise funds for my local hospital, even though there is no need to make a profit, pricing is very important. I think most craft sellers will agree. Overprice your goods and people will look but not buy. Underprice and they will not buy as the items become devalued. So although a profit is not the main issue, pricing is. At craft fayres people come with an expectation to get the unusual, hand crafted items and most are prepared to pay a  premium for the this, recognising the work and individualism in the item. Underprice and they may decide your items are not the premium product they thought they were. So I find pricing my items the most difficult part. The price is decided by the price of the fabric, zips etc, and the time it takes to make. You also need to factor in to your price where you are selling. If I sell in my home town I have to take items that have a better margin as prices have to be kept low to make the sells, whereas the Christmas fayres I am attending I can take any of my makes. 

These bags take me 45 minutes on average. And I get approximately 3 from a metre of fabric plus a 15” zip. I am charging them at £7.50. I am making money on them provided I do not factor in my time, and this is where it gets tricky. My time is obviously worth something, but I am not a professional, and there are a lot of bag makers out there, so whilst I would like to charge my time at £20 an hour (as this includes the maintenance and purchase of tools packaging and presentation costs, in reality I often end up charging an item at £5 for my hourly rate. So whilst £7.50 does not cover my time I hope I will have other items at the fayre with better margins to make up for this, as I believe this is a price that will give a better number of sells . 

Bags labelled with “Sew Useful Bag” tags and Handmade with Love price tags

Well on to the next make.

Happy Crafting 

Dee 

 

Autumn Crafting

 Getting Ready for the Christmas Craft Fayres

Summer is over, day trips are limited by the weather so my spare time turns to preparations for my Christmas Fayres.

Last year I did 1 Fayre at the end of August and 2 Christmas Fayres. 

For some reason for the August fayre I took a few cards I had made and sold a few. I have been selling my bags for a couple of years   now and not really trying to sell cards, as they had not been selling well.  So it was a pleasant surprise when I sold a few cards and had some commissions for cards from friends, this led to renewed interest in designing my Christmas cards. A couple of designs came to mind and I  started to get excited again about card crafting. With a huge stash of card dies and card craft items I soon had a good pile of cards to take to the fayre in November. The designs were unique and one incorporated a gift while the other was a card and embellishment in one. These sold better than ever, and so I decided to have 2 tables at this years fayre, one for bags and one for cards and gift ideas. The same thing happened to the fayre booked in December, the cards sold well alongside the bags and gifts, and again I decide to book 2 tables for this year, which I have just done. 

First job is decide which bags I am going to sell on Table 1 and which cards and gifts for Table 2. 

Second job is stock check and decide on the items I need to make to get the stock levels up to cover the 2 fayres.

Third job is labelling and pricing the items. 

As I get prepared for the Christmas season I will share my progress on the blog.I will tell you what I have made and how I priced it, and then after the fayres I will report back on how each item sold.

Happy Crafting 

Dee

Challenge finished One last Card from scraps

 Using up those scraps

As I mentioned in my last post the challenge to use up the 36 page 12 x 12 paper pad, has finished and I am just showing one last card that used up some of the trimmings left over from the challenges.

There were not many and as all the papers coordinated I was able to use them all on the same card.

It is a great feeling when you can use everything and not have any papers or card scraps to throw away.

The only item I have added to make the card is some rose gold tape purchased in Paperchase sale. The tape is a lovely colour but not very sticky so I would not use it to secure any crafts but for this card it worked perfectly to edge some of the strips to make them pop on the card. 

The strips with the edging have been placed ad-hoc and I do think they make a difference.

The strips have been added to a plain 6 x 6 card with a greeting elevated in the centre . The greeting is backed by another piece of coordinating scrap .

I love this way of using up scraps and the design was inspired by Sam Calcott, who has a great number of videos on using up scraps which are well worth checking out. 

Back next weeks and I will be telling you about a local craft show I visited.

Happy Crafting

Dee

Challenge Project No9 - Mini Brag Book

 Mini Brag Book

So for this challenge we are down to 3 sheets of 12 x 12 and some scraps.

With 2 of the sheets I decided to go back to what I remember as Grandma’s brag book, not my idea, and one of the first construction ideas I ever made. As these pages are double sided they are perfect for the project.

Score the sheet at 3”,6”,9” on both sides 

On the first and third score line cut up to the top horizontal score line, and on the second score line cut down (in other words in the opposite direction to the other 2 ) to the bottom horizontal line.

Then starting from the outside corner fold the square forward and back until the sheet form a booklet. Then leave the outside sheet and glue the next 2 pages together until you get to the last single sheet. 

Method One 

Cut 2 pieces of scrap cardboard (cereal boxes are perfect for this) 31/4” square. 

Use some of your scraps to cut 4”squares and cover the outside of the cardboard by sticking the cardboard in the centre of the 4” piece of scrap paper and cutting the corners before sticking down on all for sides. Once dry add the covers to the top and bottom of the book .

 

Method 2

Cut a piece of coordinating scrap paper 3.5” wide and 7” long score at 3 3/8”, 3.5”, 3 5/8.

Fold the cover in half and fold the score line to give a small bound edge.

Place a piece of ribbon 12” long between the book and the cover before adding the cover as follows:

Glue the top page all over and centre the cover over it. Turn the book over and glue the back 

page and then bring the cover over lining up to give equal sides. 

Pull the ribbon up, add the bead, and knot it off. 

I then cut 8 pieces of 2 3/4” square to make photo mats, which will be added to the pack . 

This is the last of the projects for this challenge and I have one piece of 12 x 12 left and a few odd pieces. I am going to make one last card using some of the scraps and perhaps use the last sheet to make another envelope folder, for the store cupboard. 

I also have enough scraps to make a larger card, and I have an idea I want to try, which I will show when complete

Happy Crafting 

Dee

Challenge - Project No 8

 

This folder is slightly different. It has a pretty notepad, and a small memory book.

The notepad was made with scraps of copy paper, (as previously described) and covered with a half sheet of paper.

The memory book was made with a sheet of 12 x 12 , sectioned and then cut through the middle and folded to make the booklet. 

Each of the seven section has been covered with a white phot mat and the side pocket has labels for journalling.

 

            So 3 sheets of the paper and half a sheet for the notepad.

This leaves 3 sheets of paper and a few bits and pieces. I would like to find another project to complete the challenge.

Dee