My first craft fair is DONE

Hello there, internet dwellers.

It's done. It's over. I did it. 

With my beautiful assistant, Corrie, I have done my first craft fair! 

Suitably colourful I think!

What's more, I broke even, and I think I was the only person there to do so. Sadly, not many people came. Probably because it was half term and the weather was poor, less people came than otherwise, and also it was the first craft fair there so I think they were all factors to the poor turnout. I sold two pairs of earrings, one to my dear mummy and one to my friend Lubna, and a phone case to my sister in law. I did a henna tattoo on a small child, one on a fellow stall holder, one on Corrie and one on me.

Overall it was a really positive experience, if a little disappointing in terms of turn out. It made me realise how much I like doing this! It's been a stressful week, but I love making things, and I love other people liking the things I've made, and if they want to buy them, that's even better! I also love doing henna on people. I think I'm getting better at thinking on the spot about designs, as shown by the last picture. A heart is not something I would usually do, but I think that turned out really well, and I'm also impressed with how dark this henna is. I've put the remaining cones in the freezer to preserve them as the colour is awesome. I think I'll definitely be buying from that supplier again.

When I got home last night, I sent a few emails about other craft fairs and I've got a table (subject to me completing the form!) at a shopping and pampering evening in Kenton on the 8th of December. The stall cost is £25, but I'm fairly confident I can make that back. I'm going to be offering henna, a small amount of jewellery and t-shirts. I'm going to do some more hand painted ones for that event as I imagine it will be people looking for slightly more luxurious products than my printed t-shirts, not that they aren't nice, but they're better for a different audience I think. Slightly longer to prepare for this one anyway :D

My back has been rather angry with me today for the abuse that it has suffered this week, so another thing I have learnt is that I really need to give myself more time to do things, and not take tables at craft fairs with a weeks notice, however much I want to do it!

I think I'm going to spend the next few days asleep (subject to the forecasted storm noise!), and then I'm seeing my lovely family and helping my cousin make a Victorian costume. I think she's going to be a chimney sweep/beggar child! Also hoping I get to take her trick-or-treat-ing! 

Hope you've all had a lovely weekend.

Until next time...

Janet

P. S. Corrie took this lovely picture of Mau!

Time's UP!

Ok, it's just gone midnight, I've packed everything I think I need for tomorrow other than my insurance documents which I'm printing now, and the stickers, which I haven't designed yet, and I'm not entirely sure I'm going to.

I've done a stock check and I have:

• 30 t-shirts
• 64 pairs of handmade plastic earrings
• 39 pairs of silver earrings
• 15 phone cases
• 8 bags
• 2 pashminas
• 2 small scarves

Total: 160 pieces of stock!

I think that should be more than enough! I also have 5 cones of henna, and two cones of henna/jagua mix so I can do two toned designs.

I also have a very sore back and a very sweaty face! I was going to have a shower tonight so I don't have to get up even earlier tomorrow, but I think that I'm just going to sit here and be lazy instead, possibly design some stickers, and do a check over the to-do list to see if there's anything I'm missing!

See you on the other side!

Janet

P. S. Don't leave shrink plastic in the oven too long!

Less than 24 hours to go!

And to say I'm stressed would be an understatement. 

I'm trying to be calm because I know when I stress I hurt more, but it's a bit difficult.

At the beginning of the week my to do list looked like this:

Sort the t-shirt stock

Print the t-shirts

Decorate phone cases 

Make Henna/Jagua cones

Buy insurance

Sort table layout

Get blu-tac!

Make and print henna ingredients and aftercare sheets

Price lists/signs

Print bags

Buy frames for Henna designs

Sort my design book

Make more earrings

Design & Print stickers

Iron all stock

Get change from the bank

Post long awaited items to Luisa and Emma!

I have:

Completed 20 t-shirts

Decorated 10 phone cases

Made henna paste

Bought insurance

Worked out the basic principles of my table layout

Got blu tac!

Designed henna ingredients and aftercare sheets

Designed price list

Designed size list

Printed 3 bags

Framed henna designs

Finished 24 pairs of earrings

Realised I can tumble dry stock rather than ironing it

Not bad for a week.

Really important things to do are:

Make my printer work so I can:

Print aftercare, ingredients, size, stall info and price sheets and insurance documents

Design stickers for earring bags

Make henna cones

Find some fabric to cover table

Get change from the bank

Find out where I'm actually going tomorrow

Rest!

Desirable things to do are:

Print more t-shirts

Print bags

Work on design book

Post things to Luisa, Emma, Christina and my solicitors. 

Speak to the people about my business cards

I've hopefully sorted getting the printer to work, ie. I've asked my dad to come round later and fix it! Printing the things shouldn't take too long. Designing the stickers might be a bit difficult before I've got my printer working because I wanted to scan the sheet so I knew where to put the design etc. 

Making henna cones takes me a while because I'm completely incompetent. What I'll probably do is cut out loads and loads of bits of cellophane and set myself up in bed with Netflix and a cup of tea, make hundreds of the things, then use the ten or so that actually work. I've got the henna mix in a piping bag ready to fill cones with but want to make some mixed with jagua so will have to do that too. That shouldn't take long though. Finding the fabric should be easy, I have a whole cupboard full and I think I've got some nice orange linen that would be good. 

The bank should be fine, I think I should get a float of about £40: 4 £5 notes and 20 pound coins. That just means I need to get out of bed before 5.

I've just worked out where the place is. I thought I knew, I just needed to check!

Now to work on the rest? 

Janet

P. S. 

This is how I feel right now!

Mau is a terror

Mau, for those of you who don't know, is my cat. So called because it is the noise that a cat makes, and us the Egyptian word for cat. 

Mau is lovely, usually, but today he has been a bit of a pain. Despite having several lovely cat boxes, and half a bed available for him to sit on, he decided to sit on my lovely ironed and folded shirts, which I have now had to brush with a lint roller. If that wasn't annoying, Mau is also evidently a little poorly today and I woke up to a horrible retching sound as he managed to be sick over not one, not two, but three piles of shirts. I'm sympathetic to my poor kitty but wish he'd chosen a better place! I've had to put anything contaminated in the washing machine. Sigh. Just another job... 

I'm struggling today with motivation. I'm really quite tired, I've got my course tonight, and my back is still very painful from its dislocation yesterday. I don't really want to take to my bed and give up doing things for today, but it's hard to work out if I will have enough energy to actually do the stall on Saturday if I use up all my energy making things beforehand. Not having done a craft fair before, I have no idea how well my things are likely to sell and how much stock I will need, but I don't want to be underprepared. 

Thinking about it, I should probably rest if I need to. I have at least 30 pairs of earrings, I've got around 7 more shirts to iron, then I'll have 20 finished. I've got 7 phone cases, two bags, one scarf, but I've also got henna, if I make up my cones! 

I think mixing the henna up is something I should put on my to do list for today, but at the moment, that's going to be it, I think.

Too tired to think!

Janet

P. S. He may be a terror but look how pretty he is!

Getting there!

Ok, so yesterday my plan was to

1. Make some more earrings, particularly frosted coloured segments as I need to send some to Emma
2. Pack the stuff up for Luisa
3. Print my remaining stock
4. Decorate the 5 phone cases I have
5. First coat of varnish on the cases
6. Make price and size signs
7. Make henna ingredients and aftercare sheets.

I didn't make more earrings, I didn't pack the stuff for Luisa, although I did separate the t shirt from the other stuff, I didn't finish printing all my stock, I decorated 4 phone cases, but the fifth went a bit wrong. I have also found about 5 more cases to draw on so that's a job to do too. I did do the coat of varnish. I designed price and size signs, and I designed the henna ingredients and aftercare sheets but sadly my printer has decided that it doesn't like me and so I can't actually print the damn things!

I think I'm going to have to go find a printer to use either tomorrow or Friday. Just one more thing to add to the list!

So, I didn't really do too well out of what I intended to do, but in my defence, JT came to visit which I wasn't expecting when I wrote the list. I didn't have a to do list for today, but I've actually been remarkably productive despite managing to not wake up til 2, and just before JT left about 5, I managed to dislocate my lower back when coughing. Joy of joys. 

Despite that I have sorted out all the shirts that arrived today, putting them into piles of size and putting their respective labels on them so I can identify them easier. 

Some beautiful piles there, you can also see the marked out table, the framed henna, and the general complete mess my living room (now workshop!) is in!

I have printed something like 10-15 t-shirts, probably, and have ironed about 8 before I decided that if I'm going to be well enough to actually do the craft fair, I should probably not continue ironing when I know I've just trapped a nerve in my shoulder. So, instead, I'm sitting in a lovely comfy memory foam bed typing this. In a bit, I'm going to get up and get my shrink plastic and pencils, find another film or series to get involved in (I've just finished Secret Diary of a Call Girl, I only started watching it on Monday!) and do some drawing for earrings. 

I also arranged the completely finished t-shirts in their respective size piles. There are a total of 13 fully completed shirts now!

It's a bit tidier in here! Only a bit though, the cardboard boxes, bag and shoulder support are not part of the stock...

I've also got various stages of printed, drying, or something else t shirts in my hallway 

And the kitchen

It's going well....

Anyway. I'm going to have a bit of a well deserved break now I think.

Janet

P. S. I made a hoodie for JT, I think he liked it.

A second progress report of the day

I realise that all these posts about my progress might not be terribly interesting to other people to read, but it's helping me keep track of what I'm up to!

So, my first to-do list looked like this
Sort the t-shirt stock

Print the t-shirts

Decorate phone cases 

Make Henna/Jagua cones

Buy insurance

Sort table layout

Get blu-tac!

Make and print henna ingredients and aftercare sheets

Price lists/signs

Print bags

Buy frames for Henna designs

Sort my design book

Make more earrings

Design & Print stickers

Iron all stock

Get change from the bank

Post long awaited items to Luisa and Emma!

I feel like I've done loads of that stuff but I can only actually cross off two things from that list, which is a bit depressing!

So far, I've:

1. Marked out (with masking tape on my floor) the rough shape of the table I expect to get on Saturday. I'm awaiting proper dimensions, but its given me an idea of how much space I have and how much stock I need out
2. Sorted out 32 t-shirts hopefully being delivered tomorrow!
3. Bought and assembled a clothing rail for the stall
4. Come up with a quick way of identifying the size and style of t-shirts with a helpful sticker system, and I have bought the required stickers.
5. Bought frames for henna designs and put them in.
6. Printed 3 bags and 3 t-shirts (all the stuff I can do with white paint at the moment)

Things I want to finish this evening are:

1. Make some more earrings, particularly frosted coloured segments as I need to send some to Emma
2. Pack the stuff up for Luisa
3. Print my remaining stock
4. Decorate the 5 phone cases I have
5. First coat of varnish on the cases
6. Make price and size signs
7. Make henna ingredients and aftercare sheets.

I'm relatively confident I should get that done.... I'd better hop to it though!

Progress report!

Ok, so yesterday I came up with this list of things to do:
Sort the t-shirt stock

Print the t-shirts

Decorate phone cases 

Make Henna/Jagua cones

Buy insurance

Sort table layout

Get blu-tac!

Make and print henna ingredients and aftercare sheets

Price lists/signs

Print bags

Buy frames for Henna designs

Sort my design book

Make more earrings

Design & Print stickers

Iron all stock

Get change from the bank

Post long awaited items to Luisa and Emma!

So far, all I've done from the list is sort the t-shirt stock.

BUT

I have got my insurance quote sorted, all I need to do is actually buy it. 

I've also put together an order from Wilkinson to buy the photo frames, and thought of a load of other things that would be useful on the day including:

• Sticky notes
• Marker pens
• Colourful stickers for marking size
• Plain white labels
• Hangers

However I've just realised that they take 2 days to deliver to store, or 5 days to deliver to home, not even any options of faster delivery! Anyway so at least I've got a list of things I need from them. 

I've also found a hanging rail in Argos that I'm going to hang some t-shirts from. I want to add height to my stall because otherwise they look very dull, but I don't want the big wall type displays because, one, I can't sort it well in time, and two, they create a barrier to the customer.

I've just looked at the time, and what times the stores close and have realised that if I leave now I can go buy these things tonight, so I'm off

Toodle pip!

Janet

Exciting times

Hello my dears,
I hope this post finds you well. I've been having a bit of a stress out recently because I, very excitingly, have my first craft fair on Saturday at St Mary's Church in Watford.

If you're local, please come along!

I have no idea what to expect in terms of numbers of anything so I'm just going to try and get as much as stock sorted, as hopefully I'll be able to sell it at some other time even if nothing sells on Saturday.
I had a bit of a sleepless night last night due to some over zealous DIY for my brother yesterday, but made use of it by making up 24 pairs of earrings that have been sitting in my to-do pile for a long while, and re-designing and ordering some business cards and some stickers.

Do you like my business cards?

I've also made some phone cases:

I'm in the process of ordering a load of ethically sourced t-shirts because I think that gives me a better chance of selling things at a craft fair, it's not much more expensive, and it stops so much guilt about little kiddies in sweat shops sewing through their fingers!

So far, what else I can think that I need to do is:

Sort the t-shirt stock

Print the t-shirts

Decorate phone cases 

Make Henna/Jagua cones

Buy insurance

Sort table layout

Get blu-tac!

Make and print henna ingredients and aftercare sheets

Price lists/signs

Print bags

Buy frames for Henna designs

Sort my design book

Make more earrings

Print stickers

Iron all stock

Get change from the bank

Post long awaited items to Luisa and Emma!

.... not infeasible in a week?

I'd better get cracking! 

Over and out

Janet

P.S. I got a bit dusty yesterday!

Designs

Hello, good people.

I've had a bit of a cold and a temperature today so I've been sitting around doing some henna designs to keep myself amused.

I thought you might like to see!

And I tried to think about how I would display them, and here was my result!

Also, this is the full development of my jagua

I'm a little disappointed that it's still definitely blue rather than black, but it's a very strong stain!

You can also see some henna there over the little finger, that's some Zubeda henna (I made the cone myself!) after having sat for 24 hours.  I've put some more on my middle finger at the moment so I can see what the stain is like after 48!

I had LOTS of fun yesterday... sifting some Israeli henna when I'd sifted nearly all of it and my contraption fell apart and mixed all the sifted and coarse stuff together again. I was so angry with myself! Oh well, I sifted it all again so I've got a full box to use. I'll probably mix some up tomorrow to check the colour :)

Anyway, hope you're all well, or better than I am!

Janet

P. S. I drew on my leg too. I was pretty sure it wouldn't stain, and I was right, so there's no trace left but it gave me a chance to test some designs on skin that I didn't want to stay!

Ongoing experiments

Hello internet, 

Just thought I would update you all (and also leave myself something to refer to when I wonder what on earth I did with Jagua and the henna on my hand) on the experiments I have been conducting. 

This is the ~12 hour stain of Jagua!

It's really blue at the moment, which is pretty cool but it should carry on developing for another 36 hours or so so I'm really excited to see how it turns out!

Sadly I made a bit of a boo boo and smudged it, and while I patched it how I would have done with henna, it obviously stains differently and has left a big smudge. I'll have to remember that. I might do a test patch on my foot or something to work out how I can best correct mistakes!

I also found yesterday some achingly beautiful designs by Henna Trails so did an inspired design on my left palm

Here it is, with paste in place.

I then looked into seals as I had been using hair spray but it doesn't really work that well. I thought I needed something flexible, non toxic which stuck to skin fairly well but peeled off when needed. 

I had a brain wave: PVA!

I began a new experiment.

I worked out that the best ratio of PVA:water seems to be 3:1 and then I chucked in a load of glitter. Probably a bit too much because this is what it looked like after I had dabbed the seal on with a soft paintbrush:

Looks a bit mad, but it did work really well! No glitter or henna in my bed this morning!

And this is what it looked like when I peeled off the glue today:

Sadly not too dark but it will develop with time.

I also mixed up some Pakistani henna with just water, as suggested by the seller on eBay when I complained that the stain was rubbish, and I've mixed some zubeda henna up too, so we shall see what the stains look like from those later this week!

Right, I'm off to have some food, a nap, and regain some spoons.

Over and out.

Janet

P. S. The spoons are explained here, it's kind of long but it's a really worthwhile read http://www.butyoudontlooksick.com/wpress/articles/written-by-christine/the-spoon-theory/

Experiments

I mentioned in my last post that I'd been doing some henna experiments and I'm going to tell you what they were. 

In my henna art course, I was given a recipe to mix my henna powder with, supposedly to create darker stains. It basically involved boiling up three tea bags in a small amount of water, reducing it down and mixing the henna powder to a paste with that along with a few drops of eucalyptus oil.

This is the boiling process!

Now, all the recipes I'd seen online said that using tea made no difference and that the useful bit was lemon juice as you needed the acidity to release the dye. 

Being the scientifically (ish!) minded person that I am, I thought I would test this mix against the one Henna Caravan use which involves mixing the powder to a paste with lemon juice. 

I set to work!

I'm using here some finely sifted Pakistani henna I got on eBay.

Left is the tea mixture about to be prepared, and on the right is the henna caravan mixture. 

I left the mix for 24 hours in air tight boxes and then (after some learning how to make cones in class) I piped some onto my right hand.

Here is the result:

On the left is the tea mix, and the right is the lemon. I think the results are pretty conclusive that lemon worked better with this stuff, HOWEVER, neither of the stains were very good at all. I don't know it was dodgy henna so I will have to do more experiments but I don't think I'm going to be bothering with the tea mix too much.

I currently have two more experiments underway. In my henna class on Thursday I made up some purely lemon juice and Moroccan henna. It got put into a cone immediately and so left almost no stain when I played with it in class, and a little bit when I played with it the following day. It's now been 5 days and I've got a bit of it on the inside of my wrist to see how well it stains after that long left in the cone. I suspect leaving it in an air tight container would have done better!

My second experiment is using a gel derived from a fruit called Jagua. It's a bluey black gel, difficult to get fine lines with, but it should develop into a very dark black stain without any of the nasty chemicals in so called "black" henna. Just in case anyone is thinking of using "black" henna - please don't! It uses PPD which is only FDA approved for hair, not for skin and prolonged contact like in henna and can cause chemical burns to the skin. NOT WORTH THE RISK!

This is my Jagua. You can also see here the faded experiments of last week! I shall post an update of its progress! It's pretty expensive, but there seems to be a large market for black henna tattoos, so it might be worth a try or two!

Only points so far is that it's taking a horrendously long time to dry!

Other things I did last week was work out a better way of sifting my henna. The usual way involves muslin or cloth, a spoon and a lot of patience! Something like this:

After a little bit of researching, I hatched a plan involving a cup, some screen printing fabric (because that's what I had), a few coins and an elastic band:

Excuse the mucky hands. The way it works is you fill the cup about a third to two thirds full of your henna powder and a few coins and then simply shake it over a bowl! So very quick and not a problem on my wrists like the other way!

This is my beautifully screen sifted Pakistani henna (SS P). You can't see how fine it is, but this is a picture of the coarse left over henna powder

I'm saving it because it can be used on hair and while I don't want to use it, I might Freecycle it when I've got more, or alternatively pipe some thick designs at some point!

Anyway, apart from my henna experiments, I've had a lovely week with the boyfriend including meeting some of his mates in Bouremmouth. I took the opportunity to draw on someone...

Obviously mine was the flowery stuff, not the tattoos!

Anyway. I'm going to go practice some more with henna. Hope you're all well!

Janet

P. S. 

Isn't JT just SO pretty...... o.O

(They are not his glasses, I am very glad of this!)

Long time, no type

Hello, people.
I've been really really busy recently. First I had a friend's birthday, then a horrible migraine, it was my mum's birthday and we had a lovely family meal,then I had to sort out some courses I will be doing, then I started my henna course, I had a 7 hour job interview in Telford, I've been drawing, buying supplies and visiting my brother and sister-in-law's new house. Busy busy busy! So that's why I haven't written but here I am to tell you what's been going on in the fun parts.

Firstly, I've had an idea. I've been making things that I don't think I'm going to sell online, only at craft fairs, because they'd be one off, or limited numbers, so I was thinking about creating some "Surprise bundles". For example these might cost £15 but contain stuff worth at least £20, so that might be a stamped t-shirt, a bag and a pair of earrings, or it might be a blanket and a completely customised t-shirt, or it might be something else entirely! Obviously, people could tell me things like their size, and if they had pierced ears or not, but other than that, it'd be what I decided to send so it'd be like having a present sent to you because you don't know exactly what you're getting! I'm also thinking of doing surprise earrings at £4 a pair. Those'd be pairs that aren't available on the website because they don't fit into any category, and so you'd not know what you're getting, but hopefully you'd be pleased with what you end up with!
So that's something I need to add to my website. I also need to attach findings to the large numbers of half completed earrings I've got sitting around my flat.

The birthday was my of my friend Tulsi, and she got some handmade things from me, including some earrings, a bag, and this t-shirt:

It's completely hand painted in a silver 3 dimensional fabric paint. I personally find it ending up a bit too stiff for how I like to wear my t-shirts but luckily the recipient liked it!

The second birthday was my mother's. She also got a hand painted t-shirt, which I helpfully forgot to take a picture of. C'est la vie. She also got two pairs of earrings (my mother has a LOT of earrings).

Last Thursday night I started a henna course at Harrow College. I was amazed that I seemed to have the most experience of using and mixing henna there, but this wasn't a problem and I'm really looking forward to the next couple of weeks! I've been buying lots of supplies, all on eBay so the last few days I have been staying inside waiting for parcels rather than doing anything interesting outside the house, but it's worked well because I've done some work!

When I went to Telford, there were two three hour train journeys to fill, and I'd found recently a pad of triangular coloured card and thought that it would make awesome bunting to go round a stall so I spent my train journey decorating some bits of it. Here's some of what I ended up with:

I think they'll look pretty cool, don't you?

I've also made these:

And some clear gloss varnish arrived today so I can start test driving them on my phone. 

I've also made this today:

It's an oyster card holder. That's going to have to find someone else to test drive it because I don't use one of these very much. Anyone like it in exchange for keeping photo evidence of how the design holds up?

Anyway, that's enough for one post. Join me next time for the henna experiments I've been conducting today!

Janet

P.S. 

I've also been drawing on naked women. As you do...