Monday 29 March 2010

Another craft fair...

Well, I've bitten the bullet and have decided to do another craft fair - on Saturday July 3rd, at the Columcille Centre in Morningside, here in Edinburgh:


It's organised by Craft Fairs Scotland  but also has its own website and blog

You may remember I did my first craft fair last May in Portobello - organised by the same company - so I'm sure this one will be just as well organised.  

I've had mixed feelings about doing another fair - mostly because my Etsy shop has been rather busy lately and I'm slightly worried about being able to keep up with demand as my pieces are so time-consuming to make.  After a lot of thought though I decided that the face-to-face feedback you get from being at a fair is so valuable it was worth giving it another go.  Many of my current jewellery styles have been directly developed from constructive criticism or comments that people made at the last craft fair - mostly about making the lines of my jewellery shapes softer and more curvaceous, which let me to make my curved necklaces:

'Solferino'


and my Paisley-shaped brooches:

'Terne'

-so that sort of feedback is worth doing the fair for in itself.

So now I just need to work on building up a selection of items and planning how I'm going to coordinate everything with the Etsy shop - I think I'll avoid listing online everything I have made, and I also plan to make use of the handy 'vacation mode' in the shop for a few weeks before the fair just so I'll have a clear idea of what pieces are available to show.

I have to say the bit I enjoy most is doing the practice run-through of my table set-up :D - watch this space for photos closer to the time!

4 comments:

KerryFelter said...

I like craft fairs for the same reason. Dingle has a farmer's market that has quite a lot of handmade crafts. I have started going again for feedback and the motivation to get new stuff ready every week--you get into a bit of a conveyor belt mentality to get stuff THERE. Good luck with yours :)

Kate said...

Hi there!
I know what you mean about the 'conveyor belt' mentality - I certainly suffered from that last time so this time I'm trying to plan well ahead so I can avoid getting totally sick of making things prior to the market!

Jensters said...

Wow im loving your work.

Kate said...

Thank you :) !