Christmas Craft Fair – Papermill Pub

As a person with a normal job and painting as a hobby (obsession!) I very rarely take a stall at craft fairs. Generally because I spend so much time beforehand painting and organising that I always feel dejected afterwards if I don’t sell anything and that happens more often than not. It’s like craft fair Russian Roulette… I might leave feeling a failure because I’ve wasted loads of time and people don’t like my paintings or I might leave full of ideas because I sold some paintings and had some really lovely conversations with people.

It is very easy for me to get carried away spending money on things that I don’t need in order to make myself look more like a professional business (hard not to let my normal job-brain take over) but I have tried very hard to keep my painting as a hobby and so I have spent as little money as possible and put more time in instead. For example I built my own website (please let me know what you think in a comment or review – I’d love to hear your thoughts) and I don’t spend any money on facebook or instagram advertising – I generally just surf through other painters pages and genuinely LOVE their stuff and have made some connections with people that way. I print my own business cards and cut them out (this is when I get to use my favourite tool – the revered Guillotine!). I make my own paperbags from newspapers or brown paper. Today I am designing stickers – for no other reason than I personally LOVE stickers and they would look great on my newpaper paperbags… 🙂 – You don’t have to spend a fortune to be a crafter; you just have to keep the end goal in mind – which is to have FUN!

But enough about me! The Christmas Craft Fair at the Papermill Pub in Apsley (It’s literally on the canal – I mean could I find a better place to sell canal folk art? I think not!) was held on Saturday 16th November in their upstairs restaurant area. I was one of approximately 15 to 16 stall holders with crafters ranging from crochet, needle felting and embroidery, painting, candle makers, Neals Yard, vintage clothing, silver smiths, etc. I was nestled in between a lady who crochets beautiful hats, bunting, Christmas decorations, and gorgeous baby blankets (I love to crochet so she and I had plenty to chat about!) and a lovely family business who make candles (I especially liked the Whiskey and Leather fragrance!) but there were lots of other Crafters that I didn’t quite get a chance to speak to. It was lovely and warm (fire raging downstairs) and there were lots of people and lots of interest. To top it all off we were serenaded all day by the lovely Imogen Hudson who has a beautiful voice and was a delight to listen to.

Thank you to all the people who came to chat to me. Thank you to all the people who bought my mugs and notebooks. And thank you to the Papermill Pub for hosting the event and most of all Thank You to Nicola who organised the whole thing! I certainly left FULL OF IDEAS and happy to have sold some mugs and notebooks.