Christmas wishes!

Well, it’s official the Christmas stress has officially kicked in!  I was OK up until Monday of this week. What with selling at Christmas Markets I was mentally geared towards work and I was OK.  But as soon as the fairs were finished and I started thinking about all the presents to be bought and the last minute orders to be finished for the beginning of the year.  The beginning of the year might sound far away but we leave for Christmas in the UK on the 24th and don’t come back until late on the 29th (which is a Saturday, shops here are closed on Sundays here in Germany…  Yes, still!!!).  Then on the 3rd we go on our ‘proper’ holiday for 2 full weeks!!!!  Oh, how I can’t wait, but it means that at the minute I have hit level 3 and a 1/2 of 5.  

So to remove some of the stress I shall wish you all a happy, happy Christmas and a great New Year now! I will not write again until the first week of January before my ‘proper’ holiday!!!  I wish you all the best, lots of love and happiness and everything your little heart might desire… 

In the new year I will add lots of new bags to the website and my Dawanda shop, so keep your Christmas money handy

Or if you’re still short of ideas on what to get for your girlfriend, sister, mom, daughter…  Well, I also offer gift certificates…  So no stress for you!!!  Nice! 

Server down

Sorry everyone, my server is down.  I was told about 3 hours ago that it should take an hour for everything to be up and working again… 

But still nothing….

Now they say 45 minutes.  I hope that is the case!

I apologies for the inconvenience!

Little agendas and make up bags

Some of the agendas and make up bags that I made over the last weeks are now either in my DaWanda shop or website!

Go have a look…  They would make Christmas presents!!!! But HURRY, if you want them in time I will need to send your order by Wednesday, 19 December before 15:00!!!!

So go check them out!

My Dawanda Shop

My Website

              

Also, I’m sorry if anyone was inconvenienced but my gift vouchers, as they were acting up.  These have now been fixed…  They were all appearing in German for a little while, sorry if anyone was put off by it.  This is now fixed and are in German in the German shop and in English in the English and French shops.  Sorry I can’t get them to appear in French, some Paypal programming issues.

So go check them out!

This year’s last fair!

Well, I survived the weekend.  I was at my last fair for this year over the weekend and it was VERY, VERY cold…  OK, not like Canada-cold but it was below freezing all weekend and standing in my little tent was hard going.  Especially the last hour or so was hard, knowing the end was near but not quite there.  I am SOOOOOOoooooo glad I listened to my husband and for once wasn’t too stingy and actually bought myself a little 2000 watt heater. I don’t know if I would have survived without it.  I mean my nose is still red now!

I’m happy and sad that my last fair is over.  I mean the last few weeks have been quite intense with production, blogging and maintaining the website in the week and then working at fairs all weekend.  So it will be nice to relax and have a little holiday (long holiday actually).  I am also happy(ish) with sales.  I mean I have only been doing this for about 6 months and I am getting myself known slowly but surely.  I gave out lots and lots of cards with my website name and I’m getting more visitors to my Blog and website, but still I’m getting impatient…  I guess I was living in a bit of a dream world but I was secretly hoping for a complete sell out over the weekend…  I guess it wasn’t very realistic.  I have been very lucky that my husband has been very supportive both emotionally and financially as I start my business but it will need to bring in money soon, not just cover it’s costs… 

The next fairs now, are in March 2008 and I will be aiming more of a designer clientele…  I will need to make many more bags for these too and I will need to think up an impressive display for them that I can create on a budget and that will still fit in the car!!!!  Until then, I will try and get more and more potential buyers to visit my website!!!  And will continue to add comments and pictures to this Blog…  I hope to get more comments from you all to in the New Year…  Anyway, this is not my last entry before the end of the year, so I should stop getting so emotional…

You’ve got to be quick!

Well, you really have to be quick, the green cord make up bag I added to the Blog yesterday, is already sold!!! It only took a few hours!  It’s always a great feeling to know that what you have just produced pleases someone…

If you are interested in any of the others, I recommend you be quick! They make great Christmas present and are very affordable!!! 

More new bags!

             

Great new bags!!  These are my favourite two from this week.  On the top left, is an olive green cord messenger bag with pretty ribbon in light green, dark turquoise, gold and black.  Plus there are another two stripes of matching green ribbon.  (see the details below) On the hidden pocket underneath the flap are also two stripes of ribbon. The lining is black with green stitching. 

On the top right is a purple shoulder bag with adjustable strap which means that it can either be worn over the shoulder or across like a messenger bag.  The front of this is purple while the back is of black denim.  The lining is made of the same material as the decoration as used for decoration on the top of the flap.  This is of different coloured ducks!  Cute!  I then picked some of the colours from this material to stitch the flap and the front of the bag.  There is a pocket on the back of the bag for easy access, this is also decorated with the duck material.  Lastly there is anther pocket on the inside.

 

I would love to know what you think of them!

New make up bags

I’m really pleased with my new little make up bags.  I like the new shape and I can’t pick a favourite one, I think they are all cute.  They all have a plastic lining in case something runs.  They can all stand on their own, I made the bottoms a little wider making them even more stable.  The bottom is now about 7cm deep.  In total the little bags are about 20cm wide which means that even a full size pencil would fit length wise.  And approximately 13cm high so tones of stuff can fit in there!

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Black denim with two red velvet ribbons, buttons, black zipper and black decorative ribbon on the side.

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Dark olive green cord with two green velvet ribbons, two green felt flowers and black zipper.

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Beautiful yellow, orange, green and red material with black zipper.  The material was so nice on it’s own it didn’t need anything adding to it, in my opinion anyway!

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They would make great little Christmas presents don’t you thinbk?!? If you are interested in any of them, please contact me, my email address is on the top right hand side of my blog!

The worst design ever

For my first fair way back when (in August of this year) I bought my tent/pavilion which I’ve used again for the fair in Wiesbaden in September and last weekend for the Christmas Market in Dreieich and plan on using it again next weekend.  When I bought it I had three criterias: 1) it had to be 2 x 3 meters, 2) it had to be affordable, 3) it had to have sides (so it could be closed off overnight).  The 2 x 3 shape was because the cost of the 1st fair I participated in was calculated by the amount of meters width you booked.  So I had booked the minimum of 2 meters, though I soon found out that no one notices you if you only have two meters width.  Anyway, the tent/pavilion is exactly what it says on the box, it measures 2 x 3 is fairly easy to put up and is fairly stable…  OK, so you just have to keep your fingers crossed and pray to ALL the gods when there is a gust of wind.

What bothers me is simple… 

If the text measures 2 x 3 and the tubing making up the tent is approximately 2 cm in diameter the plastic panels that make up the sides that are attached to the tubing with the Velcro from the inside, can hardly also measure 2 x 3…  Is it just me or were the designer’s brain a break when they decided to make the panels.  Wouldn’t you think that they would need to be slightly smaller in order to fit INSIDE??? 

Apologies for the rather bad (crap) drawing but if blue is the tubing and measures 3 meters in width, it is physically impossible for the panel (in brown) to measure the same, as this super simple drawing proves!!!!

By making them the same size it means that they don’t fit within, and therefore can not be pulled taut.  So as a result they are very lose and flap in the wind…  So my decision was to sew them smaller! Yeah well, that was easier said than done…  Here are a couple of pictures to prove just how frustrating it was!  Just measuring the thing was difficult… then the sewing machine really did not like the plastic material, the foot just slid on it, so I had to pull it along… Ahhhh!!!!

                

Anyway, I must admit that it was very affordable! But I don’t think that the company can use that as an excuse because the company would actually save money by making them smaller…  It is simply bad design!

  

My first Christmas Market

It was a great yet cold weekend.  I participated in my first ever Christmas Market in the town of Dreiech-Dreieichenhain about 20 minutes away from Frankfurt.  It’s a lovely little town and I think it would definitely be worth a visit if you ever came to the area.  There are old castle ruins in the city centre and most of the town is really picturesque.  Actually, participating in all these fairs is making me explore the area much more than I would normally, like Michelstadt, that was also lovely and I would probably never have visited it if it weren’t for the fair. 

 

The Dreieich-Dreieichenhain Christmas Market is renowned for it’s great variety of stands and good quality Arts & Crafts which is a nice change because in many cases one Christmas market is the same as all the others, you have a sweets stand, a sausage stand, a Glühwein stand and a Christmas decorations stand and then it starts all over again.  But this one has a great variety of products, which makes it great to visit. And great to participate in!  

  

I say it was cold but luckily it was still in the plus.  I had also come quite well prepared, I had long-Johns under my jeans, I had two wool sweaters, mittens and hat on.  The only part of me that was really cold were my feet.  It did rain but not too much and no one seemed too bothered by it.  I hope next weekend is just as good, if not better, I mean I hope the sun will come out a little more.  Though saying that, as the fair starts at 15:00 on the Saturday and 14:00 on the Sunday and that it starts going dark about 16:00 it doesn’t leave that much time for the sun to shine…  And anyway, when all the Christmas lights are on it gives it a much better atmosphere! 

   

Sorry, I only really have pictures of my stand because I didn’t really have time to go look at the rest of the fair.  I will try and take some next weekend and post them on here so you can see what else there was.  Also I think that I need to make my stand a little more Christmasy, I will need to get some more decorations this week, though the twigs did make it look better I don’t think it was quite enough.

Anyway, watch this space…  I will tell you all about it again next weekend!

Busy, Busy bee!

I’ve been very busy these last few days making new bags, pouches and books for the Christmas fair that I am participating in this and next weekend in Dreieich-Dreieichenhain. Click here to check out their website! 

And as a picture is worth a thousand words… Here you go!

 

Yet more mobile pouches and some note books, they make nice stocking fillers or are also good for work gift exchanges.

  

Some little agendas, also good little presents…  and so so pretty! I particularly like the black one with the lime green stitching, sorry the quality of my pictures aren’t that great.

  

This purple messenger bag in my new favourite bag of all times.  I think it’s absolutely fabulous!!!  And would look super with a black winter jacket or just a denim one  It’s in bright purple cord and the lining is turquoise like the ribbon and details.  I love the look of the stitching and all the buttons  even if they took forever to sew on one at a time…

 

This messenger bag is also great, the pocket underneath the flap is of the same material with the turquoise flowers.  The lining is 100% cotton and also turquoise!  The strap is not adjustable but is of the same brown cord as the rest of the bag.  It also has a fusible interfacing so it is stiff and will keep it’s shape well.

 

I really like this one as well, it’s much more subtel than the purple bag but has great details. The bag is of olive-green cord and has 100% cotton beige lining.  The ribbons are copper coloured as is all the stitching and the little beads at the top of the flap…

There were a couple more bags but these are definitely the best!

Anyway, I need to start packing and need to fix my pavilion…  I’ll take pictures of the market and let you know how it all went.

If you’re interested in any of the bags, agendas or books, simply contact me… Quickly…  So that I don’t pack it/them away and sell them off tomorrow at the Market!