Fair plans and memories

The Contemporary Craft Fair in Bovey Tracy, Devon is approaching fast, too fast really and there is still SO much to do. Although that seems to be story of my life: always so much to do and so little time. In fact is seems like the time is speeding up with the same rate as I speed up to do things! So basically, it is a race that I will never win. But I will give it a good run nevertheless!

Back in March I did the Country Living Spring Fair in London which was great fun. I met some most wonderful people and even though it was hard work we basically laughed our ways through the five days. It was my first "big" fair having only done the Mary Howard Fair back in November here in the Cotswold. 

Some months before the Country Living Fair I got inspired by the Woodland Trust and wanted to create woodland creatures, a little friends for my Bears, and so the mice, owls, hedgehogs, shrews and birds were born and here are some of them.

I also thought about my stand and wanted to create a woodland scene for all my animals, but somehow it didn't turn up quite as I planned... I wanted it to be more 'woody' and mysterious, magical and fun and much more colourful, but as always I simply ran out of time and we couldn't possible fit anything else into the car! So this is what we came up with.

Now I am thinking again how to present my animals....? This time I'd like to try something different, something clean and simple... And I would like to group the animals so that they would stand out better... Maybe I could do with a white table cloth and some small stands (boxes or equivalent) that would be like small plinths that the animals would stand on in groups?
I have to look around what would work....

All this planning for the fair reminded me of some other fairs I did years and years ago in South London and in Surrey with my good friend who was selling most beautiful handmade cards and I was selling these funny little crocheted pigs.

Most of the fairs we attended were... how would I say it.... really, really bad! It wasn't our lack of selling skills or terrible products (at least I don't think so!), but it was the lack of people that came through the doors. The Country Living Fair in London attracts over 20 000 people, but this one particular fair that we attended probably had more like 20 people coming in!

As we had sat there the most of the day not selling a single thing, thinking what a waste of time it was a lady came over to our table and wanted to buy one of my crocheted animals. Now, any sensible person would have put the little creature into a bag, take the money, write a recite and say "thank you and good buy", but oh no. Us two, having been so bored and depressed, got terrible hysterical laughing fit and still to this day I don't know how we managed to put that creature into the bag and take the money. The lady thought we were complete bonkers and I am surprised she didn't change her mind about her purchase. Luckily these days I've trained to be a bit more professional and I truly hope that down in Devon we will sell a lot more than one small animal!