CANDELLA
I started my crafting life making candles all shapes and sizes. I found out that animal shaped candles were the most popular so I concentrated on making them. So I experimented with different colours, black ones sold the best with a silver or gold finish over them.
After a while I thought about making candle Christmas Trees and Snowmen. So from August that year I was making up my stock of green and white trees covered in a sparkling glitter, and snowmen. These went well at the school fairs that I did, but people kept telling me that they were too good to burn.
The following year I made them not as candles, but as plaster ornaments. I painted the trees in various greens and white and then as I varnished them I sprinkled very sparkly glitter on them, they looked perfect on my kitchen worktop.
I had my own forest of Christmas Trees!
I then made a quantity of Snowmen and painted the hats, scarves etc. in various colours to go with the trees. People loved them, we completely sold out that year!!
Next I thought about making animal shaped candle holders in plaster. I asked my sister if she could come up with some ideas of animal shapes as candle holders in clay, for me to take moulds of, so that they were totally original designs. She was fantastic, she made a cat, dog, hedgehog and dragon in clay. I made the moulds of them in latex rubber and cast them in plaster. The results were excellent, then I had to learn how to paint them properly.
They sold very well along with the animal candles, but only in the run up to Christmas, the rest of the year only a few went at each fair we did. As people only wanted fancy candles to give as gifts. With that in mind I thought about other animal themed gifts that I could make, animals were always a popular subject.
POTTED PETS
One day I saw an idea that I thought I could do, I was walking around my garden and I found my cat asleep, curled up in a flower pot that was resting on its side, so I took a photo of her and decided that is what I would do next.
I went and bought some clay flower pots, varnished them up nicely and kept them on a shelf. Now was the hard part, I made all the animals in white plaster, painted each one carefully and varnished it to my satisfaction. But, how could I get them into the pots to look like they were naturally asleep there.
I thought about screwed up paper but that didnt look right and the paper would't stay in place. I then thought of straw, but where do I get short lengths of soft straw? Steve came to my rescue, he brought some bags of packing straw home from work, it was compact straw cut to about 1 inch long, perfect!!
I then had the problem of fixing the straw in the pot as well as the animal on top of that!
After a short while of thinking, I remembered my sister telling me how to make realistic looking snow. You mix white glue with washing powder until its quite thick then spread over the item you want covered in snow. It sets hard but looks like snow. It gave me the idea, I got out my mixing bowl which was hardly ever used for cooking, and half filled it with shredded straw, I mixed in white glue until it was all covered and placed a spoonful in the side of a pot. I made a nice bed of it and while it was still wet I placed the animal onto it, sinking it a little so it looked comfortable. I put the finished pot in the airing cupboard and left it overnight to dry. The result was good, it looked like the animal was laying in the straw bed in the shelter of the flower pot. I put two little rubber feet on the pot to stop it rolling off a shelf, and it was finished.
I made up a stock of these in various animals and sizes as we had a run of fairs to go to in the spring that year. I hoped we would have enough stock for the next few fairs that we had booked through the summer.
Well, we arrived at the school hall and were setting up our table when a few of the teachers came to see what we were selling that day. Each one of them chose a pot and asked us to keep it back for them to buy later. I thought this was a good sign, they looked like they would be popular.
It was a good sign! I sold out of our complete stock that day! I couldnt believe it! News got around about what I made and I had a lot of schools contact me to do their school fairs that year. So I was constantly making potted pets the rest of that year, trying to keep up with the sales.
CATCHPENNY CRAFTS
After the year of Potted Pets, I moved on to jewellery, still made of plaster and painted and varnished by me. All animal shaped necklaces, brooches, badges and also fridge magnets made from animal shaped pastry cutters, then painted and varnished.
After a few years of being on the craft fairs scene I decided it would be nice to have my own shop as for one reason I hated all the lifting and carrying involved in travelling to schools and craft fairs. Carrying everything in, laying it out on the display table, being nice to all the people, putting it all away again, loading up the car, unloading the car at home, often in the dark. I got a bit fed up of this after this time.
Steve and I looked around for a few months before we found a shop that would suit us, not too far from home and a good size, with an upstairs room as well. My plan was to have a shop full of people renting shelf space to sell their own crafts from. Upstairs would be used for teaching various crafts.
Steve and I were working every evening until 11pm doing it up and decorating it, making new shelf units to fit out the shop. All this after a days work! We loved every minute of it, doing it up exactly as we wanted it. It feels different when you are doing something for yourself!
In the meantime I advertised for craft people looking to sell their own crafts, to rent space in the shop. We had 70 spaces to fill up, so gradually over a month we had boxes of various crafts coming in from all over the country. It was like Christmas BIG TIME! Every day boxes arrived and gradually all the shelves were filled.
The back of the shop we kept for ourselves to supply craft making items to customers who like to make their own crafts.
We had this shop for 5 years, building up customers and starting workshops to bring extra money in. In our last year we were nominated for retailer of the year - we came second and have a nice certificate to prove it. When our lease came to an end we found out our landlord wanted to double the rent per year. This was too much for us to find so we reluctantly let the shop go.
CATCHPENNY'S WOOL & GIFTS
After a couple of years at home I decided to look for another shop, smaller this time and concentrating on crafts and wool. We took over a lease of a shop in Hassocks and again decorated and shelved it out for craft people to rent. We took on some of the craft people who were in our old shop and new ones came in too.
This is where my love of wool and yarns took off again, I used to knit and crochet as a teenager, making all my own garments. I love the feel, texture and the array of colours of the different yarns you see in wool shops today.
In the shop I ran crochet classes two days a week and made some nice friends from that. I arranged Wool & Wine evenings where people could come and try out different yarns while having a glass of wine with us.
For those that couldn't come out in the evenings we had Tea & Yarn Time. Trying out the new yarns with tea and biscuits. Customers loved this and came in regularly.
While I was at the shop one day I was approached by a lady asking if I could crochet a beret like her sample she showed me. She asked if I could do a few of these if she got the order through, so I said yes of course I would. The lady came in about 6 weeks later (I had forgotten all about her by then) with an order for me for 85 berets in 4 different colours.!!
I asked her who the order was for and she surprised me by saying it was Barneys Department Store in New York!!
So at the end of our lease we moved on.
I worked from home sitting in the garden that summer crocheting berets. The following year I had yet another order, this time for 35 patterned berets and 80 cabled scarves. I had to recruit people to help me to get them done in time.
Since then I have rented a unit where I sell my crochet items from in a craft hall, and also have small items in a craft shop on a local farm to us.
So life goes on, I am still crocheting for people when they want something special made. Otherwise I make baby and toddler clothing and Dolls clothes and sell them at school fairs. I now design my own patterns when I have the time.
