Pumpkin Cats (b.6 October 2009)

I woke up at 5.30am this morning dreaming of Pumpkin Cats. As you do. So I got up and tried them out - I had a very clear picture of what I was aiming for, and I'm pleased to say that they turned out pretty much exactly as I had hoped!

These were based on the Roly Poly Cat design, and I used Sculpey III (Sweet Potato colour) clay. The pumpkin lines were made by rolling the ball of clay over the edge of a credit card. A wee green stalk on top completes the look, and a coat of satin varnish gives them a nice sheen.

The Pumpkin Cats will make their debute at the craft fairs this weekend in Ilkley and Pudsey, and I've also listed them for sale on Folksy and Etsy.

Craft Fair at The Treehouse Cafe - The Results

How chuffed am I?! I had a fantastic day at my first craft fair at The Treehouse Cafe in Bradford! An intimate affair, with five stallholders in total and a lovely cosy setting courtesy of The Treehouse Cafe. Great food, great company - what more could one ask for?

The craft fair was organised by Cat, aka MrsSewandSew (left picture), who had originally posted a thread on Folksy.com way back in July asking if anyone would be interested in having a stall at a craft fair in the Bradford area. And yesterday was the result, and hopefully the first of many!

Also at the Craft Fair were Pam (aka Pamdas/Buri Boo - bottom picture, and who makes beautifully delicate handcrafted cards and jewellery) and Tracy (aka RubySpiritDesigns - on the right, with her gorgeous selection of handmade jewellery), as well a number of children (Cat's, I think) and many family and friends supporting the day and the Cafe. I sold some of my wee creatures, as well as quite a few cards, and all in all, it was a great way to spend a Sunday afternoon!

I learned a lot from the day, and one of the key things is planning. Having done the trial run of the stall display a few days before (see 'Twas the night before...) really helped give me an idea of what worked beforehand, and I was also able to plan the packing of the display boxes and stock. The banner looked great, and I am SO glad I bought the length of black leatherette fabric for the table cover (wipe clean - very handy!) Amazingly enough, I didn't forget anything crucial (although it would have helped to have had some carbon paper for the duplicate receipt book), and I've got lots of ideas for the next weekend's craft fairs. I'm going to try my hand at some Pumpkin Cats in recognition of the forthcoming Halloween festivities. And Santa Cats will also be making an appearance soon!

'Twas the night before...My First Craft Fair!!

Wow, I never realised just how much work was involved in preparing for your first craft fair. Or then again, perhaps I've just made it more complicated than it needs to be ;)

I really wanted to do this properly. So, the A1 poster for the back of the stall, along with the 4 foot banner, were ordered from EPS (fantastic printers, good price, quick turnaround - ask for Simon if you're interested, he's been a complete star), and yesterday was spent in a very Blue Petery way with black paper, boxes and miles of double sided sticky tape! I had the most fun making up little field enclosures for the Piglings and Wee Sheep (see below), complete with wee gates! The postcards are printed (thanks to overnightprints.co.uk for that - £10 for 100 high quality cards), and Moo.com has delivered the goods as usual in the form of mini moo cards and stickers!

I did a trial run of the table display, and I'm extremely chuffed with the way it's turned out! You may recall  (see The Invasion Begins...) that I was somewhat perturbed by how over 100 wee beasties could fit on an A3 sheet, and how on earth was I going to fill a 6 foot table. Well, my kitchen table is just over 4 feet long, and I managed to fill it pretty comprehensively, with some beasties to spare! Having the cards definitely helped, though.

So come along to The Treehouse Cafe tomorrow between 12 and 4pm! It is my debut appearance at craft fairs, and I'm really looking forward to it!

It's been a busy day all round - I was offered a job this morning as Business Development Manager with Artsmix, and I accepted with great pleasure!  This marks the start of a new phase in my life, and I'm wildly excited about it (and a bit nervous!) I will still be making Wee Beasties, Rainbow Cats and Piglings, and probably lots more besides, and I will also have the privilege of promoting arts in Leeds. Life doesn't get much better than this!

Rainbow Cards (30 September 2009)

After a day of making Rainbow Cats, I continued the theme and made up some more Rainbow Cards. I embellished the clouds on these A7 cards, and used bright coloured cards to complement the blue cards I made up earlier this month (see Bright Rainbow Cards).

I also made up some more black rainbow tiles on small white cards, and for this sequence, I laid out rainbow strands into one undulating line, and then cut the line into three panels. I left the strands standing proud, which gives the cards a nice three dimensional feel.

I also made up some large cards with the black rainbow panels. I love the endless variations which can be created by interweaving the strands, although this works better with more random colours, rather than the rainbow ones, as the colours really do have to stay in order to make sense.

Finally, I made up three more large rainbow cards using thicker strands, and again I used complementary bright colours, having used orange and yellow for previous cards.

(Note to self - photograph cards BEFORE they are put into cellophane bags...)

More Rainbow Cats (b.30 September 2009)

I had another rainbow day, and I experimented with creating a rainbow cane. I started off making a bull's eye cane, with the purple at the core, and the rest of the rainbow colours wrapped round in successive layers. It looked really good as a cane! However, it didn't translate quite so well on the cats.

I think part of the problem may have been that I was using orange Fimo classic, which was pretty old (about 8 years, I think), and the colour has changed on baking. Still, I perservered and made these three kittens. I think they look pretty manic - the spots look like amoebas rather than cute rainbow circles...

And yet, it I hadn't gone ahead with the kittens, I wouldn't have come up with my next idea, which was to cut the rainbow cane in half lengthwise and blend the resultant half-hoop rainbows onto another cat! And I LOVE how this turned out!

I cut out tiny flowers from white clay and pushed them together to form clouds. Cutting the cane slices thin enough to avoid too much distortion was a bit tricky but overall, I think it worked out well. I would have loved a cat like this when I was young! 

And to finish off the Day of Rainbows (which also involved making another 16 Rainbow Cards - more on that story later), I gathered up the scrap clay and made another couple of Ultimate Rainbow Cats!