Time is flying

Morning, hope you all had wonderful weekends.  I can't get over where the time is going, 17th November seems too long since my last post.

Main news is that the countdown has started to our next stall – the Hitchin Farmers and Crafts Market in Hitchin this Saturday.  That means only a few days to get ready and I can’t wait.  The last stall went down really well and it will be great to be part of something that we’re more suited to.  It is going to be COLD though so will be wearing cosy boots and will have some hand warmers in my bag just in case.  What's all this talk of snow?  I am prepared for it though, the air con is stuck on full in my office and I was so cold yesterday that I had to put my feet in a jiffy bag, yes, a jiffy bag.  I'm not proud!  Anyway, today I have my furry boots on and they are working out nicely :-)

Back to the stall.  I have found the most wonderful orchids and made them into clips.  I love the yellow and pink, they look so really.  I've also made some hair clips using white tiger lillies which remind me of ones from Elvis's 1950 movies in Hawaii.  I wore one out the other night and it just finished the outfit off.  Here are some photos and what I've been making.  I'll take some nicer photos over the weekend and put them on my etsy store.

Mock up of stall

Padded heart brooches, single orchid clips and glitter roses

I've made some Poinsettia clips for Christmas too

Close up of the new additions

All this preparation helped me in the end as I was offered a place last minute at a Christmas craft fair last Saturday.  It was at a school so fascintators and pasties wouldn't have gone down too well so I focused on smaller flower hairclips.  It was a great feeling to just be able to do it.  It was a really lovely day and great experience.  I’ve recently bought a fold away table for events and wanted to try it out along with a layout for the stall itself.  Here’s a photo of what it looked like.  I was really really pleased with how it turned out.

The flowers were really well received and I met some lovely people and had a good day.  A highlight was seeing two best friends, who had each bought the same orchid clip, wandering around wearing them.  It was so cute! 

Something completey non vintage about the day was a temporary tattoo that I got on my wrist of a little tree frog.  I loved it and couldn’t stop looking at it.  I was lucky enough to have my stall next to the lovely lady who runs Falling Rock Airbrush Body Art and she gave me my own tattoo at the end of the day!  Such a good idea and very effective.  It would be a wonderful idea for parties too.  I had trouble picking a design as they were so many - all shapes and sizes and then you can pick your colours too.  I don’t have any real tattoos but I love this one - maybe it's because of the glitter?  It did give Mr P a bit of a fright when he saw it though.

Other weekend news is that I have lost my most favourite pair of vintage earrings; actually, even worse I’ve only lost one.  Bad news for me but good news that I can talk about where I bought them.  As you know I have a little etsy shop and have been part of that online craft community for a good few years so I have my favourite shops and know who to trust and how fast shipping can be to the UK.  One of them is where I get my earrings from www.etsy.com/shop/AstilbeDesigns



My favourite lost earrings



I love the simplicity and vintage feel of the designs.  My lost ones above are adorable glass flower pattern buttons and measure 6mm, They are made of 1940s Japanese glass and I just love them.  Luckily there was a pair for sale so I've bought them.  They arrive very quickly to the UK as well, a wonderful trusted seller.