Practice for Stratford

I have no way of sharing this picture without also showing the hideous amount of junk in the background, so many apologies for that.

I am practicing for the Stratford fair this Sunday.  For once, I am in the wonderful position of having too many bears to sell - mostly because the panda takes up half the table(!)

I have been debating whether to spread things out and give them plenty of space (leaving half the stock in crates under the table, ready to fill any gaps) or whether to cram everything on, willy-nilly.  The latter isn't my usual style, but actually I quite like the way this looks.  So long as I don't try to create any patterns, putting like with like or collecting colours together, I think I can get away with calling it eclectic rather than crammed.

I am just finishing a puffin, and starting a little pink bear, and hopefully I'll have the time to make another little moon bear - and perhaps another hare - before the show.  Then, once this weekend is over, I must make crows again.  I still have someone waiting for one.

Essex Craft & Design Show, pt 2

Well, very little happened in pt 2, unfortunately.  There were lots of people - it was much busier than the Saturday - but nobody seemed to be spending money.  It's a shame because it's such a lovely venue, and talking to the other stallholders, they've evidently done reasonably well in the past.  Some of them have been exhibiting every year for the past seven years(!)

Thank you as ever to everyone who came over to say hello, or who bought bears (or crows, or mammoths).  I was very pleased to find good homes for them.

My next fair is at the Greenwoods Hotel in Stock on Sunday 19th October.  There are lots of things I want to make for it - starting with more crows.  I would love to have a go at a hedgehog too.  Then there are the puffins, which probably won't be done for a while.  And an armadillo.  After today though, I'm thinking that I ought to start by making a grumpy-looking bear, perhaps just the head and shoulders, to sit at the back of my stall and glare at passers by - just for the times when I start going cross-eyed and need someone to take over!

Essex Craft & Design Show

Some photos from our first day of the Essex Craft & Design Show at Cressing Temple.

We were up at the crack of dawn (well, before the street lights went out, anyway).

First look at their wonderful historical barns.

This is the second one, the one that we're in.

I tried my best to break into the walled garden, but I couldn't get the door open.  :-(  They opened it up later on, but I didn't get the chance to go in.  Tomorrow maybe.

Our stall - looking rather diminutive and over-filled.  And orange.  It's difficult to see in the picture, but I thought it looked really good.  I was really happy with it.

We managed to get breakfast in The Wooden Spoon Cafe.  They were great - "Vegetarian?  Hmmm.  Well, in an ideal world, what would you like to have for breakfast?  Fried egg sandwich?  We can do that."  And while we were waiting, one of the staff was faffing around with a gigantic wooden spoon, which I thought was quite funny.  I've no idea what they did with it - I didn't see it again.  I wonder if it's one of those things you put in an order for, and then take delivery of and realise it is a marketing ploy too far.

This is my mother in the photo.

This is the ceiling of the barn we were in.  They have bats!  Luckily we had taken a spare sheet to go over the bears at the end of the day.

And finally, just outside our barn was a stall for a group whose name I can't remember.  I think they were volunteer Essex rangers.  Anyway, they had a stall with lots of handmade wooden items - bird houses, feeders, and things like that.  They had some wonderful wooden crates, so we bought one and ordered more, thinking they would be great for the bears to sit on.  They also had a lady making little round name tags for dog collars - which were absolutely perfect for the bigger bears!  So I ordered some of them too.

The fair was rather quiet, but we did manage to take the stall fee - which is quite a relief because it is one of the more expensive fairs.  I'm kicking myself for not getting my new crows finished.  Wolfgang, the only one I had left to take with me, was the first thing to sell.  I'm sure I could have found homes for a few more, had I had them.

Anyway, too late now.  Fingers crossed for tomorrow!

Teddies 2014

Hello!  Sorry for the long delay in writing anything.  I have been making bears for the Teddies 2014 show, in Kensington Town Hall, which was on Sunday.  We had been told that it was never quite as good as the February show (which is similar to the pattern of sales at the Art & Craft Centre), and it did seem quieter.  By lunch time, I was quite worried that it was going to be a complete disaster.  I took the view that it was best not to worry about it though, even if we sold nothing.  I'm sure sobbing behind your stall sends quite the wrong impression.  So, we struggled on, and we did manage to sell enough bears to cover the stall fee.  And we had a few people who seemed interested in ordering online.  Then, right at the end, a lady came up and bought the two linen crows.  So I went home with a smile on my face.  Or at least, I went out the door with a smile.  We then had two and a half hours lost in London, in terrible traffic, which was not a happy experience.  It was very good to get home!

Anyway, I have a fortnight until the next show, which is at Cressing Temple on 27th and 28th September.  I have been reconsidering my meerkats.  Today I was in town briefly and I passed the Build-A-Bear Workshop.  It struck me that perhaps what the meerkats need are hats.  I was really after a policeman's helmet, but they didn't have any of those.  Instead I came home with a cowboy hat and a camouflage helmet.  They looked great!  And pleasingly random(!)  I think they'll have to come to the next fair with me.

And now, back to the bear-making!

Fair post mortem, part 1

Terrible, terrible picture - sorry - but it's the only one I took on my not-very-smart phone.

Before we went to this fair, I was trying to write a blog post about how best to set up a stall display.  Reading it back now, it sounds unnecessarily complicated.  

I'm sure the display is important.  Certainly I've yet to figure out how it works.

My mother and I argue about it every time.  She wants to put as many bears on the table as possible; I think people don't look so much at individual bears when they're faced with a crowded table.  She thinks that having display 'props' - like big hat boxes for the bears to sit - distracts from the bears themselves; I think ostentatious props can make people come over and have a look.

But what I really took away from this bear fair was that - whilst I've been planning my stall like a window display - it is, or should be, a much more changeable, interactive thing.  If you treat it like a window display, customers will too - looking, then leaving.

What you really need to do - never mind the display - is to move things around (or just pick them up) fairly frequently and obviously.  I think when people saw me picking things up, they were happier to do so themselves.  (Maybe they assumed I was another customer.)  And if you see someone looking at something particular, pick it up and offer it to them.

And whilst I really wish I could be more like the bloke next to us, who was selling wonderful teddy bear chairs (which I can recommend) - drawing people in and making them laugh - I found that even just giving people more information helped to pique their interest.

Okay, so I probably bored a few people silly.  "Yes, he's heavy because when I made the papier mache horns, he needed something to counter-balance the weight, so he's got lots of steel shot in his bottom."  That customer left quite quickly.

But people seemed genuinely delighted when we showed them that the meerkats had double-neck joints.  And the lady who bought Stefan the mammoth may have been swayed by the face that he was made from a piece of antique German mohair, and that all his scars were original.  And Plummie sold after a conversation about how I had come up with the design to go in the middle of the wreath - to create a sort of 'hibernating' look.  Or maybe he sold in spite of that conversation!

But I think, genuinely - even if people are not interested in the construction process - if you can impart just a little of the effort and consideration that went into making something, that is a pull for people.  Certainly that would appeal to me as a customer.

The Teddy Bear Artist Event 2014

We're home!!!  Completely knackered from the driving, but it was a really nice fair, we met some lovely people, and quite a few creatures founds homes.  There were three little birds, a rabbit called Ringo, a mini moose called Heloise, a mammoth called Stefan, two little bears called Jasper and Robbie, Plummie - the bear from my last post, and a big panda called Humphrey!

We managed to cover the cost of the stall, and a little bit more besides - and I think we sold one more creature than we did at Hugglets in February - so I'm happy.

I hope to post the boring details in great depth later, but in the meantime, I'm off to bed.

Boris, Milton & Plummie

I am really not looking forward to the show this weekend - particularly since it looks like its going to be a five o'clock start.  In addition to being a nervous wreck, I shall be asleep - can one be both?  This morning my black linen finally turned up(!)  It's far too late to make any more crows for the show but by the next one, I will have my little gang of them.

In the meantime, I have made a few more things - this little yellow bird, perhaps called Boris.

The organisers of the show run a competition, which visitors cast votes in.  I am entering two birds in a category called 'The Perfect Pair'.  The crow is one of the ones I made a while ago - she's called Mildred.  The little wren I've just finished, and he's called… Milton?

And, since Holroyd found a home recently, I thought I'd make another bear of that design.  This is Plummie!

New mammoths

Hello!  Yesterday I made two mammoths out of a black wool fabric I found.  While I was making them I thought they would look quite stark and simple in black and white.  Now I'm thinking, "too simple?"

Perhaps they need something else.  I'm not sure what though.

I seem to have got a bit of a gothic theme going on - what with the crows, the black moon bears and mammoths, and the meerkats which the Victorians might have stuffed and displayed in a glass cabinet(!)  I need some way to brighten things up.

Arthur's pricing

Bleh - it hasn't been a great day so far.  I have a show coming up in Stratford on 15th June, and I'm starting to get a bit jumpy about it.  I got up yesterday morning and thought 'I need more small bear patterns'.  So I started out adapting an existing design, got distracted by the shape and decided to go a different route.  I spent all day working on the body and the head, and did they match?  No.

This morning, I looked at the two patterns and thought, 'well the body is a bit unlikely, but the head really works' - so onto trying to make a new body for him.  By 11 o'clock, I had admitted defeat.  

I guess I did two things wrong.  A and 1, if I'm going to spend ages getting the patterns right, I need to spend a bit more time in the planning stage, making sure the ideas are viable.  B and 2, maybe two weeks before a show is not the right time to start a new project.

It's these birds which are making me panic.  The crows were supposed to be my 'new thing' for this show.  I have lots of plans for them, but I'm waiting for the fabric to arrive (again).  I do have two in the cabinet at the Art & Craft Centre, but I'd love to have a little mob of them!  That would make a real impact.

In the meantime, I have finally worked out the pricing for Arthur.  He was very expensive to make unfortunately.  But he is beautiful.  Hopefully someone will have him.

North West Teddy Bear Fair

Well, this is us at the North West Teddy Bear Fair in Bolton yesterday.  I didn't take many photos because everyone else was rushing round with discreet little camera phones and my camera is a massive, chunky, indelicate hunk of hardware (so to speak) - I was feeling self-conscious!

Anyway, we had mixed results.  It was rather quiet.  Apparently this was a new venue, so it was nowhere near as busy as the Rivington Hall Barn Fair (which is the one we went to a few years ago).  I guess it takes a while for these events to become known.

In spite of that, it was very good to see everybody again.  There were lots of familiar faces and everyone was very friendly.  And the meerkats went down very well.  They seemed to be the first thing people looked at when they stopped at the stall, and I was introduced several times as 'the lady who makes the meerkats'.  Perhaps preferable to the Art & Craft Centre, where I am occasionally referred to as 'the bear lady'?

The standard was very very high - if I'd made any money, I would surely have spent it there and then.  It did make me think that perhaps I need to spend more time working on new designs and new ideas.

I've got just over a month until the next one - on 15th December in Waltham Abbey - so we'll see how it goes.