Craft Fair

It turns out that I was a little (teensy, weensy) bit stressed before the Orchard Trust Summer Fayre last weekend... I know this because as soon as it was over I stopped shouting at my nearest and dearest. Oops. The Fayre was a fantastic event though, attended by hundreds of people, far more than I expected (given how worried I was about not doing well at it, it's probably just as well I didn't know it would be that big!) and I had a FANTASTIC afternoon... both in terms of enjoyment & also business!

The day didn't start out too well weather-wise... half an hour before I had to go and set up the rain was coming down in sheets and bouncing up so high it was hitting our windows! But then, glorious sunshine for the rest of the day... and here are some pics of my stall all set up:

It was lovely to see some familiar faces - thank you to everyone who came along & supported both the charity & also little old me :-)

I've got a stall at a charity Fun Day on Sunday 19th August but I think after that I'll give it a break until the Christmas markets get underway.... it's just too stressful whilst also trying to hold down a part time job, look after the sprogs and fulfill orders!

We also had the excitement of Patrick's 2nd Birthday last week and his party on Saturday - great fun was had by all, especially when it came to the eating of the cake:

Prolonged Holiday...

So if everything had gone according to plan I would have been writing this post on Sunday, waiting for my Dad to arrive for a couple of days (to celebrate the little man's 2nd Birthday) as we would have arrived back from holiday on Saturday afternoon... everything would be unpacked & washed and I'd be nicely relaxed. Instead it's Tuesday and none of that is done! Just as we were packing up on Friday night, Brian looked at the tickets and discovered that he'd inadvertently booked us tickets home for Sunday, not Saturday!! Oops! Still an extra day's holiday is all good :-)

We had a wonderful time in Ireland... the weather was, as always, mixed, but the kids enjoyed the rainy days as much as the sunny ones. It was great to catch up with not only Brian's close family, but also some cousins who we often don't get to see, as we headed out West to a friend's wedding and luckily for us it was very close to a number of Brian's cousins and a couple of mine, so we caught up with almost all of them in one weekend - hectic :-)

Seren had her first trip to the cinema while we were away (to see Ice Age 4 - I enjoyed it too!) and she LOVED it :-) It was such a pleasure to take her and spend some quality time as Mummy & Daughter on our own (Patrick is definitely still too young to sit still or quietly for long enough!)


The most popular things though, were the 1st of the 3 birthday cakes to celebrate Patrick's 2nd Birthday, playing at the beach & playing with their big cousins:

  

And while you might think I did nothing except for relaxing I can assure you I was busy busy busy - making this lot:

All of these are for the Summer Fayre that I'm attending this coming Sunday:

We're all going on a summer holiday...

.... Okay, now I'm showing my age with that title aren't I?!?! (Or I could just blame it on my Mum's love of Sir Cliff!)

We're off to Ireland tomorrow to visit my lovely 'out-laws' (don't quite know why my hubby's wonderful parents have always been called that, but it's stuck now!) and I honestly don't know who is more excited... me & Brian or the kids :-)

Brian & his brother Tony braving the sea last summer

Seren & Patrick refusing to leave the blanket!

I've got a ton of sewing to take with me as I'm doing a summer fate when we get back - anyone local to the Forest of Dean if you're around on Sunday 29th July we'd love it if you'd pop in and say hello. I've been so busy with orders that I've not had much chance to build up stock for things like this (which is great in one sense!) so this fortnight is going to be a nice change for me.

The other thing I've been working on this week (and it was a last minute request, so scuppered my chances of blogging for an evening or two!) was a Christmas Wreath which had been asked for by the Etsy UK Publicity team for their 'Christmas in July' event, which is held to promote a select number of UK based Etsy shops to journalists and publicity types in the hope that they will use some of the items in their festive shopping guides!

I was OVER THE MOON to be asked to participate and this morning I sent off my Christmas Wreath:

It is listed in my Etsy shop already because a lovely customer asked me in May (I dream of being that organised!) to put together a wreath for him to send to family in America and I am so pleased now that it was done in time to get into the Christmas marketing timescales.

The other thing that's been quite fun this week has been an order of rainbow VW Campervans:

Lastly I just wanted to finish with an apology... when I started this blog I intended to write a new post at least 2-3 times a week... well I've failed miserably on that score. So my mid-year resolution is to post more often when we get back from holiday (starting with the pre-requisite holiday snaps!)

Hope you have a good couple of weeks with some sunshine!!