Sunday, June 9, 2013

Dream Achieved - Market Day

It had always been a little dream of ours to have our own market stall to sell our art and craft.  We love creating but what do you do with all the stuff you make.  You can only give someone so many journals and lets face it we spend so much money on all the supplies you really need to be able to recoup some of that money back at some stage.

Liana was always so keen to have a stall and spent ages checking out where they were all on and how much they cost etc.   She located a few reasonably close to home and that weren't going to cost a huge amount to be a part of so started pushing me to commit to one.  It was all becoming a little bit too real and then I got nervous and scared and thought no-one would want to buy my stuff, that it wasn't good enough etc etc. 

Liana then visited the Canning Bridge Arts and Crafts Market in May and said they looked really good and that there were lots of people around and we should book a stall at the next one in June.  I decided I just had to bite the bullet and give it a go.  If we didn't try we would never find out and they weren't that expensive so if we didn't sell much we hadn't wasted too much money.  We went on line and filled out the application only to find out that the June Markets were to be the very last one as they were closing them down.  They had also reduced the price as it was their farewell market, even better still.  However, we also felt sad as now we had made the decision to try the market and now it was going to be their last one.  Now we were both feeling a bit nervous but I must admit a little bit excited.

Anyway we were signed up so it was all go.  We got busy building up our stock to make sure we had plenty to sell.  Liana was busy arm knitting to make as many different coloured scarves as she could.

 My hubby even went out and bought us our own gazebo to use over our stall.  He has always been my greatest supporter of my creativity.

Finally the weekend was here and it was all go. We stayed up late Friday night making price tags, making sure we had everything and packing up what we could.  Saturday my Mum and Dad were having their garage sale so we would be spending most of the day over there.  As it turned out I wasn't well when I woke up Saturday morning and spent most of the day in bed.  Liana and Mark were left to help at the garage sale without me.  Liana made the decision that her and Mark would still do the market without me if I wasn't well enough but I wasn't going to let her down and leave her to do it on her own.  It was our dream, so I was going to go through with it no matter what.

We were up early Sunday morning 5-45 am (very hard on a Sunday morning I must admit) and on the road by 6-30 am, yes it was still dark.  We arrived at the markets 7-30 am and began setting up.  Some of our planned display didn't work but we just had to reassess and make do with what we had.


Once it was all set up it did look really good and I must confess I did feel quite proud of our little stall. The weather was freezing which in one way was great as Liana sold quite a few of her scarves but I think it kept the people away plus it was also a long weekend. I am happy with the little amount that we sold, I would be happy to do some more now that we have done this one.  We met some lovely people who were so welcoming and encouraging as they knew it was our first time.  They told us not be disheartened as it was a lot quieter than normal and told us of other markets to try.








I am so grateful that I have a husband who supports my craft and was happy to spend his day with us, helping us to set up and hang around until we had finished.  I really enjoyed spending the day having quality time with my family.

Now that we have done it once, it won't be so scary next time, we have everything sorted that we need for the day so it shouldn't be so stressful.

We can happily keep crafting away now knowing that we will have an outlet to sell our stuff and we have proved that dreams can come true :) you just have to take that initial leap even if it is a little scary.


Saturday, June 1, 2013

Market Bound

Hey guys, Liana here :)

We have some exciting news!
Lilyden Creations is going to market!
The Canning Bridge Arts Market to be precise. TOMORROW!

We made the decision to go after I went and checked out last months market. The sun was shining, there were people singing, dancing and so many beautiful stalls! Sometime during the next week we finally took the plunge (we'd been planning to do markets for what feels like forever) and be booked our stall!
 
Just a few of the owls we have been busy getting ready for market!
 
So there you have it. We had three weeks to organise everything and no time to blog :(
We still owe you a blog on how our garage went!
 
Speaking of garage sales it was Nanna and Pop's garage sale today. Of course when I got up this morning it felt like I was on the North Pole, my toes are still numb!
I went to help out and sell a few more clothes out of my exponentially growing wardrobe and I came home with this...
 
 
 
I'm going put a fresh coat of paint on it and put it in my house... when I have one...
 
So that's really it for now, I have to go make some more goodies for the markets!
Have a great day :)