swishing

Swishing is a relatively new term: for those who haven’t heard of it before (where have you been?!) it’s really just a well-organised clothes swap.  Usually a fairly upmarket one, so hopefully you come away with something you really like . . .  pre-loved, but good quality and stylish. 

The rather fabulous www.swishing.org tells you a lot more than I could about swishing.

Stockton Heath Children’s Swish:

This one is new to me: a children’s swish!  What a really, really good idea!  It’s sometimes hard to keep up with the speed at which children grow - I remember one day looking up at my then teenage son and thinking “How did you get up there?  I’m sure I was looking down at you last week!”  He’d noticed it too - he said “Hi Shorty”!

So, the Stockton Heath Children’s Swish, quite cleverly named Thread UP . . . with the Kids, takes place on Friday 17th September at 7pm at Stockton Heath Methodist Church Hall, Walton Road, Stockton Heath, Warrington, WA4 6NL.  Advance tickets are £4, on the night it’s £6 (proceeds are in aid of the church redevelopment fund). 

To buy an advance ticket, or for more information, phone Julie on 07802 466043.

buy your advance ticket now

If you finish the night by taking home a bagful of children’s clothing - as well as recycling some of your own kids’ clothes (or maternity clothes) - that £4 advance ticket sounds like a real bargain!  You’ll be doing your bit for the planet too - this is quite obviously a very environmentally-conscious way to shop.

OK, the rules of the Children’s Swish are these:

• Bring along at least 1 item of maternity wear or children’s clothing/shoes etc (up to age 12) that you would be happy to sell on (not jumble!)
• Browse the stalls, have a drink and have some Me time!
• Wait for the Swish to open and take as much as you like FREE!!

I’ve been invited to have a stall with my hand-painted gifts at the swishing event, along with other people selling items.  If you’re also planning to be there, you’ll find books from Usborne, cards from Phoenix, a photographer, gorgeous nappy cakes as well as some (much tastier!) real cakes and treats, oh . . . and other stalls selling handmade lovelies.

I’m sure a very good evening will be had by all!

a perfect fit

The August bank holiday Monday with these perfect blue skies

blue skies and marquee before the customers arrived

the well-trodden grass

well trodden grass

and the promise of a good day out

gorgeous setting

with a variety of attractions

birds of prey

could only mean one thing . . . yesterday at Gawsworth Hall was a busy day for all us stallholders. 

I enjoyed personalising gifts for customers.  Among other things, I sold quite a few first day at school frames

first day at school photo frame

a few fairy clocks

fairy clock

some wine o’ clock clocks

wine o clock

and lots of mini masterpiece holders for all those little budding artists out there

mini masterpiece hanger

It was exhausting but lots of fun - and I still haven’t unloaded my car.  I’ve an urgent order to start first, though, so unloading will begin as soon as some paint needs a bit of drying time! 

I love the way my days get ordered nowadays by paint drying!

A three day craft fair is a bit exhausting, a lot of fun and a great place to catch up with old friends and make new ones.  This weekend’s fair at Gawsworth Hall is no exception.

Saturday (yesterday) saw a fairly quiet day for all of us, probably because the weather wasn’t particularly friendly: heavy showers may well have put a lot of people off but the customers who did brave the weather were happy to spend their money on the many stalls.  There was a lot of evidence of early Christmas buying (I’m extremely impressed with the high level organisational skills these people have!).

Sunday (today) was busier after the rain stopped somewhat suddenly at lunchtime, when we were blessed with blue skies.  Monday promises sunshine and blue skies (although I’m not holding my breath) so hopefully we’ll have a busy day tomorrow.  I’m not very good at standing still and doing nothing - talking to customers and, even better, personalising items for them there and then makes the time pass much more quickly for me. 

It was nice to see some new stallholders.  I loved the applique cushion kits from www.picklepatchdesigns.com

cushion kit from Pickle Patch Designs

I also loved these ceramics from Carol of Conway Ceramics.  The stall was full to bursting with my favourite colour . . . blue.  When Carol’s website is up and running I’ll add a link to it.  I’m sure you’ll love her things too.

original unusual blue ceramic vases

Of course, it was great to catch up with the lovely Rama from Veggie Delite.  Rama specialises in the most amazing Indian food.  We ate her food at home this evening - as quick and easy as a takeaway, but deliciously home cooked and authentic.  I can certainly vouch for her mango chutney too!

mango chutney to die for

Rama does meal kits too:

Indian meal kits from Veggie Delite

Like some of our visitors at the fair this weekend, maybe you’ll also be tempted to do a bit of early Christmas shopping . . . and if there isn’t a craft fair near you, the internet is increasingly becoming the place to find handmade and unusual gifts. 

And, best of all, it won’t matter what the weather is like.

Recently I had the pleasure of being next to the delightful Heatha, from Rock Folly, at a show.  Heatha sells the loveliest of scarves as well as a selection of bags and baskets.  She asked me to make her some bespoke signs for her stall:

I made three signs, each to Heatha’s brief, as follows:

you can never have enough scarves

You can never have enough scarves - as this is what Heatha is always telling people.

scarves make great gifts

Scarves make great gifts (well, of course they do - you can never have enough scarves!!)

Rock Folly for scarves

and Rock Folly for scarves!

As always, it’s a great pleasure to do bespoke designs.  It’s a bit of a worry, too, as people haven’t seen what they’re buying.  Luckily nobody has (yet!) hated a bespoke design, and for those who are quite nervous about this way of doing things, I do offer to show them the design online before they pay.  It’s sometimes quite hard to buy something you’ve not yet seen!!

Heatha was most definitely pleased and wrote a lovely review for me: http://www.freeindex.co.uk/profile(1st-unique-gifts)_259662.htm 

You can find Rock Folly here: www.rockfolly.co.uk - it’s definitely worth a look!

If you’d like to order your own bespoke design, you can email me: wendy@1stuniquegifts.co.uk … you can also hop over to the website to see more: www.1stuniquegifts.co.uk

I asked for the sun to shine on Croft (see my last post!) and today it did just that for the 2010 Carnival. 

It was fabulous day - Croft is a lovely place to live (and work!) but it’s not often you can say there’s a buzz about the place: driving through, it usually seems quiet and peaceful…because that’s just the way it is.  Not today though - there was a real buzz about the place!

croft carnival

Walking up to the field, the village’s scarecrow competition, with the theme of into the future, was evident.  I loved the iCrow!

iCrow scarecrow

The Doctor Who scarecrow was definitely inspired:

tardis

The field was awash with stalls, rides, tents of varying descriptions - and even live music. 

The ladies in the WI tent sold me some cakes which were just far too delicious! Thank you ladies!  Then they caught me eating an ice cream not long after I’d devoured a cake.  Whoops!!  I also bought a few books from them, too, which were a bit of a bargain at 50 pence each! I don’t often get time to read these days, and sometimes I drop into bed exhausted at night, but I’m sure I’ll make some time to read.

wi marquee

I was next to the lovely Marion who make the most gorgeous nappy cakes:

delightful little bundles

These roses are from socks!

sock roses

They’d make a lovely gift for a big brother or sister to take into hospital for their new sibling. You can visit Marion’s website here: www.delightfullittlebundles.co.uk - perfect for practical as well as pretty gifts for newborns.

Oh, and my next-door neighbour the other way was:

wv

http://vwvintagewedding.com who hire out their campervan

campervan

and beetle for weddings! 

beetle

How amazing that they are just a couple of miles away from me…I was researching campervan weddings just a few weeks ago when I was asked to do a campervan wedding canvas but didn’t realise there was a campervan wedding hire company so close to home.  I came home after the carnival to another commission for a campervan wedding canvas too! It will be a bit like this one

campervan wedding canvas

but in red.

I was opposite the circus skills arena - it looked like great fun was had by all!  I didn’t see anyone master the unicycle, unfortunately - although perhaps I just didn’t watch for long enough!

circus skills arena

It was just amazing that many of my customers were fairly close neighbours of mine: the same road, round the corner, a short walk away, etc.  It was lovely to be able to personalise things for people.  I loved this chalkboard for newlyweds:

peronalised chalkboard

And the twist on the love lives in little houses plaque:

love lives in little bungalows

And sometimes customers have the best ideas! I may have to adopt this one into my range:

friends welcome...relatives by appointment only

I love doing events like this one: everyone seemed to be having so much fun.  And with it being so local, what an easy drive home for me!  If I hadn’t have needed to take so much stock I’d've walked there and back. In two minutes flat. 

Thank you to all my lovely customers today! And thank you for buying local! Don’t forget you can find me here: www.1stuniquegifts.co.uk If you’re having a carnival or event like this near you, I hope it’s as lovely as ours in Croft was!

It’s been such a busy week!  When there’s a fair to attend, there’s always a lot of stock to prepare: these are door plaques getting their sticky pads on the back. Always a boring job when there are this many to do at once!

door plaques

This week there’s been the Cheshire Show, always a busy well-attended show followed closely by the Arley Garden Festival - so two big events very close together. The preparation is only one aspect of doing a show: fitting it in around customer orders, packing, unloading, getting the stall ready all add to the mix!  The other big part is actually being there for the sometimes long, long days: time consuming and sometimes exhausting, but definitely rewarding and enjoyable.  I was asked at Arley would I be able to take a break during the day. The short answer is no: what we do when we work for ourselves would be illegal if we were employees!  Fortunately, when you’re next to nice helpful people (as is the norm) you do manage to slip away for a few minutes - we watch each other’s stall.

 This was the first time I’d attended the Arley show, and I was impressed.  It was well laid out, with shopping tents, plant stalls and gazebos as well as marquees lining grassy streets!

grassy shopping streets

As you’d expect from a garden festival, there were lots of plants for people to buy

some of the plant stalls

It was incredibly hot and sunny but most people were sensible and hats were in evidence everywhere:

everyone wore hats

There was a rather fetching hat stall, no doubt doing brisk business: this is www.hatsoffoxford.com

hat stall

And there were some lovely things to buy for your garden:

garden ornaments

Lovely handmade soaps and skincare products from www.cherishskincare.co.uk - Laura and her mum make all these products themselves. They’re all completely natural and I can assure you the scents are just gorgeous - I spent a weekend next to this stall and it was a real treat!

gorgeous handmade soap

A real life owl

owl

and impossibly cute baby hedgehogs courtesy of www.lowermosswood.org.uk who are an educational nature reserve and wildlife hospital:

baby hedgehogs

And there was even a large painted rhino sculpture (not that I know much about the sizing of rhinos, but this one looked life-size to me) on display

rhino sculpture

There’s more info about the rhino here: www.rhinomania.co.uk and www.visitcheshire.com/gardens

I was fortunate to have a position just by the entrance to the marquee - which meant I caught a gentle breeze every so often, which was most welcome on such a hot day.  If you’ve ever spent more than a few minutes on a hot day in a marquee you’ll understand just how welcome that breeze was! This photo is taken from behind my stall:

welcome breeze from the entrance

It is always a delight to be able to personalise things for people there and then: this plaque was personalised for someone who has a collection of bears and bear-related items, which will be having their own room. 

clares bears

This shoe clock reads: give a girl the right shoes and she can conquer the world - it’s also personalised for Charlotte Mary, who I believe is someone who likes her shoes!

shoe clock

Probably not surprisingly, the Saturday at Arley was busier than the Sunday - I would imagine the only reason for this was the England v Germany match at 3pm.  I’m told England didn’t play well - but I guess the score is testament to that: I’m no soccer expert but 4-1 is not a good result in anyone’s books… unless you’re supporting the opposing team, then I suppose you may be celebrating!! 

My next event could not be more local to me unless it was in my back garden!  I’ll be at Croft Carnival on 3rd July, which will be held on the playing fields in Croft (Warrington): about 2 minutes from my house - walking at a slow pace!!  I’m looking forward to it - hope the weather stays good!

In the meantime, if you’re not close enough to visit me at any of these shows, you can buy all the products online at www.1stuniquegifts.co.uk or email me for special requests: wendy@1stuniquegifts.co.uk

Everything is hand-painted and hand-lettered, which means there are always slight differences between each item.  It also means that if you have any special requests regarding colour, design, images or wording, they can usually be accommodated.

The Cheshire Show is a big event in the Cheshire calendar and I must admit I was surprised at just how big, given that it’s on a Tuesday and Wednesday, bucking the trend for weekend events.

cheshire show

Last year, there were queues to get onto the showground to unload, diversions set up for exiting the ground, massive visitor numbers (80,000 over the two days) - but lots and lots going on.  I know people take time off work to spend the day (or even both days) at the show, and local schools come along with groups of children.  I lost count of the number of children I spoke to who were taking part in events with their horses - and the rosettes were definitely out in abundance!

rosette

This year I’ll be there again, in the craft marquee, hoping the weather is just as good as it was last year.  On second thoughts, maybe not.  Last year was a little too hot: the marquee was airless and overbearingly hot.  Us Brits are never satisfied with the weather!  (To be fair, it’s no real wonder, given what the weather throws at us on its ever-changing, thoroughly unpredictable roulette. Throwing often being the operative word!)

If you’re at the Cheshire Show this year, come and say hello!!  If you’d like more information, it’s all here: http://www.cheshirecountyshow.org.uk/

A quick reminder that the online auction in aid of www.msrc.co.uk is still open for bidding.  There are still some low bids on some items, so hop over to www.orchydesign.blogspot.com to bag yourself a gorgeous handmade bargain and get the warm, fuzzy feeling from helping an important charity at the same time.

Did someone ask how many days to Christmas?

countdown to Christmas chalkboard

countdown to Christmas with a mini chalkboard complete with chalk holder house

I know they’ve been talking about it, because these new Countdown to Christmas chalkboard/blackboard plaques were the stars of the day at the fair I did this weekend.  They even come with a little stick of chalk which sits very conveniently behind the little wooden house.  A sweet little alternative to an advent calendar, they promote numeracy skills and are such fun to use.  They can be re-used every year, and are sure to become a bit of a ritual.  Only 6.99, you can buy yours here: http://www.1stuniquegifts.co.uk/christmasitems.html    

It was a busy three days at the fair.  These “save water, drink wine” plaques also proved popular…. I suspect they are being bought as jokey for presents for friends!  You can get yours here: http://www.1stuniquegifts.co.uk/humourousgifts.html for just £5.99 plus £1.20 postage.

save water drink wine plaque

The drawbacks at the weekend?  Oh, I suppose I could mention the small matter of the severe weather warning on the Sunday… after a gloriously sunny and bright Saturday which was just lovely.  I did think the rain and winds would keep people at home on Sunday but it didn’t seem that way.  My first customer was buying gifts before she went back to her home in Portugal - she had been beginning to wonder why she had left this country but the weather on Sunday was a not-so-gentle reminder. 

We were lucky, as the predicted 70 mph gusts didn’t seem to materialise - at least not in the Wilmslow area.  The day was wet, cold and very windy though.  Leaving my cosy warm home that morning, I nearly thumped Mr 1st Unique Gifts when he said “well, it doesn’t matter - you’ll be inside, won’t you?”   Yes, inside a big billowing tent, with puddles on the floor and draughts under the sides.  Not really my idea of “inside”. I shouldn’t complain.  The marquee was ok, really - it had doors (which were a real problem to close in the strong winds!), a carpet walkway (which even came to behind my table, a real luxury!) - and pretty fairy lights.

Fairy lights!!!  OK, how many days to Christmas????  The little plaque in the earlier picture says it all.  Yes, it really is 51 days to go.

I think I knew it, but this weekend should confirm it… I am officially completely barking mad.  Yes, I’m going to spend another weekend in a draughty marquee selling my personalised painted goodies.  I’ll be at Wilmslow Garden Centre (SK9 2JN) from Friday 30th October to Sunday 1st November - more info on the garden centre here: http://www.klondyke.co.uk/node/19

I don’t mind it really.  I quite like marquee events - at least there’s plenty of fresh air, and I love the atmosphere - the camaraderie and banter between stallholders is fun.  I miss that element of working full time in a busy environment (not that I don’t still work in a busy environment, but mostly it’s just me and the radio and the paint!!).  I will just have to remember to wrap up in (as my mother would say) “more skins than an onion”  and take my flasks (one of coffee and one of soup) to help keep me warm.

This morning, I feel quite pleased with myself.  I dragged myself out of my bed very early, and painted ten pink fairy door plaques before breakfast.  Lots to do today, customer orders to finish off and stock to complete for the weekend.  The door plaques, in case you are after a little girly gift, are available to buy here: http://www.1stuniquegifts.co.uk/doorplaques.html 

magical fairy door plaques

If you’re in the Wilmslow area, please do pop along to the marquee at the Garden Centre and say hello.  It’s on Manchester Road, postcode as above.  If you can’t make it, do have a look at the events page to the right –>> or pop over to the website: www.1stuniquegifts.co.uk .  We are also taking bookings for school Christmas fairs (we’ll add to your fundraising with commission on all sales!) and house parties at the moment.

See you soon.  I have a date with some blackboard paint as well as some pony canvases!!  Best get moving then…