A NEW IDEA FOR CHRISTMAS!

I am so tired of being in the kitchen!  Really - I like to cook, but having to be in there every day dealing with all the vegetables is starting to get to me a little bit - so I decided it was going to be a day spent in the studio.

It's been so long since I spent a whole day there that I was disorientated at first.  I have projects in various stages of completion all over my large work area, and I wasn't inclined to work on any of them.

Instead I decided to start some new projects - Christmas projects!  Yes - sorry, you heard me correctly!  There is a reason I need to start some Christmas projects - a very good reason, actually.

I have decided to have a Christmas Open House this year, to showcase my work, and hopefully sell some of it as well.  I don't want to be in the local craft sales - not being un-community - like,  but I totally dislike craft sales that are 80% vendors, and 20% crafters, and judging by the ones I visited around the area last year - this is the case.

It appears to be the new way that organizers guarantee that they can fill tables.  Sadly - this has become the norm for craft sales almost everywhere.

But there is a change happening.  There are serious crafters/artisans who like me, don't want to sell in vendor sales.  Those people are banding together and promoting going back to the "Old- Fashioned style of sales.  Some are even adopting juried entries, which I applaud.  This means you have to submit your work to the organizers to be judged before you are even allowed to rent a table.  The really good sales of days gone by - always operated in this manner.  I sold my work at the Manitoba Crafts Guild for years - and this was always the way your work was accepted - it had to be juried first.

When I first started doing craft sales with my Mother back in the 1970's every table at a sale was handmade.  Good stuff from leather crafters, wood crafters, seamstresses, loom knitters, needle knitters, precious gem jewelry crafters, where the gems were cut and polished by the artisans.  Many many other types of crafts, but all worthy of sharing an large hall with each other.  There were no made in China items, no Avon, Tupperware, no re-sellers of any kind.

I have nothing against Avon, or tupperware - I sold Avon myself - but they don't belong in a craft sale.

So  I am trying something different for my little community.  I am inviting the community into my home for two evenings, I will offer refreshments, beautiful Christmas music, and many things for sale that I am pretty sure no one here has ever seen before.  I want to know if my idea of someday running a real Craft ONLY sale will work in this community - or not.

But first I have to get things moving in my work studio.

To that end, I did pretty well.  I have a stack of Christmas Mug Rugs to applique on the next rainy day.  Now I need to hunt down my #7 hook and start to crochet.  There is much to do the next few months if I hope to pull my idea off.

Crafting and dealing with the rest of my garden produce is going to keep my very very busy indeed!