Recent Craft Fair

On the 4th of July I participated in the Les Artisans Craft Fair at Hidden Cove in Bradley IL. This new venue was huge, actually 4 basketball courts in one and although the whole space was not taken up with craft booths, it still had a nice turnout of fine wares.

Last year was the 1st time I had sold at this show and it was one of the best shows I had in all the years of selling. This year was not quite as profitable but I was very pleased. With the lousy economy and our area has been especially hit hard, I didn't know what to expect.


This is a rather blurry picture of one side of my booth, I do much better using a tripod. The picture from the other side is really blurry!

I did sell a wide variety of my goods - totes & romantic bags, cigar box purses, scrabble tile charms, domino necklaces, soldered glass necklaces, dragonfly & butterfly pins made from 2-liter pop bottle plastic. (sounds weird but they turn out beautiful) I do have one of these pins listed in my Etsy shop if you'd like to see one up close.


This is my jewelry display table. I sold most of the Scrabble tile charms - they were rather inexpensive and drew in a lot of buyers. The longer a buyer stays in your booth the better!



The Twilight purse and the 2 Captain Jack purses sold right away. It was the first Edward purse I made and I wanted to see how it was received. It sold so quickly that hardly anyone else got to see it. Guess I need to make more but finding the right box is not easy.

Pam Ash, the show's organizer/promoter does a super job - www.springcreekcraftshows.bravehost.com. I may or may not do her Christmas show this year, we could be out of town at the time.

There is a small show that I may do in September, the main reason I would do it is that it is located on property that my great-great grandfather owned and is named after him. I thought it would be nice for a relative to show up!

Then I have a terrific show the 1st weekend in October in Watseka IL, two days & I sell tons.

Always busy, busy, busy...

Experimenting with recycling denim

I finally spent some time yesterday playing with some jeans denim and embellishments to create a unique bag. The original idea of this style came from Haute Handbags Vol. 2 - Denim Journal Duvets by Cher Lashley. I don't use journals but thought these duvets would make cute bags using part of the leg from a pair of jeans.

I pulled out all sorts of tubs & containers looking for coordinating embellishments for the Geisha print. First I painted some stitch witchery with thinned gold metallic paint, sandwiched some sage green crepe back satin between the stitch witchery and the graphic and ironed it all in place using a teflon sheet.

Then I added a a strip of oriental script, zigzag stitching, a fussie cut flower and some fun fringe. Tan printed brocade has been used as lining and the top band. I still need to finish the top and add a handle, maybe from denim.

I may change the top band as I am not really happy with the look, maybe I will shorten it and add some more trim of some kind. Guess I'll have to think on it a while.