From this .....

to this .....

to this !!!!!

I can't believe I actually managed to do it !! In less than 4 weeks I managed to go from thinking about possibly exhibiting at the January Stitch & Creative Crafts show, to actually exhibiting at the September one ! And I have to say I am VERY proud at what I managed ! I met SO many lovely lovely people who were all really complimentary about my little stand and spent a good few of their pennies on some of my goodies. THANK YOU TO EVERYONE who took the time to stop by, admire, chat, and spend !! I loved every second of it.

I want to give a quick little wave to the following people who were so kind to me over the course of the 4 days that I spent at the show:

First of all - Pat & Tony Sims who owned the B&B I stayed at (a lovely little 200 year old cottage) - thank you for making me feel so welcome and at home !


Inga of Linen Me who had the most gorgeous stand next to me. Do check out her website, she has the most beautiful linen.

Jackie & Kim of Make the Moment Last, a lovely scrapbooking stand. Again, check out their website.

Sheila Jones who I know is a reader of this blog and took the time to come along and say hi on Saturday (as well as buying some goodies). Thank you also Sheila for mentioning me on your blog - I'll let you know about my next needle felting workshop !

Sally Furniss who popped by on Sunday and was so kind about my stand and who also took the time to email me on Sunday after the show - yes, I will also let you know about my next needle felting workshop.

Sandra of Gotta Craft who was one of my first customers on the Friday and very kindly left a comment on my previous blog post (make sure you get that blog going soon !!)

My very dear friend Amanda and her 2 little monkees who made the long journey round from Essex to come along and support me

My lovely Mum & Dad who came over late on Saturday afternoon to take me out for dinner and cheer me up a bit (I'd had a bit of a bad day)

My lovely lovely hubby and darling children who were always on the end of the phone supporting me


And last, but by no means least, Wendie Rhodes of Wild-Rhodes who is one of the kindest people that you will ever meet. Wendie was the lady who talked me into doing this particular show and gave me no end of wonderful advice and support both before and during the show. Thank you so much Wendie - I couldn't have done it without you !

So, to all of those above - thank you very very much. And to everyone else who I didn't manage to spend much time chatting to, but who took the time to come over and ooh and ahhh over my goodies and then spend some of their hard-earned pennies - THANK YOU !!


Do keep in touch everyone - I'd love to see pics of your various projects using the bits and bobs you bought from me !


Next time I'll give you a few more details of the actual show, but for now it's time for bed -I'm cream-crackered !

Sarah xxx

Winners ....

Could paper-and-string, picciolio and The Flour Loft please contact me and let me have your address details so I can send you your free tickets to the Stitch & Creative Crafts Show next week. I'd hate for you to miss out !! Thanks

I'm sure you can gather, this is a really really quick post. I'm drowning in a sea of felt balls and buttons and am in the final (I hope) stages of getting everything ready for next week. Finally everything was delivered and is now being bagged and tagged.

I'll try and post before the show with a picture of the amount of stuff I'm taking with me !! There's a LOT !!

Sarah x

What have I done ??!!!!

This week has been a very strange but exciting week in my little Blooming Felt world.

Firstly orders started flooding in .... and about time too ! The last couple of months have been very quiet and I was starting to panic slightly. However, I think people are now getting back from their hols and are keen to start crafting again.

I then received an email from the deputy editor at ScrapBook inspirations magazine asking if I could send her samples of some of my fabric covered buttons as they were doing a feature about children's layouts in the November edition and my froggie and car buttons would look great in the feature ! Hooray - press coverage.

The next thing that happened was this. One of the orders that I received was from a lady called Wendie Rhodes. Now, if you aren't aware, Wendie is a TV presenter and demonstrator on the Create & Craft TV channel here in the UK. She purchased a couple of my Felt Ball Grab Bags. So, being the inquisitive (read nosy!) sort of person that I am, I checked out Wendie's website and found that she was running a number of workshops on "Embellishing with Felt" at the upcoming Stitch and Creative Crafts shows being held around the UK over the next couple of months. So, not being one to miss an opportunity I emailed Wendie to let her know that her felt balls were on their way to her and enquired about the show she was doing in Surrey next month.

Over the last month or so I have been seriously considering attending one of these sorts of events as an exhibitor and was planning on trying the Surrey event in January. So, I asked Wendie if I could pick her brains about the events etc and she said that I would be far better off trying to get a late booking at the Surrey event next month (arghhhhh - NEXT MONTH !) as September is generally far busier than the January event. AND, as she would be using my felt balls to demonstrate with, I would have a ready made customer base of people wanting to try out the projects she was demonstrating.

So, the upshot of all this is that I'm now an exhibitor (albeit a very little one) at the Stitch & Creative Crafts Show at Sandown Racecourse in Surrey from 19th to 21st September 2008. ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Can somebody PLEASE tell me I'm doing the right thing ?! I'm starting to panic that I'm trying to run before I can walk and that all these big professional exhibitors will be there and I'll be trying my best to compete with them for business (although I've been reliably informed that there is no-one else selling similar stuff to mine). I've got the smallest stand size available, although it's in a pretty good spot - directly opposite the demonstration area where Wendie will be showing off my felt balls !

I'm currently drowning in lists, lists and more lists and panicking at the cost of everything. There's me thinking of a ball park figure that I could do it all for, and I'm already at double that. Me thinks I'll have to cut back somewhere along the line and not take as many product lines as I was planning.

BUT .... I've got 4 freebie tickets to this event up for grabs !! They're good for any of the 3 days and are worth £7.50 each. All I ask is that if you are lucky enough to get one of these tickets, you pop by to say hello and perhaps collect me a nice cuppa and a sarnie (if it's near lunchtime) from the restaurant bit and perhaps man my stand for me whilst I take a quick loo break. I won't be long, I promise (the loos are quite close to my stand !) Even if you don't win a ticket, but do decide to visit, it would be lovely to see you.

So, if you would like to be in with a chance of winning a freebie ticket all you need to do is leave a comment on this post and on Sunday 31st August I'll put all the comments into a random number generator and draw the winners.

Good luck !!

Sarah x

PS. My embellisher is still up for sale (see previous post). If anyone is interested in purchasing this, I would be truly grateful as the proceeds will go towards lots of lovely new stock for my event next month !!!! You don't want me to be standing there with an empty stall now .... do you ??