Christmas Shop in Pen-y-Lan

My last weekend was fab. For the 1st time I had been participating in the Christmas Shop sales in Pen-y-Lan (see the earlier post). The whole selling-buying machinery started on Friday with the opening, mulled wine and carolers but it was last Saturday morning when I and my other better half turned up in person there. On a chilly Saturday morning we were greeted by a line of cars trailing a long way away from the place where the shop was set up. ("Look! Everybody's queuing to buy your stuff!" - my bf loves to tease me :D I did hope so!)

The big marquee was set up additionally to a small room in a building where the crafts were displayed.

 

Inside there was a big array of hand-made artefacts of all sorts from over 30 local crafters in North Wales.  18 of my own items went on sale there. A few sold. Good :)

There were also the tables tops and chairs to sit and have a sip of tea or coffee and munch the mincemeat pies.

 

I loved all the decorations - perfect for Christmas gifts and the displays were good too. The idea was: the items for sale were all mixed together so I was finding my stuff being displayed in all corners but this makes the whole thing a lot more interesting. You never know what you may find on shelves round the corner. 

I loved that tree with ceramic decorations. The two white ceramic birds came home with me :)

I just loved this folksy jug. Sadly, this one wasn't for sale.

Found my painted glass among the other items too! :)

... and spotted some of my seasonal pictures and votives ...inside the display room

 

There were lots of chunky wooden ornaments - reindeer, star, Christmas trees, birds, angels and votives. The stock from that crafter must have been massive as it outnumbered all the others.

The display room had some hanging decorations with Christmas lights and some metal / glass clanging items...

In the middle - the table with more stuff displayed and walked around by customers...

I absolutely adored those machine-sewn purses and pouches with the woodlife. Soft, cosy and tweedy foxes, squirrels and owls...  just right for this time of year :)

This cute purse with the cat in red hat has been mine now! Just couldn't leave without one!

The boss being busy at the till :) Nice when the money flows and customers leave happy.

The event proved to be a success and received a lot of public attention. Apparently it has been the 3rd one and the biggest one so far. Let's hope Lisa, the boss, will keep it up in the future. Would love to see more of these.

Easter aftertaste

Now that Easter is gone, I am back to my old routine. Work-home-crafts-work-home-crafts way of living :) After such a long and fabulous break, what's left now is a pile of Easter cards from my friends and lovely weather outside, which somehow miraculously continues to be sunny :)

I took part in a blog Easter card swap and here's what I received from PL

even more Easter cards from my crafty friends:

And some Easter goodies from BoArt :)

with a lovely Easter card attached :)

Orin's 7 tatted eggs were hung on branches of my Easter Tree :) this year

And of course, as always, I have started lots of lovely projects but haven't managed to finish them off in time for Easter. These are the 2 cross stitch designs:

a 3D Easter bunny: 

and 1st of the 4 Easter card stitches. This one has been almost completed. Just need to add the backstitch, wash it, iron it and mount it on a card. I was stitching this one while watching the royal wedding on telly :)

Now, I've been stitching this design for a few days now. It's going to be a stitch mounted on a card for my best friend, Ela, from Poland. Hope she will like it.

Right after finishing the Friend Card, I'm moving on to a bookmark for Mother's Day in Pl (26th May) and it's going to look like that:

It's going to be already a second cross stitched bookmark for my mum, who by the way is a real bookworm, as the 1st one with the purple heathers I stitched for her last year turned out to be too nice to use and ended up as a treasure in her keepsakes box!! I hope this time she will use the 2nd one! 

I've been feeling a little bit royal and inspired by all that wedding event taking place in Britain and I feel like stitching or sewing something with my favourite British motif - the union jack, so I've made some preparations for that :D 

I already know what it's going to be but hush! Not gonna tell you though. It's a secret! :P

Sewing

I've been sewing. A new cheeky chicken bunch. People want them! I want them! Time to show off some funky fabrics and spring-coloured craft stash! :)

Gilbert (the one in the picture) has been the only chicken that stayed with me over Easter. The rest have been given away. He's been into modelling a lot recently :)

New chickens coming soon!