Christmas always catches me by surprise, it shouldn’t, given that it is at the same time every year and yet here I am again surprised that it almost upon us! Christmas for a designer maker most definitely starts in mid November as that is when the Xmas shows to the public begin. I haven’t done the big shows – Spirit of Christmas and Country Living – but maybe next year – in which case Xmas will start even earlier. I have three consecutive weekends of shows and I tend not to take much time off in between and the result is exhaustion! I have just finished the last of my three weekends and yes I am exhausted! They were however fun and profitable so I am really in no position to complain!
I have a love hate relationship with shows. I hate putting them up, I hate taking them down but I love the bit in between – chatting to people, and to other makers, enjoying coffee and cake from the cafe, buying my Xmas pressies and, oh yes, selling my work.
I don’t get any direct feedback from the public during the rest of the year – apart from a few encouraging comments from people who buy via my website and who I exchange the odd email with. It’s good to see what people like, and to receive the often fulsome and generous praise of people who enjoy meeting someone who makes something in this age when in Britain so few people do!
So the toughest three weeks of my year are over and now with a bit of work here and there hopefully I can cruise to Xmas – which really is of course almost upon us. So let’s cut the talk of feeling frazzled; tonight it’s curry with friends and the results of the semi final of “Strictly” – what more could a person want from life?
I’ve included before and after photos of my studio so you can see what a magnificent job I did in transforming it into a fairy grotto! The next day it immediately returned to being a working studio.
Before
After
