Craft Fair Mania!

Hello bloggers! Sorry it's been so quite here lately. Between losing Keno, getting sick and preparing for a craft fair, I've been busy and a bit out of sorts. Thank you for all your kind words about my little man. I picked up his remains from the vet office this past Friday, so he's home with me now.

The week after saying my goodbyes to Keno, I fell ill with a nasty head cold. Unfortunately, there was no rest for me as I had to prepare for a craft fair. It's been a couple of years since I've been a vendor at a fair, so getting back into the swing of things while feeling like pooh was pretty difficult. I had a few items left over from a craft fair I had done a few years back plus I had been working on some items before Keno got sick. However, I pushed myself to have a variety of items to sell, so I worked non-stop for an entire week. My craft room looked like a tornado had hit it! In the end, I was so pleased with how everything turned out. I didn't take pictures of all of my stuff simply because I ran out of time, but here's a sampling of some of the items I made and sold.

My "Snowman Poop" packages sold like hotcakes and were gone in less than an hour. I forgot to take pictures of them, but I plan on making a few more this week, so I'll be sure to photograph them when I do. I sold them for $1 each. Another popular item was the Post-It note holders that I made using plastic 3.5x5 photo frames that I got at the Dollar Tree. I sold them for $3 each.

My $1 notepads also sold out quickly. I used PaperTrey Ink's new exclusive notepads which are already pre-cut for you. They were a real time saver!

Throughout the show, I found that people were really intrigued by my hot cocoa/apple cider sliders. I had lots of fun making these! You just untie the bow, pull up on the ribbon and the packet slides right up! I priced them at $2 each and sold about half my inventory.

My lovely friend lent me her two-tired basket to house my sliders. It worked out great!

I also made some fun treat holders. I got the wooden boxes at Michael's for $1, spray painted them different colors, then decorated each one with festive tags and bows. I sold half my inventory at $8 each.

My nugget tins were a big hit as well. I wrapped Reese's Peanut Butter Cups and Hershey Chocolate Nuggets in holiday paper, stuck them in the tin, wrapped the tin and called it good. I sold out at $5 each.

Speaking of candy, I also wrapped some Kit Kats to resemble little purses. I wrapped some Hershey bars as well and sold out of all of them at $1.50 each.

The binder clips weren't as big a seller as I had hoped they'd be. I sold a few, but that's it. I think they're pretty cute! I priced item at $3 each.

These fun $1 paperclip bookmarks were pretty popular...

...as were my laminated bookmarks. I got this idea from Kerry's blog. I sold over half my stock at $2 each.

The most fun item I had on my table had to be the Rudolph's Spares. I got so many laughs out of these, and they sold well, too, at $1.50 each.

These pencils at $0.25 each were a hot seller, too! These are the only ones I have left.

Besides papercrafts, I also made some of my S.A.M. Charms. S.A.M. stands for "Supporting our Animal Menagerie," and the proceeds not only go to my own critters, but also to various shelters. My mom surprised me on Friday by presenting me with this jewelry tree to hang my charms from. Isn't it awesome?

Hanging from the tree are a few of my holiday charms. I sold a few of these at $10 each. I still have the ones I'm about to show you, so if you want one, let me know!!

Now onto my booth! I took pictures the day my friend and I set up, but I was so busy the day of the fair that I didn't get a chance to take any pictures of my full set-up, but you get the idea.

On this side table I have some wall decor items as well as my treat boxes, nugget tins, comp books, Post-It note holders and some ornaments made by my late grandma.

A quick close-up of the table:

In this picture you can see my S.A.M. Charms along with more Post-It note holders, notepads, bookmarks and wrapped candy.

Moving left, you can see the hot cocoa/apple cider sliders, another two-tired wicker basket with my handmade cards inside, the Rudolph's Spares, the Snowman Poop packages (in the blue bucket), some decorated wood frames and another tree with handmade ornaments.

Last up is my display of picture frames. I sold quite a few, so I was happy about that!

I hope you enjoyed my virtual craft fair tour! If you see anything you want or have questions, please feel free to leave a comment or contact me directly. I also want to thank all of my friends who came and showed their support! You all ROCK! Thanks to everyone who came, saw and bought :) You made my time and effort totally worth it. Hugs to all!

Christmas Review

I hope everyone enjoyed a very holly-jolly Christmas last week! I know I certainly did. When I walked into the living room Christmas morning, this is what I was greeted with:

That bike with the big red bow is mine! My parents gave me a mountain bike for Christmas, and I just had the opportunity to take her out for a spin yesterday. She's a smooth ride! The other bike you see is my dads gift to my mom. Now we can go riding together! That cute little pink tricycle in the foreground went to this cute little girl, my cousin:

Here are a few shots of some of my favorite ornaments on the tree. Every year, we get a Hallmark ornament with that year on it. This is my pick for the season:

Our tree is decorated with a lot of handmade ornaments from my grandma who passed away last year. They're very special to us.

Finally, here's our nativity scene:

We had a great time opening all of our presents. I scored a ScorPal and a bunch of stamps and other crafting parapernalia. All the critters made out nicely, too. I think the cats had more fun with the ribbon and the wrapping paper than they did with anything else (although they really love their new mice)!

The biggest girl got tons of stuff this year! She made out better than all of us. She nearly flipped when she saw her Christmas bone. I had to hide it in the car until morning time otherwise we probably would have found her chewing on it when we got up!

Saturday was a busy day since I was the Maid of Honor at my friend's surprise re-wedding! Yup, you read that right. Her very sweet husband planned a surprise wedding for her since they were unable to do the whole traditional ceremony originally. He went all out. He picked out her wedding dress which was just beautiful. He rented tuxedos for all the guys. He had his sister-in-law make the flower arrangements. He even booked a trip out to New York for her to see Phantom of the Opera on Broadway! Now that's love, I tell ya. She had no idea what was going on until he pulled in the parking lot, got down on one knee, and proposed to her again. It was so sweet! The fact that he pulled this off and kept it a secret for the past FIVE months is incredible! The fact I was able to keep it from her for that long was amazing! Here we are outside the church waiting for the happy couple to arrive (and dang was it cold out there):

The ceremony was so lovely! Her sister-in-law did a great job decorating the archway, and the church was still decked out from Christmas.

After the wedding, we all went back to their house for a big reception. We had so much fun! Happy Anniversary, you two :)

Well, it looks like I have some creating to do now that I have new stuff to play with! I just finished a major organization project that I'm going to share with you sometime this week. Tomorrow, I'm heading over to (drum roll, please) THE CONTAINER STORE! WOO-HOO! Heaven, here I come...

(PS - Leah from Life as Lou is having a great Cosmot Cricket give-a-way! Click HERE to go straight to her post.)

Merry Christmas!

I think I'm finally getting over that nasty little bug. I was down for the count for the past several days; hence, my lack of blogging. I want to wish you all a wonderful Christmas and share with you the last of the Christmas cards that I made. Now, if you're a relative or a friend reading this post, you must know that I did not send out any of my Christmas cards this year. I made them, I just didn't quite get them in the mail. Sorry! So if you're not feeling the love from us right now, don't be offended. I was just way too sick this year.

This first card was inspired by one that I saw on the Hero Arts blog. I {heart} their design team and their stamps!! Have you seen their new 2009 collection? LOVE IT!!

Speaking of Hero Arts, I got a little surprise from them last week. Check it by clicking HERE!

My next card was also inspired by a card I saw on the Hero Arts blog. It's nice and simple and way too cute!

Lastly, I made these next cards using PaperTrey Ink's "Boards and Beams" and "Home for the Holidays" sets. I must say that I didn't really think I'd like these two stamps sets, but after using them, I have no more doubt. They're great!

Despite feeling like pooh, we still went out on Saturday and got ourselves a really beautiful Noble Fir (at a great price, no less). This was the first time that I used the FuzzMobile to haul anything on the roof! I had to take pictures.

We set the tree in the stand and I took some more pictures. I really like that there's still some snow on the ground.

We got quite a bit of snow here last week, more than I've ever seen the desert get. It was truly a winter wonderland around here for a few days. Sedona l-o-v-e-d it! Crazy girl tried to catch snow in her mouth when it was falling, and when she realized she couldn't get as much as she wanted, she went straight for the stuff on the ground!

It's time for me to go nite-nite and wait for Santa to come (*wink*). I hope you all have a blessed Christmas day with your families!