Monday 22 October 2012

Farmers' market Apple fayre

On Saturday 20 October the Farmers' market held their annual apple fayre which is just one event of many that happen to celebrate Apple Day!

Morris dancers at the ready!

After the awful weather of Friday, thankfully the rain had stopped and we had a dry morning. As part of the fun the local schools brought along scarecrows which were judged when they arrived at the market! The children, parents and Morris 'sides' appeared in a colourful procession, the market was jammed packed! Goldfield school was presented with first prize, but all the schools did a great job and the children looked like they'd really enjoyed themselves?

The Pony and Trap

Food to sample from local restaurants
The Morris dancing begun after the pony and trap appeared bringing our deputy mayoress and a wonderful array of apples. There was Cider, apple pressing, food to sample from local restaurants and all of our great market stalls.


It was brilliant to see the market as busy as it was and I hope that we will have converted a few more people into shopping with us?!

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Thursday 11 October 2012

Etsy & Folksy!

These days as a seller you need to have your fingers in lots of pies and in my case that means having an 'Etsy' shop and one on 'Folksy'!

Make a name!
Etsy is a global selling site, with people posting items up for sale from all over the world, Folksy is the British version.

Letter pebbles buy one or make names like the picture above!
I've been on Etsy for just over a year now and it's taken a whole year to establish myself and to get any sales. But it's an interesting community with some incredibly talented people.
My Folksy shop is just in it's infancy so I envisage it taking a little bit of time, what with the economy being so slow at present.

'Menagerie' just one of the many themed pebble bags you can buy!
I also have some space at The Courtyard Gallery in Wendover, Bucks, it's a great place to shop with some wonderful art and jewellery and well worth a visit! And if you need some picture framing done then go no further than 'A little bird told me' run by the lovely Mel Bird!

Jeacock's Orchard

Just some of the things available from Anything Arty!
This is Bertie and me in front of the stall, he's actually behaving himself for once!!
As well as running my Art clubs, I also have a stall on Tring Farmers' market! This is where I sell, hopefully, to the general public. The market happens to co-incide with Tring Market Auctions, so we often get people wandering to us in between lots being called!

Times are tough at present and as a market we've seen it happening for some time. Unfortunately being a farmers' market makes people think that we're expensive, but in reality, if people compared supermarket prices to ours, they'd see that's not true. And what better way to shop then by chatting to the actual producers of the food. Think local, seasonal and affordable and that would be Tring Farmers' market!!

On my stall I sell things that are 'hand-made 'and 'hand-painted'  like cards, jewellery and painted pebbles!
So Sunday saw me at an 'Apple day' at a local orchard, with entertainment from Tempus Experientia, a band of heritage performers, locally produced food, cakes, preserves, honey and cream teas.
The sun was shy until later on in the day but the rain stayed away and it was a great success!





Monday 8 October 2012

Anything Arty Art Club


 
Cirular 'Harvest' picture








Pastel leaves
Three evenings a week I run an after school art club at three different Primary schools in Tring! We explore all sorts of arts and crafts and with the start of the new term we've been looking at Autumn.

These past few weeks the children have drawn a circular 'Harvest' picture which they then 'coloured' with either chalk pastels or watercolours. These will be part of a little exhibition at Victoria Hall over half term, to celebrate the Apple fortnight that's held in Tring every year!

 We've also been making 'Autumn leaf' mobiles, once again using the pastels to draw leaves and bugs, cutting them out and stapling them to strings and finally attaching them to a twig ready for the breeze to catch them!