Halloween, eat your heart out!!

Whoever says that Halloween is the scariest time of the year has never run a craft business!!

The first three months of the year are quiet times for fairs here at chez Ali's Craft Studio which has good points as well as bad ones...

Bad points

• Distinct lack of money coming in!!
• Motivation can be a little less than during the busy times
• Distinct lack of money coming in!!  (have I said that before??)

Good points

• Less stupid o'clock mornings (you already know my feelings about them!!)
• Time to do important stock checking and building up of new designs ready for when the season starts in April
• Time to book up all the fairs for the year and contact my suppliers to stock up with new paints and keyring blanks ready to create lots of new stock...

But wait...   This last point is exactly why I am feeling a little shaky!   In the last few days, I have sent out what feels like half the national debt of a small country in cheques for fairs as far ahead as November and my flexible friend is feeling the need for a lie down after flexing like an Olympic champion to build up my stock of paints.    This is when you really have to have a good system in place to keep track of what payments have been sent out and when they are due to leave the account (many are post-dated, which takes some keeping up with!!)

It is an annual situation for us crafters - lots of money going out during the quietest times before (hopefully) the floodgates turn and we see the fruits of our labours coming home to Mama!

Mind you, buying new paints for me has a great upside - that super exciting time when the big box arrives and I have new colours to play with!    Sounds boring to normal people I know, but no-one has ever called me normal - so there!!

I am not being lazy though and still keeping my hand in with fairs - a couple a month for the first three months then come April, all hell breaks loose....

.... And I LOVE IT!!

Here's a sneak preview of a couple of new designs for 2011 based on the ever-popular themes of butterflies and realistic animals (they are not even on the website yet but will be shortly!)

Butterfly Spray - shown in rainbow colour theme
with other colour themes to come in this design

Red Eye Tree Frog - not everyone's cup of tea but
hey, you would be surprised just how popular frogs are!

Hope you like them!!

Right, I'm off now to hide the cheque book and have a lie down to recover from the exertion of writing out all the cheques which went on their merry little way this morning!

So, Halloween - call yourself scary???  

I think not!!   Trick or Treat anyone???