Today was the first day of the Buckland Abbey annual Winter Food & Craft Fair. Today was a lot quieter than the Friday was last year. Probably has to do with the economy and lack of disposable income. We are hoping for more traffic the rest of the weekend.
We like to have a lot of items that are priced so that people can afford them. Anne always stocks items that she says are “for the kids to buy as gifts.” Our Christmas ornaments start at £,2.50 – very simple but pretty – and go up from there.
I spent most of today in production mode – made stars and my first sheep and dog ornaments. Both kilns are on and I should have these out for sale tomorrow afternoon. I was going right up to the last minute as I wanted to completely fill the kiln with a few more critters, but Anne was turning the lights off on me!
Last week I did a couple load of wreaths (my best seller), many Christmas trees and lots more icicles. We are selling the small wreaths mounted on a handmade Christmas card.
Tomorrow I’m assembling a new “Icicle Swag” with large icicles and silver chain – it will have five icicles and be made to hang on a mantle or in a window. There will be a limited number available. I’ll share a photo once I get one put together. I’m quite excited about the design.
I’ve also made tealights and many scenic hanging ornaments.
Tomorrow I’m going to take a bit of time to take photos of all the different things I’ve been making. I am really bad at remembering to take photos as I make things.
This morning I remembered today would have been my mom’s 84th birthday. She’s been gone just over seven years and I think about her every day. I’m the age she was when we moved to Northern Alberta in 2000… hard to get my mind around how fast time has flown by.
The garden is doing great! The calendula are done and dead, and I’ve pulled them all now – this morning yanked out the last couple of plant that were still providing support for other things. They were so dead they needed to go. Can’t have the garden looking that neglected. Lettuces are almost done now, just a few plants of each left. I spent this morning transplanting all the small pots or pansies into the beds to fill in empty spots.
Surprisingly the primroses and bleeding hearts are STILL blooming! That’s really impressive. Unfortunately all the plums are being eaten by something – every one of them that I’ve picked has something imbedded in it and is grossly sticky. Oh well. Apparently other years they’ve wrapped the tree but no one mentioned doing it this year to stop the pests.
The zucchini (aka courgettes) are doing pretty well, we’ve eaten 4 so far. Apparently I was underwatering them, so we had a bit of a hiccup but they are now starting to set again. Same with the cucumbers – have had 12 nice ones, and they are starting to set again now.
The herbs are hit and miss. I got a lot of cilantro (coriander) off and they are now going to seed. The dill barely got 3 inches high before bolting – it is now in full bloom. I’ve planted more as I need it to make pickles. All the other herbs – parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme are great and still going. The chives aren’t really doing well so I will be moving them into a pot and hope for a better result. The garlic is growing but not sure what I’m going to get. I may leave it for next year to harvest.
The fennel is looking good BUT is nor putting on any size – they’ve been the same small size for over a month. I really hope they’ll start to bulk up soon. The hot pepper is blooming and bushing up, but the sweet pepper shed almost all the leaves – it is now starting to sprout new ones at the top so I hope it will actually flower before Autumn gets here.
The rose was stunning! It is done now though. Long stemmed red roses, just gorgeous. It is now the support for the sun flowers. The largest sunflower (there are three of them) is the height of the brick wall now and is setting the flower. According to the seed package they are 10 feet tall but I really hope they don’t get much more that 6 feet or the wind will break them.
I managed to get some photos of the fish in the pond! They were blowing bubbles that morning – quite loudly! And took a photo from my bedroom window looking down on the garden so you can see the layout.
At the studio I’ve started making Christmas ornaments as we were running low… yes, already! We put up a display a couple of months back of all our leftover stock. All the wreaths were sold, and lots of the small trees. The less expensive ones are very popular with the kids – £2 ornaments are perfect for them. Simple and quick to make little trees. The wreaths are £12 as they are more material and time to create and people love them.
The Christmas display at Serendipity Glass Design.
I really like the dot tree and will be making more ornaments using them. I just have to make thousands more green dots! The bottom two photos of the red/green frit ornaments and the big red tree with white dots are in the kiln now, so the photos are before firing. The red/green frit ornaments will be £3-4 and are small hanging ornaments. The red tree will be a tealight stand.
Shannon Fennell's Blog 
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