It's been NEARLY (but not quite) a year of Frilly Industries - and we've been super busy of late, looking to ramp things up even moreso as we count down to the inevitable xmas frenzy. This weekend we've been at our first Nottingham market - organised by Bird in Borrowed Feathers, and it was FAB! Amazingly friendly lovely diverse range of sellers, fab organisation with very clear instructions and requirements, awesome central city location (yes, I popped into Primark to nab a cheap cardi when I started to get a bit chilly!) and a great two days spent hanging out in Nottingham. We created new merchandising displays for this particular market which we're slightly obsessed with, and so it seemed timely to have a quick look over the various iterations of REAL LIFE FRILLY.

1. Our first outing - December 2014, at the Made By.. market in a disused hangar in Aldridge

It was cold. So cold. And we'd only JUST got to grips with Bertha, who was still playing up and being stubborn. We'd had a run of insanely late nights in the studio prepping everything, with no clue how we were going to display things, and having only really just started thinking about pricing. Consequently, everything was pretty much on one level, and our prices were WAY TOO LOW! (steep learning curve here we come..) Our entire layout consisted of brightly coloured Duck tape to 'zone' areas of the display, some quickly layered pegboard, and a lovely light up sign. The light up sign is pretty much the only thing we thought was a brilliant idea.

2. The Bust Craftacular look - which has lasted up until last weekend..

We quickly realised our Walsall pricing error, and worked hard to figure out everything from our overheads to profit margins and beyond. By the time Bust Craftacular came around in May 2015 we'd ironed those niggly bits out, and spent time figuring out how we wanted to present ourselves. We kept the light up sign, but made it bigger and better and more colourful. Even though most of our work is wood - we do this because we love bright colourful clothing and hair, and wooden jewellery matches everything! So we opted to go BRIGHT and bold with our display items, and added extra height levels using different risers and trays. We still weren't completely happy with this arrangement though..

3. Nottingham and beyond!

We've upgraded the Frilly light up sign (with plans to add to this over time) making it more portable - either hanging or 'floating' (good old Velcro!), kept our coloured boxes and trays and added some fun heads as displays! We feel like maybe sometimes people don't know who an item is for - and we feel like all our stuff could be for ANYONE - from Iris Apfel (Kirsty's personal style guru) through to a bearded hipster dude to a small child. By having these heads, we can show how our pieces might work on a range of imaginary (and fun!) people. We think there's still probably some work to do on levels, but this is definitely my favourite Frilly stall so far! Fun and colourful, but with a bombardment of characters and ideas and words and THINGS!

Now: to revamp all our online presences to match!

{ Raaaaaah!! I spent AGES writing a great post, and saved it - I'M SURE I SAVED IT - and then it just wasn't there. So this is my sub-par grumpy version 2. }

Last Sunday saw us do our first big London market/fair/thing (I never know quite what to refer to them as. 'Craft Fair' makes me think old fashioned knitting patterns, WI fairy cakes and corn dollies.. 'Market' makes me think of fruit and veg stalls, meat lorries and car boot sales. Hrm.) We were at York Hall, Bethnal Green for the Bust Craftacular! York hall is a gorgeous space - big domed ceiling, old parquet flooring and a stage - where DJs and workshops were positioned.

The trouble with introversion..

I can be pretty rubbish at talking to people, and worry that at times I can come across as surly or uninterested - when really I'm just a big shy self-conscious INTROVERT! Not a great attribute when you want to sell things to total strangers. Weirdly, I'm absolutely comfortable - some might say confident, even - when talking to randoms about our other work. I guess it's because I've been doing that now for as long as I can remember, and whilst I'm STILL self-conscious and somewhat unconfident about certain things, I can do the whole networking/socialising/promoting thing there. Maybe that will come with time with Frilly Industries too. I'M DIGRESSING - my point is that if you were at Craftacular, and you thought I was giving you side-eye, or was weirdly uncommunicative, I WASN'T! It's just that I struggle with this.

On the plus side, Kirsty is AWESOME at it - so I am super-glad to have her as 50% of Team Frilly!

How did it go?

We were really happy with how we laid the stand out - our sign was bright and shiny, and could be seen clearly across the hall (though one small child was convinced it said 'FREE' despite her mother explaining otherwise..). We had lots of stock, our signage was clear, and all in all we felt very pleased with what we put together. My price labels were still left till the last minute though, so I want to get practicing my hand lettering for future labelling!

Sneaky Peek at Newness!

We designed some new items ready to launch at Bust Craftacular - and whilst they've not yet been photographed 'properly' to go into the shop - we'll give you a bit of a sneaky peek here.

The Grabber is our hat-tip to summer holidays by the sea, spending pocket money in amusement arcades hoping to win a highly flammable toy. Currently in brooch form.

Our Alice-inspired items include a large multi-layered brooch of Alice falling through the rabbit hole, and a fob-watch brooch featuring the white rabbit. (You can also see our new SPOOLS too - exciting!)

We had a fab day - spent far too much money with the other amazing sellers there (keep your eyes peeled for an overview of our haul, as well as our list of crafty crushes from the day!) and made a little bit of money too. The people of London particularly loved our Daria - as everyone should! We've been dabbling with oversized wooden chain, and I'd thought that might pique visitors interest, but that wasn't the case. Once we've got our photography station setup and going, we'll post pics on here to see what other people think. Personally, I'm in love with our wooden chain.. but you'll just have to wait to see!

It's entirely possible my original post had way more interesting stuff in it, but it's now 21:49 on a Friday night and I have a snoring puppy next to me.. so I'll shush now and KEEP FINGERS CROSSED that this time it saves!

The ongoing evolution of our 'shopfront'