So picture the scene. It's Friday night. Your crocheting sister Loopy Lizzie has arrived.  You've already been told to calm down and not panic by craft fair aficionado Leigh the Sewing Diva and the corner of your usually immaculate (but dated....hey, we're saving up!) living room looks like this.

So now you're in the zone of where we were when we saw the weather forecast for the following day's enormous amount of rain. Um. Yup. Great.

Ok, so THE BIG DAY has dawned and it's raining. 6am and we were kind of blurry eyed but up and awake and dressed in our setting up clothes. My BFF Stacey arrives and we load up both of our cars with stuff important things and head on down to Caerleon. Lizzie and Stacey get there first and when offered a pitch directly next to the info tent at the entrance OR right up round the corner they chose next to the info tent. Good call girls! Until a blacksmith arrived and parked his whopping van and tent in the centre of that area blocking us off from people. Ah well, never mind eh?

Anyway, so my first reaction to the festival was 'oh, it's smaller than I had thought'. But as it was hammering down and we only had an hour and half to set up we got right to it with the gazebo. With sides. That when the wind blew brought in a wave of rain water. The roof of the gazebo was leaking, the sides were leaking, it was muddy underneath and we were all pretty soaked.

We ended up leaving 80% of our stock in the car as it was just so wet that it was pointless putting it out to get ruined. People just didn't wanna see wet and muddy things! But then...a few prayers later by 11am the rain slowly stopped and patches of blue sky were reported. I was fairly convinced it was a rumour but then I saw them myself...hurrah!

I hot footed it back to the carpark to bring out some more stock while Dusband (nicknamed our health and safety officer as we may have died from falling equipment if it hadn't been for him!) pegged the gazebo, did the guy ropes etc, etc.

Here's our tent with it all set out. Still less than we'd planned and things not quite 100% but better.




It was super windy and our gazebo took off at one point! Lucky we found some extra pegs to secure it.

Our lovely outfits meanwhile were left abandoned in the car and we stayed in our jeans and wellies for most of the day. Never mind, wellies go with everything right?

Lizzie got to crocheting and after a while I got my t shirts out to start making tarn (T shirt yarn) ready to weave myself a rag rug on the hula hoop. I forgot to take pics of me starting so the tutorial will have to wait until I finish so I can re start for the pics!



Lizzie obviously spent too long in this position (ignore the face, she's usually very attractive) as her sunburnt arms had little white creases at the elbows where they didn't get any sun!


Maybe she's incapable of not grimacing when a camera comes out?

If we were to do another outdoor event we'd both start crafting earlier and sit outside the entrance. People didn't seem to want to come into the gazebo if we were sat in to one side but they were happy to go in past us and have a browse knowing we wouldn't be breathing down their necks giving them the hard sell.

We sold a couple of items but over all it was a disappointing affair. From our vantage point near the entrance/exit we didn't see many people carrying bags or purchases. We spotted about 6 or 7 people carrying sock monkeys and a few people carrying frames so the sock monkey and art stalls obviously did ok.

Leigh was around the corner and further along slightly than us and said that she'd noticed the same that there wasn't much money changing hands. I guess most people just didn't see anything they wanted to buy or were the 'day out' crew.

We met some lovely people and had some great chats with some customers. Hopefully some of them have found their way here so...helloooooo!!!

The fair started at 10am and finished at 6pm and we were a little disappointed that the organiser didn't find the time to just pop round and ask how we were getting on considering it was our first fair or even to have a look at our stall. It seemed unusual but maybe I'm too much of a control freak that I'd have to go see what everyone's selling!

By the time we got home at 8pm ish we were all so tired that we sat and grunted at each other for an hour (following a dinner of breakfast cereal) before climbing the mountainous staircase to bed. I was totally looking forward to my 8am lie in this morning.....Sunday mornings have never been so fabulous!

Anyone else have a disappointing experience on their first fair?