Hafliax Crafters Spring Market April 5 & 6

Preparing a few new things for the local Spring Market this weekend. Although, since it is snowing today, it doesn't feel much like Spring yet. I'm confident that this is the end of the winter weather!

Come visit me this weekend if you have a chance. The Halifax Crafters Spring Market is at the Olympic Community Centre, 2304 Hunter St, Halifax, Nova Scotia. Saturday and Sunday, 10-5. Check out the full list of vendors. Here is a sneak peak at my wares for the weekend.

Cityscape Notebooks, hand-carved and hand-printed

Itty bitty books in itty bitty bottles.

Portfolios featuring my own hand-marbled paper, designed to hold a standard lined paper pad.

Classy Leather Journals.

Japanese Yotsume toji notebooks.

Fun little library card notebooks.

Colourful chopstick notebooks

See you at the market!

Halifax Crafters TIBS Market - Feb 8th

On February 8th, I'll be participating in the Halifax Crafters pop-up market at Two If By Sea Cafe, in Dartmouth, NS. Visit the Halifax Crafters website to see a full list of vendors. It's going to be a great show, just before Valentine's Day!

Two If By Sea Cafe, in Dartmouth NS, has a lovely space for this pop-up market and the vendor line-up is impressive. Be SURE to come visit us on Feb 8th, between 8am and 5pm. You can pick up some amazing handmade treasures AND get yummy baked goods and fancy coffee, all in one stop. Hope to see you there!

Finish your holiday shopping this weekend!

Preparing for the Halifax Crafters market

Halifax Crafters Holiday Market is Nov 30 & Dec 1. You can get the details and a list of all the vendors on the Halifax Crafters website. See you soon!

Festive Craft Market this weekend

This weekend, I'll be at the 25th Annual Festive Craft Market, Saturday and Sunday, in Bible Hill, NS. There is always a fabulous group of sellers at this market so it is a great place to do some holiday shopping!

Halifax Pop Expo on Saturday!

If you in, or near, Halifax this weekend, then you need to check out the Pop Explosion that's been underway this week. On Saturday, it culminates with a "Record - Zine - Craft & Art" Fair at the World Trade and Convention Centre. I will be there, with my journals, please stop by and say Hi!

Halifax Crafters Market - Dec 1 & 2

I'll be at this market on the weekend. This is a great show for Christmas shopping - always fabulous stuff. I'll be on hand with my work: journals, leather agendas, hand-marbled items, notebooks, photo albums, and more!

It's That Time of Year

It's that time of year, for buying and selling handmade goods at local craft markets. It started last weekend when I spent a couple days in Truro at the NSAC Festive Craft Market. It was a great weekend, in spite of the flooding!

If you missed me at that one, I have a few other events coming up:

Halifax Crafters Yultide Cheer Winter Market, December 3 & 4
Olympic Centre, Hunter Street, Halifax

Have Yourself a Gothic Little Christmas
December 3 & 4
Maritime Hall at The Forum, Windsor Street, Halifax

A Dickens of a Show, sponsored by Witherstone Gallery
December 10 & 11
St Johns Parrish Hall, Cumberland St, Lunenburg

Please stop by to say 'Hi' if you find yourself at any of these events.

Local Events - Dec 4 & 5

If you are in my area (which is Halifax, Nova Scotia), you should know about these events! MyHandboundBooks will be present at both, this weekend. Come by and visit. The two events are within spitting distance of each other (sorta), so you can easily do both!

Crafter's Market, May 8th

I'm going to be selling my journals at a spring craft market this Saturday!

Spring Crafter's Market!
Date: Saturday, May 8
Time: 10am to 6pm
Location: Halifax Forum's Multipurpose Centre, corner of Windsor and Young Streets.

There will be a fantastic variety of local art and craft sellers. So if you're in Halifax, come by the Halifax Forum's Multipurpose Centre on Saturday. This event is a fund raiser for Feed Nova Scotia so there is a small admission fee, or you can bring a non-perishable food donation in lieu of the admission fee.

This craft sale is perfect timing if you still need to find something for Mother's Day!

Halifax Crafter's Market - April 17 & 18

Attention local readers: the Halifax Crafters are having their Spring Fling Crafter's Market on April 17th and 18th!

I'll be there with my books, along with many many other very cool artisans.

Location:
Olympic Center, 2304 Hunter Street
(which is really the corner of Windsor and Cunard)

When:
Saturday & Sunday, April 17 & 18

Time:
11:00am to 6:00pm each day

Drop in and shop for your mother's day and father's day presents, graduation presents, gifts for new babies, early holiday shopping, whatever you need, it'll be there...

A Local Sale

I'm not sure if I have many local readers, but if there is one, you can pop over to visit at this Spring Stop & Shop. There will be about 30 different vendors with quite a wide range of products, based on what I've heard. I'll be there with my books all day Saturday April 26th.

Post-sale update: So, I didn't sell out. I sold some stuff, but not the stuff that I really expected to sell. These craft markets and fairs are so unpredictable!

More Books for Sale

Once again, I packed up my books and set up at a craft market this weekend. Although this particular event was not as well attended as the show I did a few weeks ago, I had more visibility and made more sales. So it was quite a different experience.


The photo of my table looks very much the same...I suppose because it is mostly all the same stuff I had at the previous show! However, this was a somewhat bigger space and it was not as crowded for either the sellers or the buyers, there was better lighting...just better overall - even though the number of buyers wasn't as great as the previous show. People were giving me suggestions for additional craft shows that might still have space available. But I think that's it - no more this year.

Books for sale

I really could have found a better use of my time this weekend, but it was a good experience. Of course, if I'm calling it "a good experience" then you know it wasn't a very successful sale! Apparently there weren't a lot of book-people shopping in Hilden this weekend.


So I sold a few things but there was only one thing from my Etsy shop that sold so everything else has been relisted and the shop is full again. So on the bright side, restocking my Etsy shop was really easy and quick!

Oddly, most of the people who stopped to look at my books would look at a few items then look at me, twist their face and head to the side a bit and ask with a wrinkled forehead, "did you make all these?" This happened a lot and I am unsure how to interpret it. So my books didn't look handmade? Or I didn't look like I could have been the one who made them? Or maybe more generally, how could a person possibly make a book? Someone mumbled something about, oh, so like, is this scrapbooking? I have no idea what planet they had just come from. Anyway. My general conclusion is that book-people don't shop at that particular craft show.

Having said all that, the few customers that I had, were wonderful and asked me lots of great questions and went away very pleased with their purchases. I do hope they enjoy their books immensely!

Ready to Sell Out

This weekend I'm taking my books to a local craft market in Hilden. It is for two days, Oct 26-27 (Happy Birthday, Brad). So I have emptied my Etsy shop and my Dawanda shop and my Mintd shop and have everything priced, tagged, and packed ready to go. Phew. If I have anything left when I get back, then I'll fill up my online store again on Sunday!

Book Shelves

I am still making stuff to sell at the craft shows even though the first one is just a few days away. Tomorrow I stop making stuff and start getting organized. In the meantime, my Daddy has made me these cool display shelves for me! I will have the best looking table, for sure.


Perfect for displaying my handmade books.

Speaking of handmade books... BuyHandmade.Org was just launched today and I took the pledge already. This is an initiative to encourage people to buy more handmade gifts this holiday season rather than mass market big box stuff.

Stamps and Tags

I got a stamp. This is something that I've been thinking about for a long time. It is a really simple basic stamp that says "this journal was made by....etc" and I want to use it to stamp the last page in the books I make. In the past I have tried actually printing on the last page but putting a sheet of paper through the printer before I start binding the book. That has always worked out fine, but I have never liked the way the paper curls and feels kinda wierd after it goes through my printer - so that one page would always seem like it was different paper than the rest of the book. So I ordered a stamp! I like this low tech device.


I seem to be able to get just about everything I need on Etsy...that's where I got the stamp. I ordered it from the Etsy shop called SweetPaperie and it is a great product. And of course, I purchased a brown ink pad the other day - perfect for all the brown books that I make!

So that will work well as I'm getting all my books ready for the craft sales that are approaching...first one is Oct 26th! In preparation, I also got 200 cute little price tags from AmieHartmanDesigns on Etsy. I don't think I'll actually have 200 books! But it's good to be prepared. Again, lots of brown there too. Hmmmm, what else do I need? I need to devise some creative methods of displaying my books so they aren't just flat on a long boring table...

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