Craft Fair

Leading up to the annual craft fair at the elementary school where I work is always insane, mainly because I usually decide to participate at the last minute (shame on me). This year I did the same thing. I wasn’t sure I had enough pieces to fill up a table and I certainly didn’t have enough time to make a bunch of new pieces. But a week before, I agreed to do it and then it was a frenzy of trying to create items the students would enjoy. In that week, I managed to make four Pokeballs, two poop emojis, eight doll purses, and two smiley emojis. That was it. Luckily, I still had some dolls and hats lying around that could fill up my half of the table. My lovely, artistic, amazing and super talented daughter had the other half filled with her artwork (bad mommy that I am, I didn’t take any pictures).

My booth at the craft fair at Promenade Elementary School

I noticed that there was another booth that was selling crocheted toys and they had a really nice setup with some really nice things. I felt too inadequate to actually go over there. I had a tiny table with a mish-mash of items. My daughter went over and checked out the competition and being the good daughter that she is, told me my stuff was more unique. Well, it was definitely that. None-the-less, I did better than I had in previous years. I only had a few pieces but I focused on things I thought the kids would like and I knew my students would come check out my booth no matter how small it was. Almost all the items I specifically made for the fair sold. I wish I had had more time to make more Pokeballs and emojis. Those sold out fast with the kids wanting more. The poop emojis didn’t last long either. But most exciting of all was that I sold the Elsa doll from Frozen and that red-headed doll in the top right of the picture (above).

Great picture of Elsa taken by a PTO mom.

I always get a little thrill when I sell one of my dolls AND no one tried to talk me down on the prices. One of the hardest parts for me is pricing my items. In previous years, people loved the work but thought they were too expensive. This year, the items just sold! I was so happy.

The making of some of the items on the table were chronicled on previous blog posts. The tooth with the toothbrush (sold), the Pokeballs (sold), the purpliciousdoll in the top row, the Christmas doll with the purple hat, the face emojis, the Elsa (sold) and Anna dolls, and the superman doll.

An added bonus of doing the fair is that I get to see my students, past and present. Lots of hugs were dispensed that day. My favorite part is when they tell me they still have and value something I made that they either got from our prize box or that they purchased from a previous craft fair. How wonderful is that!

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Freebie Friday – Superman Rag Doll

Superman is one of my favorite super heroes and my hubby thought I should make one, especially since I had made a Batman. I whole heartedly agreed.  Here he his waiting for action. I think I will keep this one.

My hubby got in on the fun and created this for me.

More Crochet Rag Dolls in Progress

I have two more dolls I want to make at work before the end of the school year. I’m hoping they’re my last two student requests. I guess I should say I’m planning to stop at these two dolls because the request never stop coming. But I might get suckered, I mean convinced, to do more. 🙂 One is a Mario rag doll from Super Mario Brothers. I’ve been putting off doing this one because it seemed more complicated. Not the doll itself but getting the face and the hat just right so that it looks like him. The other request was for a Spiderman doll and I almost started on that one because it’s not that hard to make it LOOK like Spiderman even if it’s not perfect. But I put Mario off too many times and I finally went for it.

I looked at different sources to find a look I wanted to work with. I actually combined different looks from different sources. I used Minecraft versions, Lego versions, and the actual image from the game. The trick is to go as simple as possible, at least with these dolls because the idea is to get them done quickly while still clearly recognizing what they are supposed to be. If the child doesn’t think it looks like the character, then they are disappointed. So far, I’ve been pretty successful with student happiness but this one had me worried for some reason.

The progress so far.

I thought  a lip on the cap would make it more recognizable.

The emblem had me worried but the kids knew what it was right away. Phew!

Not sure this looks like Mario but the kids seem to think so.

Superman Beanie

I’m so excited! I just sold a beanie to someone I met at a craft fair where I had a booth selling my crochet. The person bought a Minecraft beanie I had made.

This is like the hat that sold.

He asked if I could make one with superman as the theme. I told him I was up to the challenge and I went for it. He showed me an illustration that looked very simple to duplicate. I delivered it today and he loved it.  Here’s what it looked like.

This is the actual hat I delivered today.

A side view that shows the color work.

Instead of crocheting in the round for these hats, I opted to crochet in rows since I wanted the ‘hair’ to go down the sides of the face in graduated steps. I did my increase rows in the same way I would as if crocheting in the round, top down.