What was the event?
On the 14th of December we held a Christmas craft fair in Ballyfermot College. The purpose: to raise funds for our end of year exhibition that will be held in May of next year

Success?
The craft fair, it must be said (despite the big "R",pay cuts and the general doom and gloom we are bombarded with through the media daily), was a success.The definition of success is: to have succeeded in one's endeavour or to achieve a favourable outcome and by reaching our goal and raising over four hundred euro this project must be deemed a success!

Planning and more planning!
The planning process of this craft fair commenced in October whereby as a group we discussed options as to how we were going to raise the money required for our exhibition. We considered holding a "swap shop" or a "stitch and bitch" day but ultimately it was decided that the process of a craft fair would open our eyes to the planning, design work and the business end of selling our products. Interesting and at times rather stressful it was, but the experience I have gained from the process is invaluable.

GO TEAM THREAD!
I was team leader for team thread. My team mates were Bobby, Danielle and Kayleigh. Our designs were grouped together under this title of "team thread" as we all used thread or yarn. Team thread were encouraged to create individual designs but to try and work together and to encourage each other. I like to think we achieved this! We met on 2 occasions to work together as a team and we communicated with eachother to discuss progress plans through text messaging and during class time.

My personal Experience:
Over the October mid-term break we were asked to come up with 12 design ideas for the fair. Well, my overactive/hyper brain tends to over do it from time to time and so I came back from mid-term with approximately 18 designs and lots of samples....this is the first lesson I take from the whole process: STOP, SLOW DOWN, CONSIDER, FOCUS, and quite simply, try and perfect one design idea before hopping off to the next! If I had done this at the start there would have been far less stress and probably less work in the end, however, we live and learn!

Finally a decision!
So after much tweeking and pondering my design idea was narrowed down to crochet collars but the significant part of this was considering a colour story and the style I was trying to achieve. I tried to stick to a colour story of pink, yellow ochre,black and cream. The idea with the collar was that it could decorate a simple top or dress. Also the weights varied in the designs so that some were functional in that they provided heat while the others were just an accessory.

Here comes the boring part!
So when it comes to the money side of making my mind tendes to switche off!Costing materials and the time it takes to make and then putting a price on your product can be rather laborious!LESSON 2 FROM THIS PROCESS: DOCUMENT EVERYTHING. LESSON 3: STICK TO ONE DESIGN AND THEN VARY-THIS WILL SAVE TIME!...yes this was probably what has been the biggest lesson for me and I know for the future now how important the initial stages of design are.

Anyway back to costings...on average each piece cost around two euro to make but the biggest cost for me in this assignment was:TIME!On estimate,having completed 16 final pieces for the fair, each piece took around 2-3 hours to make.

The prices of my final creations ranged from five euro to 30 euro for the sale.

What was I selling?
1 poncho
2 pink collars
2 yellow ochre collar/neckpieces
1 white and black collar
1 cream and black neckpiece
1 head piece
3 fabric collars
1 pair of earrings
3 I-phone covers
1 pair of cuffs

My sales!
As I just mentioned I had 16 final pieces to sell on the day. In the end I sold 12 of my 16 products.
I also received four orders which was very exciting. One lady requested 3 crochet collars in different colours to the ones I had on offer while one girl requested a crochet I-phone cover. These orders are worth 55 euro.

In total on the day of the craft fair my pieces fetched 145 euro!

The stress paid off in the end and following the nerves and anxiety I was filled with absolute contentment and adrenaline. I enjoyed the day of the sale and the buzz that is created by setting up a stall, creating an appropriate display, mingling with the customers and of course knowing that by reaching our goals the hard work paid off!

Great class effort. Great result.
Now role on the exhibition..............