Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Just push the Polymer Clay Button...

Let's Face It, and other Polymer Clay Buttons 
I can hardly believe that it's six weeks since I last posted here. I have the usual list of excuses, but sadly, none of them are very good or out of the ordinary.  I'd love to say that I have been on some magical tour of a foreign land, but it's just the same old, same old. 

So, without any more of that, I will get to my point. This is the ART and CRAFT season. It actually began on October 4th with the Dryden Art Sale and it continues on. This weekend is the Headingley Craft Sale, held almost simultaneously with the Scattered Seeds Show.  It is quite coincidental that there is also "The Big One" in Brandon, which would have been another option for me to display my stuff.  But, I chose this year to participate in the Headingley Sale. 

There, you can see me and a number of other artisans in a relaxed atmosphere, with great lighting, ample parking, tasty snacks  and no elbows  pushing you where you might not want to go.   The organizers there put on a very tidy show...okay it is not as big as some, but that makes it much more ambient for both vendors and folks to browse through at their leisure.  The admission is minimal and there is a nice selection of articles to choose from in the Rainbow Auction.  The location is a few miles past the Assiniboia Downs, on Portage Avenue.  So it is possible for folks to do both the Scattered Seeds event and the Headingley sale. The times and dates for Headingley are on Friday, the 18th of October from Noon until 8 pm and Saturday, the 19th from 10 am until mid-afternoon.  I hope to see lots of you out there.

I have been busy restocking my supply of buttons, light switch plates and all the other things I make...and if I have too much stuff, well, I have a good number of other  upcoming events starting on November 8th where they will also be displayed.  On that weekend, Friday and Saturday, I will be at Ralph Connor House, at 54 Westgate, near the Misericordia Hospital for the University Womens' Club Annual Christmas Sale.  If you haven't been to this event, you will be certain to enjoy browsing through this old mansion and enjoying the warmth of a house built when houses were really something!

The following Saturday, the 16th of November will see us venturing out to Kenora, for the Beta Sigma Phi Event at the Lakeside Inn, that round hotel on the Lake of the Woods waterfront.  This is a first time there for me and I am really looking forward to it.  I look forward to seeing friends from Dryden, Sioux Narrows and other Northwestern Ontario locations there.  That particular sale runs from (I believe) 10 am until 4 pm.  Following that, I plan on getting together with my niece to catch up on family stuff. 

On the 23rd of November, I will be back in "The Peg" at a local event hosted by the Good Neighbours Club of East Kildonan.  Their sale will be in the multipurpose building in the 700 block of Henderson Highway.  It formerly was where the Bronx Park Community Centre was located and their building is a great venue.  I have taken a class there and it's very nice.  Good thing about this one is that it is only a ten minute drive from our place.  Yay.

The following weekend is going to be really busy.  On the Friday evening, I'll be at the Opera, (watching and silently humming along) to Don Pasquale, (or as I am loathe to report like the present state of my work table...Don Pa Squalor).  Then, early (very early) Saturday morning on the 30th of November we'll be heading out to Brandon to the Art Gallery of Southwest Manitoba for their Gala of Gifts event. We haven't been to this show for a couple of years, and sorely missed the beautiful room, with the musicians strumming their harps.   It runs Saturday from 10 until 4 and then again on Sunday, December 1st,  from noon until five pm.  Hopefully it won't be too cold and not snowing so that the ride there and back won't be too taxing.

And then there's just one more after that...a new venue for me...the Last Chance Sale at the Canad Inn on Regent, which is adjacent to Club Regent.  That one is also on a Sunday, and it will be the 8th of December.  It's in the hotel and I am in the big area on the second level.  Fortunately, the elevators make it easily accessible, and the lighting on that floor is more amenable than that of the Blue Lagoon, another room where vendors will be located.  I am not sure of the hours, but I am pretty certain that if you drop by between noon and four p.m. that we'll be there.

From time to time I have considered opening up an Etsy shop....a couple of years ago I even went as far as to register my name, but that's all that became of that.  I don't know if my stuff would appeal to online customers.  Most folks seem to want polymer clay jewellery, and since I do not do a whole lot of that genre of items, I am reluctant to start something on line.  If I got a lot of requests, I might, but not expecting that to be the case, I will play the waiting game and just do direct stuff.

Now, if I don't hurry and get to work, I won't have anything ready for this Friday, so I am off to that clay table!