Confessions of a Fabricaholic

Thank you to all who left a comment to my post and gave your opinions of Facebook - I am left a little confused as to what to do for the best, as it seems some have had bad experiences. I have actually had a business page on Facebook since 2011, but have not really spent time updating it. I have now started to do this in order to keep advertising my little shop. I shall only be using Facebook as an advertising tool, and not for the 'friends' side of it, as I want to keep as anonymous as possible - I'd find it difficult to devote the time for this side of things anyway. I am grateful already to those who have welcomed me there and have 'liked' my photos. (There is a button on the top left of my blog's sidebar which will take you to my pages.) 

I need to keep my little shop up and running for at least another two years. (Someone once told me that it takes around five years for a shop to become known, so I am over half way there.) It is hard in these unstable economic times, but all in all, 2012 was a good year for me, so with hard work and more determined efforts, I hope to keep in business for the next few years to come. It is sad, but it has become clear to me, that I cannot rely on those who should have the town's best interests at heart, and so if I want to succeed, I have to continue to work hard and welcome all those who come to visit. Shepton Mallet is hanging on by its finger nails, and in my opinion will struggle to regenerate in the foreseeable future, but that is not to say that those of us who have our small businesses there, cannot survive. I open three days a week, which allows me time to hand make my stock in-between times, source vintage/antique stock, and also work towards vintage fairs once a month or so. 

So, for now I have decided I need to keep my blog open in the hope I can keep potential customers interested in what I do, and to encourage some to visit one of the oldest towns in Somerset. I shall use Facebook to keep information about my shop up to date, with less emphasis of this on my blog. I don't know if it was just me, or my PC connection, but I struggled to upload any quantity of photographs into a Facebook photo album - they freeze and stop mid-upload. It is much quicker these days to add photos to Blogger, so I need to stick with what will save the most time. I'll just cut back on the amount of posts this year and try to keep them interesting.

Anyway, enough of all that - I hope those who visit here over the year will enjoy my postings. 

Now for some pretty pictures! 

I've spent the last couple of days giving my workroom a much needed face lift. Was it ever messy?! ;-))

I've swapped some of the furniture around to give me more practical storage space and a little area to work when I have gluing projects. 

Under the stairs now looks like this...

Lovely Scheurer fabric in the door panels :)

I've tidied all my ribbons and trims...

Using the cards made for me by Maria.

The biggest blitz though, was going through all of my antique and vintage fabrics...

'Baby bunting' - a gift, made by the talented Hesta of Green Glamour.
I've been very brave ;-)), trying to decide if each piece of fabric in my collection would ever be used by me...If its unlikely, it has got put on the 'to go' pile...
For a fabricaholic, this has been difficult, but very good therapy, I think! ;-))

The pile now stands at approx: 3 feet high. I will be bundling these up and offering them for sale at two of the fairs I have booked so far this year.
February: The Vintage & Handmade Textile Fair - Chipping Sodbury.
March: The Vintage Bazaar Textile & Rag Market - North Cadbury.
I shall be adding the details of these events to my website and blog's sidebar shortly.    

You can't beat a tidy workspace, can you? I'm looking forward to making lots of new items over the coming months...just hope I can keep my area tidy in the process!

Happy January,

Niki x