The joy of prints!

So, I had a busy day today, that has left me feeling very excited about the market on Saturday. Firstly, I made a trip to a...ahem, well known homewares store, where I got all kinds of cool stuff to help make my stall look awesome, and to buy some reasonably priced frames to frame some of my prints. I have previously bought a couple of table top easels to display prints, but while I was winding my way through the endless aisles of the shop it suddenly struck me that I might find other things that will help with the display process, especially of my cards, and my friends lamps that I will also be selling. (more about those later!).
 I looked at some sort of woven wicker magazine racks and pen holders thingies for ages - they were just what I wanted in terms of shape, but they looked pretty ugly. I toyed with the idea of spray painting them and weaving bits of thread through them, but in the end I opted for a smarter wooden desk tidy thing, that can display the stuff quite nicely I think. That leaves me without anything to display the print son, but perhaps I'll treat myself to a proper print rack for my next market.

Some of my wares arranged in the desk tidy

When I got home there was still no email from the printers, so I rang them up, and they told me my prints were ready! Yay! I was there in a flash, and could see that the bigger prints looked GREAT!, but I had to wait to get home to have a look at the cards, and I'm THRILLED with them as well! I literally can't wait to show them off at the market. I just have a busy day of mounting and framing tomorrow, and then it's showtime!

All 10 designs of greetings cards I'll be selling at the market

So, about the lamps, a few of which you can see above. They are made by a Hungarian friend of mine called Anna Kaszanitzky, who has kind of done similar to me, and followed her dreams to become a self-employed professional lamp maker. She makes amazing lampshades much bigger and more ambitious than any of the things I am currently selling of hers, but just to give it a try, I brought over from Hungary some of her smaller, battery operated novelty lamps, like these:

 They are all individually hand made and unique, so they aren't cheap, but I'm hoping people with love them as much as I do. Eventually, I would like to sell some of her bigger pieces, which you can check out at her website or on her facebook page.

 I am bursting to know how mine and Anna's work will be received. For me especially it's about whether people be attracted to buy at these new lower prices, and will the cards sell well? I'm not expecting the giclees to fly off the shelves, because they are expensive, but I'm hoping the more affordable stuff will sell like hot cakes! Because then I'll know if this really is a self sustainable thing - if I can do something I love AND make a little bit of profit out of it. I'll probably be too busy to post tomorrow, as as well as being the crunch day for getting ready, it's also my birthday, so I won't report in until after the show. So, if you're reading this before Saturday, keep your fingers crossed for me!