Silent Sunday

Silent Sunday

Number Crunching Day

Today has been a day dedicated to getting up to date with some of our accounts, a job I have been avoiding like the plague. Today has involved lots of sorting out, paperwork and number crunching instead of my usual pastime of sewing and creating. Luckily I don't have to rely on an abacus as my trusty spreadsheets do most of the work for me but I adore this lovely traditional abacus in bright colours which my son has found really useful for helping him out at his maths homework.

I love a little back ground noise when I'm working and have an eclectic mix of tunes to play so first on was my Ultimate Chill Out CD followed by The Beatles, Shania Twain and The Best Of Motown (I told you it was eclectic!) On the side was a lovely big pot of tea Which only added to me daydreaming about sewing a tea cosy ? Never made one before so I have added that to my growing list!

Craft Fairs and Rain :(

Its seems as though the past few Craft Fairs we have attended have all been spooked by the weather its either been rain, wind or even worse BOTH! On Sunday setting up at Hickling Country Fair it started to feel that we were on the set of the Addams family and we had a bit black cloud following us, that was until the damp wet camaraderie of the Craft marquee made us all smile....if you can't have the flying gymnasts and the marching band in the outside arena then what should we do ? bring it all inside! Customers had more or less finished their shopping in the craft tent so we cleared the aisles and set up "stage"

Our best sellers of the show were our traditional rag dolls and pop guns! it seems you only have to sell one and all the other children hear it and want one too !

Having had a large order for spinning tops this week I thought I would give you some interesting facts on where and when they originated.
History
Spinning tops were invented independently in many different areas of the world. Clay tops have been discovered in archaeological digs that date as far back as 3500 B.C. in the city Ur, southeast of Baghdad. Spinning tops made of terra cotta were discovered at Troy that date to 3000 B.C. Egyptian, Greek and Roman tops have been found dating from 2000 B.C. to 27 B.C.

Function
Spinning tops have been used throughout history for many purposes. Children have used them for centuries as toys and pastimes. They have also been used in prophecy, gambling and as gifts to honor the Gods, or in some cultures, as items to take into the afterlife. Modernly, spinning tops provide play and distraction. They are also used in tournaments and championships in games of skill, and in role-playing games.

Features
The body of a spinning top has at least one axis, known as a principle axis, around which it spins. They traditionally have a peg shape in which the top of the body is much wider than the bottom, or tip. Spinning tops also include a mechanism to begin the spinning such as a spring cap, stem, string or pump. They can be made of a variety of materials including wood, clay and metal, and are typically brightly painted.



Read more:About Spinning Tops

Traditional, Old Fashioned Toys

My 6 year old son is doing a topic about old fashioned toys at school, a subject of obvious interest to me!So we have spent some time looking through Mummys shop to see what he could take to talk about and we also searched his toybox (as he has road tested the majority of our toys at some point) to see what he thinks would be of interest to his class mates. Here is what he came up with


Jacobs Ladder,Which is one of my favourites, dates back to Egyption times.





Yoyo, got to be another firm favourite.






Football Rattle, hope this isn't going to cause too much noise!

Is that the time ?

Well its been a while since I blogged, I have added "write a blog article" to my to do list every week, I even added it to my New Years resolution list but sadly it has been pushed way down on my list.
A quick update about whats been happening since I last blogged, well the snow/weather made life pretty difficult for our packed diary of craft events during November and December, lots were cancelled including the prestigious Lincoln Christmas Market which left myself and a lot of stallholders in a difficult financial position. Our saving grace came in the form of a stand in Nottingham's Victoria Centre, expensive, hard work but a huge learning curve!
We have broken into craft fairs gently with one in Feb, which actually turned out to be great and the weather was positively Spring like and one last weekend which was OK but bitterly cold and very wet.
I have been sewing but sadly not as much as I would like but as our contract at the Victoria Centre is coming to an end I hope to concentrate on this a little more.
I have added some lovely photographs of our stand at Victoria Centre, I hope you like them as much as me, to say I am very proud of our achievement is an understatement!