Steamfest

Hello!
Well, I am home again after quite a busy few days.
Maureen and I chose to go up on the Friday and get set up so we didn’t get caught up in the early Saturday morning madness (You all know how not fantastic I am at mornings so that was sensible.)

Jeff drove up too and helped unpack and set up our tents and stayed Friday – we all went out for gourmet pizza and on Saturday morning, he took off to hike up Mt Roland since Sheffield sits almost at its base.

The shed was huge!
Our idea of creating a little walk in area for customers worked well combining both our stall areas

You can see how we had some stock at the front then people were able to come in and browse the tables inside the area.

Super excited to use my banner for the first time.
I noticed people looking up to read it too over the three days to confirm what it was I was selling (ie soaps not sweets)

I really enjoyed seeing the ‘fruits of my labour’ all out on display.

I had plenty of stock and was able to dive into those clearly marked boxes to top up when the more popular soaps were dwindling on the plate.
(The Japanese Honeysuckle, btw, was the clear favourite at this market! It was almost the first one picked up to sniff and its funny watching expressions as that one always seemed to bring on a ‘wow’ look)(Black Raspberry and Vanilla I think was the second most popular)

I even sold 4 of my gift boxed soaps!

Maureen also had a great time and sold a fabulous amount of her aprons!
I think she almost sold out of the children’s ones!
Her stall is so full of wonderful colourful items. She has some unique materials and they really attracted peoples attention.
It was really interesting seeing what people liked and we’ve got ideas for next year (yes we’re keen to do it again)

We were still setting up at the stage of the photos taken here… then after we were set, people just kept coming in so I don’t think I got extra photos when it was all tidied and ready to go… we were in full swing!

Saturday was steady and quite busy.
Sunday was even busier! The weather was gorgeous and everyone was out enjoying themselves.
At one point Maureen slipped out to see if she could get us a sausage wrapped in bread for lunch- but the line went forever.
So we stuck with the snacks we had (ahem… that Maureen brought along because I didn’t think that far)(Her husband Gerry baked us some anzac bikkies and rock cakes! So lucky!)
Cousin Jeff’s wife, Alana, turned up to say hello! She heard about our snag dilemma and surprised us by returning with a couple! How nice was that? She said her kids were standing in line for the train so she thought she might as well stand in another line for the sausages!
They were SO GOOD.

There was a train for littlies (very cute) and a mid sized train chooffing about the tracks giving people little scenic rides.

I really didn’t get much of a chance to get out and see what was happening beyond the market shed until briefly on Monday when things had quietened down. (We were all about sell sell sell haha)

There was some great machinery out and about – lots of noise, smoke, clanking and whistles.
I walked into town each evening and the big steam machines were making their way to the middle of town to top up on water, ready for the next day.

There was a good amount of stalls in the big shed.
We knew a couple of people and met a bunch of new nice people too.
We did have a couple of challenges. The internet was slow so the payment square Maureen had was a bit testy a lot of the time on the busy days. We were relieved that it wasn’t just us being novices at it but everyone was having issues.
Sometimes we’d take the customer outside to try to get a better signal.
It was awesome Maureen got set up with it as even though we did take mostly cash, we also did a significant amount of sales using the Square.

The second challenge – dust.
Oh my! I breathed a lot of it and it just coated everything. The floor of the shed wasn’t concreted or anything… just a big old dusty area!
They tried watering it Sunday morning but were way too late and were kicking up more dust and mud… and customers were already on their way in.
Monday morning they got in way earlier and watered it down which made a difference for the monday, but the bulk of the people and dust was on Saturday and Sunday!

I suppose my soaps are, in the long run, self cleaning!

Over all we did really well… lots more $$ to put in our Japan fund so that’s very exciting.
I have a heap of stock left over so I have plenty for the Rocky Cape Market and enough to leave at Arty Duck to keep them stocked up too without having to do any frantic soap making to keep up.

I woke with a cold early on the last day which was a bummer… its freshened up today and I am tired and stuffy.
I got home early evening Monday after a big pack up session.
I didn’t bother unpacking the car until today… put the tent flies out to dry as of course it rained on the last night!
I tried to rest but… I don’t think I did and now my eyelids feel hot and heavy.

So glad we went! We’re all keen for next year and even put our names down to snaffle the same spots. I am making promises to myself to get the frantic soap making done BEFORE January next time!

Thanks for all the encouraging words over my 6 week crazy soap making production – it was nice to share what I was doing with you all.

xxx