One of things I love about doing lots of different markets at Christmas is all the wonderful artists and creators I meet and all the lovely stuff they make.

Here are some of the cats I found at the Trinity Art Market on Saturday.

I bought one of these, they’re fab!

http://www.emmaleveyillustration.com

http://misterpeebles.tumblr.com

The lady who makes these doesnt’ have a website.

And here is my stall

On the 9th of June we will be off to have a stall at Bristol’s biggest ever market. It’s all part of Big Green Week. I can’t wait! It should be amazing. Check out the website for more information. I hope to see you there!

Bristol’s BIG Market
10am to 4pm
St. Nick’s Market Hall to Cascade Steps

Bristol’s BIG Market will transform the city scape and launch the festival on Saturday 9th June with some 200 stalls.

Stretching from St Nick’s market hall in the heart of Bristol’s old medieval centre, to Bristol’s historic harbourside, this event will be a pedestrian paradise.

Featuring quality food and drink produced in the South West and locally created arts and crafts; Bristol’s biggest market will showcase a host of insipirational independent businesses from the region.

The Tobacco Factory, where I have my market stall every week, is host to a large part of UPFEST. The market will be going ahead as usual but we’ll be surrounded by lots of wonderful artists, painting live. It’s going to be a fantastic alternative to any of the Jubilee celebrations going on elsewhere.

Europe’s largest urban art festival Upfest has announced the impressive international line up for its fifth year and has unveiled plans to take over the cultural home of UK graffiti, Bristol. The event takes place over Jubilee weekend 2nd – 4th June.

This year Upfest has attracted over 250 of the most groundbreaking graffiti artists the world has to offer. Descending onto Southville, Bristol they will consume over two miles of the city to paint live for three days and create over 20,000 square foot of artwork.

2012 will be its biggest yet and festival organisers have revealed that a wide programme of events will close off the surrounding streets for the hours of the festival, entertaining visitors across the Jubilee weekend. The Graffiti Academy will be running 90 graffiti tutorials for those who wish to turn their hand at painting.

Three Sundays out of four I can be found at the Tobacco Factory Market selling my goodies. It’s a lovely market with lots of great stalls selling ethical, eco-friendly, fair trade, organic, handmade and local products.

I had last week off and took the chance to makeover my stall a bit and I’m pretty pleased with how it’s looking now. I’ve built my stall up over the past few months and learnt what words and what doesn’t. Apart from being bright and tidy, one of the most important things is height. Since using a tall card stand and adding different layers of height in my display I’ve attracted lots more customers. Clear pricing is also essential. People don’t like having to ask how much something is. Maintaining the display is a constant job throughout the day as people pick stuff up and put it back in slightly the wrong place.

My favourite thing about markets, apart from being a great way to earn money, is people’s reactions to my work. Every time someone looks at my stuff and laughs or smiles I know I’m doing something right. I’ve met lots of wonderful people with great stories about their cats.

I’ve been so busy over the past few weeks with my stall. I have been overwhelmed with the success I’ve had with it, it’s made me feel very lucky.

It’s taken a while for me to get my stall looking how it does. I gather bits and pieces for the display over the past few months and there is still more to do. I feel that the table is a bit cluttered. Once Christmas is over I will try to find a better way of displaying the little things like badges and stickers.

Height is really important, it makes it easier for people to see what you’re selling before they’ve even got to your stall. I have a metal card rack and two cardboard ones. I paper-mached the card ones to make them look better.

Clear and consistent pricing is so important. However clear you make it though, there is always someone who will ask you the price of everything.