Lily Pad Bakery Christmas

Cake Truffles and Gingerbread House

Fudge and Chocolates

Tiffins

This week I held my Open House for Christmas orders.  I did a bit more marketing, and as I have got to know a lot more people in the last year, was hopeful that more would attend.

Cake Area

I added two more lines this year: Christmas chocolates (I have finally worked out how to temper chocolate - buy decent chocolate from a proper Chocolate Warehouse - costs more but it tempers perfectly every time!) and fudge - in 6 flavours: Boozy Christmas, Rum & Raisin, Vanilla, Ginger, Muscovado and Chocolate.  I did tasters for everything, tried to make it look nice and Christmassy, put on Christmas music and then made two big cakes: a giant Jaffa cake and a spiced apple and currant cake which were on offer with hot berry punch in return for a donation to Cancer Research.

It is always a nervous time.  It takes A LOT of work to get everything ready on time (baking, marketing, labels, presentation, packaging etc etc - it takes forever to do it all)

Knitted and Crocheted Goods

At 9am I got inundated from the school run - think about 10 people turned up with children as well - so it was a bit mad and I didn't get to speak to everyone, but pretty much everyone ordered something.  The rest of the day was calmer.  I had two down periods of an hour each when no-one was here, which was fine - gave me a chance to recharge.  One person even turned up that I didn't know - she had seen my poster in the Community Centre, so that was good - hopefully she will spread the word amongst her friends.

Oh and my crochet Rudolph proved very popular, so much so that I took orders for 15 of them in the first hour and then had to hide him so I didn't get anymore.  I'm going to be busy in the evenings now.  A good way to get my crocheting speed up.

I took £583.50 from 22 orders which was loads more than last year (just under £300). AND I made £77 for Cancer Research.

On Saturday, Tom went to spend the weekend with his grandparents, Matt went to Edinburgh and I had a craft fair at Smile Nursery - thought it a good idea to get exposure to the new parents of Kirkby.    Also as it was the day after my open house - it was two birds with one stone!  No-one was allowed to take anything away on Friday, but everything was for sale on Saturday.  Well to say the fair was disappointing is an under statement.  There were plenty of vendors: Phoenix, Body Shop, Vintage Stalls, Beauty Stalls, Fell Tarn Friends etc etc.  Everyone had put a lot of effort in, except the Nursery.  I was surprised to find NO signs on the A65 advertising the fair.  The fair was empty for the full 3 hours.  Those that turned up, turned up so their children could meet a character from Paw Patrol - they didn't  bring any money for shopping?  It was as if they didn't know it was a Christmas Shopping Fair?!

I did have a feeling that it would be a little amateur but I didn't expect it to be so under attended.  Luckily I had lots of small ticket items - gingerbread biscuits for 10p / 50p / 80p to entice people over and I managed to sell quite a bit of fudge (boozy fudge very popular amongst Dads), but really it was disappointing and some vendors didn't sell anything - some were really quite upset at how bad attendance was!  Not sure they will get any to return.  For me, it was a way to sell all the samples I had to make for the Open House, so it was no skin off my nose - I made £50, not great, but £50 that would have got thrown away otherwise.

So advice to me for next year:

OPEN HOUSE
+ Yes you have to get up at 6am to get it all ready in time for 9am start
+ 9 till 6 is good - people came up to 5.30
+ Have prices ready for the big cakes as people wanted to know
+ Definitely go for 'experimental' cakes - the Giant Jaffa Cake was very popular
+ Marketing - do some flyers next year and post round houses nearby, also let the teachers at school know.  Poster for the newsagents.
+ Crochet Rudolphs very popular

CRAFT MARKET
+ Find out projected attendance
+ Are they marketing the event?  How are they marketing it?
+ Will they put road signs out?
+ Think about maximising on fudge.  Find out Food Hygiene rules re selling fudge in a public place (spit shield etc).  Do boozy fudge flavours for Dads - very popular.