Thank you so much for taking time to message me with all your business start-up advice and help on selling at craft fairs. Your encouragement has been humbling and will steer my journey.

Thanks to your feedback, my dilemma over label wording is now resolved. Hooray! One decision made! The Stitch Sharer label with Handmade in England is the clear winner.

Your top tips to date are:

• Work backwards – work out what you want to achieve, then work out how you are going to get there.
• Research your market to know what to make.
• Be unique – develop an artistic brand so that a buyer knows the piece is yours.
• Have a range of priced items for sale with lower priced items at front of the stall and more expensive towards the back.

Sounds like it’s time to get focused!  As it is easy to get distracted, I have started to developing a Business Plan.

With my printer out of ink and a bid to keep the paper work as fun and creative as possible, it has been time to hook out my trusty old friend.

On the www.gov.uk site there is Business Planning video clip which was I found useful. Although I’m not keen to be constricted by paperwork, some of the key headings suggested are really helpful so I have used them to created some “Business Plan Bunting”!

With a family to look after and a full-time job, I’ve also written myself a ‘Personal statement of trading’ to try and keep that all important work/ life balance.

• Keep calm  – build up slowly and when things start to ‘spiral’ take a break.
• Stay creative and keep things fun.
• Include a realistic labour charge when pricing products – if you don’t value your time and efforts, no-one else is going to! Whilst doing some research on Etsy I came across the following formula: Materials + Labor + Expenses + Profit = Wholesale x 2 = Retail Price…. sounds interesting? Any one tried it?
• Develop a community element  – I’m not sure what this ‘looks-like’ yet, but whether it be a ‘knit and natter’ or low-cost stitching workshops one of my aims is to help other develop their skills and gain that important ‘feel good’ factor.

If you want are keen to find out more about the structure of my Business Plan please find it below.

Business Plan outline

If I have missed anything out or you have any useful hints and tips to share it would be great to hear from you either  by leaving a comment below by emailing me on thestitchsharer@hotmail.co.uk.