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Continue ShoppingWhat 10 Years Away Taught Us: Our Craft Fair Return
The weekend just gone was an exciting and slightly chaotic one for Black Fox Metalcraft; Reivers market in Hawick, our first craft fair in nearly ten years. The market itself is a small part of the annual Reivers festival, a event commemorating the towns tumultuous history of raids and battles over the borderlands. So there are people of all ages enjoying the re enactments, processions, dressing up and firing of cannons in a proud borders sort of way.
Why we stepped away
By 2016 or 2017, we had found that we could save ourselves a lot of hard work by advertising our crafts in magazines, and promoting our website online rather than being out most weekends through summer at various events. We were living in a derelict house that was not going to rennovate itself, then we got a puppy and later had twins, so free time rapidly became a very unfamiliar concept! We'd also had our share of events that were badly organised or totally ruined by appalling weather, so it's fair to say we had become slightly frustrated with the whole thing.
Why we decided it was time to try again
With us now happily settled in the borders and our twin daughters half way through their first year of primary school, we had a bit of breathing space for the first time in many years! The internet has changed dramatically in the past ten years, favouring AI generated images of mass produced items on Amazon and Temu, so genuine small british craft businesses like ourselves have been finding it harder to get noticed. Plus the fact that magazine sales have dropped dramatically as smartphones have taken over and the fact that we've moved our business to a new area - we needed to introduce ourselves and our work to the world again.
Preparing for the fair
Since the new year I've been enjoying experimenting with hand forged leaves, flowers, and other nature inspired bits and pieces - It's been loads of fun developing new ideas using our coal forge and anvil. I even bought myself a fancy new hammer.
But with 2 weeks to go and a plan in place of what I needed to make for the fair, we had an absolute week from hell in which everything that could go wrong did - deliveries not turning up, deliveries that did turn up being wrong, plus family life going on as it always does, left me with only a few days left in which to do absolutely everything. Needless to say the morning of the craft fair was somewhat fraught, but fortunately it was only 15 minutes from home so I was able to dash back and grab all the things we had inevitably forgotten!
The Day Itself
Once our stall was set up, we were able to relax and enjoy ourselves. With Nana very kindly on twin and dog duty, it was nice for David and I to spend some time together, even if technically working! We had bought some pots to display my hand made flowers, and the morning sun shone beautifully onto their gilded centres. We had some posters printed to show some of our favourite weathervanes and signs, plus a table full of small hand forged pieces that could be bought on the day.
We had a really nice reaction to our work both from visitors and other traders alike. The flowers recieved a lot of admiration and we sold out of insect baths straight away. My favourite little framed piece sold too, and I was delighted because of how much the lady who bought it clearly loved it!
It was definitely worth booking onto Reivers market, despite the stress of the week leading up to it! We're sure to be back next year... might even bring my forge and anvil.
Lessons Learned: What went well (and what didn't)
Though we were generally pretty proud of how our display of hand forged metalwork looked, I think we could have done with multiple levels on the table in order to raise up certain items, draw passers by in a little. The hand forged flowers were very eyecatching, but everything else was flat on the table so not really visible until you were right in front of it. Much to my surprise as a complete luddite, the tech worked flawlessly and we (David obviously) was able to take card payments throughout the day, which we've not tried before.
We sold a good mix of items, the insect baths sold out in the first hour so clearly should have made more of those! It was good to have a range of inexpensive bits like keyrings too, so there was something for every budget. The single flowers with gilded centres were genuinely admired by virtually everyone who visited our stall, but surprisingly we didn't sell any. We wondered if it might be because people couldn't quite imagine how they would display one flower on it's own. I think if we had a nice plant in our display pots so people could imagine how a single flower could work in their own garden, or even cards with photos of them insitu, this might give potential customers ideas and tempt them into purchasing one, either for themselves or as a gift.
We had loads of interest in our beginner Blacksmithing course and gave out loads of flyers, so that's something to look forward to in the coming months.
What's next for Black Fox Metalcraft
I've loved creating the hand forged flowers and leaves, so I'll be continuing to develop these ideas and skills. I definitely want to create more work along the lines of the little framed piece, we were so happy with how that turned out. But possibly on a larger scale, or as part of a set. Much experimenting to do... I'm really excited to get back to the forge tomorrow. You might well find us doing a market or two over summer and towards Christmas 2026.