My Month in Numbers 2011: December

Hi, hi, hi.

Here it is - the final Month in Numbers post of 2011 which features some suitably Christmassy statistics, starting with my first ever craft fair as a seller ...

2  = the number of tables which were booked between myself and 3 friends at a church hall Christmas fair.

4 = the number of tables we'd managed to colonise by the close of day ... let me explain ...

Here's Table #1 where Jan and I set out our items [here's my little patch with my collages, magnets, brooches, cards and paper packs]:

And here's Table #2, featuring Effie and Jean's stock:

 

So how did we do?

Let's just say that business was slow. Very slow. We quickly realised that this wasn't the right fair for our style of products and several other vendors seemed to feel the same as they packed up and disappeared before lunch ... which is where Table #3 came from. When the other people left, we spread out a little ....

 And then we spread a bit further when the people from Table #4 went home:

 

Not that it did us a great deal of good ...

£5 = the grand total I made, after fees.

Yet it wasn't a complete waste of time, the others faired better than me and it was definitely a valuable learning experience. For example I learned that:

• people aren't afraid of talking about your stock even though you're standing right in front of them;
• Outside the creative community the idea of 'Handmade' is a niche idea to the wider public. So many people asked 'Did you make it all yourselves?' with such a completely baffled / awed look on their faces.

Also ... 

• I learned that if you're going to spend 4 hours in a church hall, with a children's Christmas performance going on in the next room and where the vicar walks around talking to everyone ... at some point you'll feel like you're inside an episode of Rev.
• Plus I learned lots of new kinds of coat beginning with each letter of the alphabet as we played The Alphabet Game during the quiet times [ie: most of the day!].

And my biggest lesson of the day was:

• Never to do a craft fair where there's also face-painting on offer ... 

 Speaking of handmade  ...

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 = the numbers featuring on the bag Effie made me for Christmas:

3 = the number of sewing machines she went through to make it - watch this little video clip on her blog to see the amazing machine she ended up having to use to finish it!

6 degrees = the temperature in my back garden on Boxing Day:

15 degrees C = the difference in temperature between this year and the photo I took for my Month in Numbers post last December which showed Minus 9 during the day.

15 degrees difference!!! And no, I haven't moved countries, it's some strangely mild weather we're having here. Just think ... if next December were to be 15 degrees warmer than this ... Christmas would be a balmy 21 degree C summer's day ...

And here's another 15 ...

15 = the number of projects posted off to Creativity and Papercraft Inspirations magazine:

5.25 = The number of the dye I used to colour my hair with its other name being an accidentally-yet-highly-appropriately festive: 'Frosted Chestnut'!

935 = approximately how many fewer pages there are in the vintage illustrated Don Quixote James gave me for Christmas than there are in the [as yet unfinished] 'proper' version which I've been attempting to read for about 3 years.

Here's the final page [from which I'm still about 850 pages from in the 'proper' version]:

And here's what page it features on:

As I opened it James commented: "I thought you might get this one finished" ... and he might just be correct! [Not that I've actually finished it yet!]

Here's who else joined in with their December numbers:

• First timer Helen of 'Helen's World' joined in with her first Month in Numbers here. 
• And another novice number counter who heard about the idea on UKScrappers was Sue C of 'A Little Bit of Organised Heaven' who joined in with this post.
• Jayne of 'Paper Wool + Thread' joined in by spending some of the last few minutes of 2011 writing up her post, here!
• Fiona of 'Staring at the Sea' shared her statistics once again, beginning with a great before + after photo here.
• Laura of 'Airing Cupboard Crafts' blogged her project plans for 2012 here which includes joining in with Month in Numbers.
• Claire of 'The Crafty Alchemist' managed to blog - and scrapbook - her Month inNumbers each month throughout 2011 and in her final post of the year here she shows no signs of stopping just yet!
• Mel of 'Let's Get Scrappy' joined in here with tales of travel and a Pointless game.
• Sian of 'From High in the Sky' shared another great scrapbook page featuring her month's summary here.

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Thank you for reading my final statistical summary of the year but I'll be back in a month's time with the first My Month in Numbers of 2012 [there's a birthday involved ... but I doubt my age will be one of my featured numbers!].

To those who've been talking about joining in with your own Month in Numbers during 2012 ['Hello' to you if you're new here from the UKScrappers thread where some of you have been chatting about joining in!] here are few useful links:

• The Month in Numbers page where you can find full list of all 24 previous posts of mine plus the blog button if you want it!
• My recent tutorial post on 'How to Record Your Month inNumbers' which features lots of tips and ideas on how to get started ... and how to keep going!

Give it a go, see what you think, try it out in a format which suits you and don't forget to link me up when you do.

And if you've managed to fit in your own final one of the year now - leave me a link to that too and I'll add you to this post when I get chance [in between taking decorations down!].

So, as 2011 walks off into the distance and the top of 2012's head begins to appear on the horizon I'd like to wish you 365 brand new days filled with enough happy and healthy moments that you forget to count the less happy and healthy ones.

See you soon.

Julie x