I would have posted this sooner, but I was really ill at the start of the week and had to take a few days off work, needless to say, when I went back to work, I had to play catch up.

Part 1.

Sunday 14^th November was the first day of Waldo’s Pink Bed Sheet Tour, He went to the Finders Keepers Fair in Stockport.

As always I took my now famous pink bed sheet as a display cloth, it gets a few funny looks and it give off the impression that I’m the most unprofessional crafter on the planet, but the fabric conditioner makes it smell so so fresh!

Finders Keepers was probably the most successful fair I’ve ever done! That said, it started really slow, I was worried I wouldn’t make my money back, but a spurt of sales in the afternoon really made a difference. It seemed the organisers were worried that no one would come, as the venue seemed a little hard to spot, to rectify this, they put some headless mannequins on the car park by the road, it looked well freaky, but seemed to work.

A highlight of the day was meeting some Folksy people, namely Amada and Liz. Amanda attacked me not long after I got there, then crawled under my table, true story.

They also had live music to suit the mood, I thought this was a great touch, as sometimes when you’re just sitting there trying to look interested/interesting it can get a bit boring, so some comedy-folk-skiffle really hit the spot!

I think Naomi and co did a great job, it was a lovely fair, full of very different and creative stall holders, looking forward to next year .

Part 2.

Q: When is a craft fair not a craft fair?

A: When it’s a jumble sale.

The above might be a bit strong, but here goes. Saturday 20^th November at Alsager School was a craft fair I had been looking forward to, I had booked it a few months in advance and was sure that due to the area it would have a good crowd.

There were a fair few crafters there, some very talented people but for some reason it didn’t seem to work for me. There were a few stalls there that were not craft. Now, I always feel I walk a ropy line with Waldo, as some could argue that it is not strictly handmade, but it still is a craft.

For some reason, there was a gentleman at the craft fair selling second hand books, he had boxes and boxes of them, it looked like a car boot sales. What’s more, his stall was right next to mine! It can be hard to sell your only book for £6 sometimes, but even harder when there are 100 to the left of you at dirt cheap prices.

I’ve nothing against him, I hope he made loads of sales, I just wish the organisers had put me somewhere else, or made it clear that it wasn’t strictly a craft. There were other stalls selling Pepper Pig stuff, they must have got a wholesale discount or something, as they were going quite cheap as well. Now I LOVE Waldo, and I really believe in the brand, but I can’t compete with an established brand going dirt-cheap.

The saving grace was a few young people that too a shine to my jumper, they bought a few badges and I gave them some stickers for being so nice to me.

Still I’ve had an ace week on Folksy and at the Finders Keepers fair, aaaaaannd! Its Waterstone’s in the Manchester Trafford Centre tomorrow, so its all good!

Today Waldo is exactly 1 year old! Woop woop! So as you’re reading this, please have in your head ‘Happy Birthday to You’ playing over and over.

So to business, as you may know, we have been having a bit of a competition going on to celebrate Waldo’s coming of age, and lots of people have been drawing some lovely entries, in fact, they were all awesome! To me YOU’RE ALL winners, but you’d expect me to say that!

You can see all entries HERE!

Anyway, to take the pressure off me, I got my good friend from Lynne from Lynne’s Knitted Notions to pick the winners. I met Lynne at a craft fair in May 2009 and we have worked together to create the amazing Waldo Scarf, well I say ‘worked together’ I said I wanted a scarf and she made the magic happen.

Check out some of Lynne’s stuff HERE, and here are some pic’s to boot!

So this is What Lynne had to say:

I’ve had a look at the entries and here are my 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd: It was quite difficult to choose as they are all great. I changed my mind a couple of times, but I’m happy with the results now.

1^st – Kokokelli

Wins a signed copy of Waldo the Worm, Frogula Tote Bag and Badge Pack

This is really bright and colourful  - the sun is out and the sky is blue; it’s nice to see that Waldo has a special friend too. I love Waldo’s new friend Winnie. Everyone likes a birthday cake especially when it’s baked by someone special – is there a blossoming romance ahead?

2^nd – Bonnita

Wins Toast A2 Poster, signed and numbered.

The stars have come out for Waldo’s birthday – his party looks out of this world. Alien Waldo looks like he’s having a great time with his friends.

3^rd – Helen Jane

Wins a Badge Pack 3.

Waldo and his new snowman friend are really getting into the Christmas spirit. I love Waldo’s Santa suit and Snowman’s Waldo suit. Their hats and scarves are fab too – all wrapped up and ready for winter.

So that’s it, well done to the winners, thank you to everyone that entered, Id like to give everyone a present, as I think all of them are great, I do really mean that. But I have a business to run here people.

On Wednesday 10th November 2010 Waldo the Worm will be one year old!!!

To celebrate this, He’s having a competition to win some neat Waldo goodies! He’s going to be throwing a party, but wait! what to wear? Who to invite? This is where YOU come in!

What you need to do…

1. Download the picture below by right clicking on it (or if you have a proper computer; ctrl and click, save image as…)

2. Print it off, or open it in your favourite imaging/illustration software.

3. Design Waldo an outfit, be as colourful as you like, new fin, new collar, extra bits or anything you like!

4. In the space next to him, draw his guest, anyone or anything! It’s got to be good though!

When you’re happy with it, email it to info@the-nosuch-disco.co.uk with the header being Birthday. Really important you do that. I get a lot of spam you see! So to be sure I don’t lose your entry you better get it right!

The Prizes

1st Prize
Signed copy of Waldo the Worm, Frogula Tote Bag and Badge Pack

2nd Prize
Toast A2 Poster, signed and numbered.

3rd Prize
Badge Pack.

Rules and stuff…
One Entry per person. UK entires only. Competition closes 8:00pm on Tuesday 9th November 2010. Winners will be announced at some point on Wednesday 10th. Entries will be posted on the Waldo Facebook Fanpage.

GOOD LUCK.

An interesting picture sent to me today by a graffiti artist who has taken a shine to Waldo the Worm. Its quite novel, so i thought it was worth sharing with you lovely people. I wasn’t sure if the post(?) he was spraying on was a legal place for graffiti, so to protect his and Waldo’s identity, i thought a bit of pixilation was necessary!

Enjoy!

I wish I didn’t look like a dinosaur on this picture. Robbie was really nice asked if he could keep the book, hope he likes it!

He came to visit my place of work, to find out more about the visit in general, and see more pic go here: Unity

As you may know, today I was on BBC Radio Stoke to talk about bullying and of course, Waldo the Worm.

About a week ago, Jodie the Producer contacted me to see if I would like to do an interview, of course I leapt at the opportunity, but I was very nervous about it.

I contacted Katy a Boomerang PR, who has lots of experience in this sort of thing, she sent me a crib sheet that explained some things that I should and shouldn’t do. That was a big help, even though there was a bit about not wearing tight clothes?!?!

I spoke to the producer and she filled me in on how the interview would work, I was to be paired up with a lady who works with child behaviour and parental support and bullying, amongst other things. It worked out alright, as she would deal with all things to do with bullying, all I had to do was talk about Waldo.

To research for the interview I contacted a lot of customers on Folksy to ask how Waldo had helped spread the word of bullying to their children. I got a lot of positive responses and interesting views on how Waldo has been received. I must thank everyone that responded individually, I shall do that after tea!

Well enough of me rambling, to the main event, here is a link to the show I was one: I kick in about 1 hour and 5 mins in, after the awful, awful Aerosmith!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p00b60b4/MidMorning_with_Stuart_George_28_09_10/

Your comments are appreciated

Hello there,

The lovely people at The University of Lincoln asked me to write a little bit about my post uni experience, here’s the link,

FYI… They couldn’t have chosen a more goofy picture!!!

http://lismalumni.blogs.lincoln.ac.uk/2010/09/13/david-burgess-class-of-2005/

The night before felt like it was going to be a disaster. I didn’t get chance to go to the bank yesterday to get some change, I didn’t have time to wash my hair and have a shave, so I look like some kind of indie hobo, and also worst of all, I was feeling a little ill.

Getting up at 6:30am on a Saturday is not a great way to start the bank holiday weekend. But somehow I managed to wrench myself out of bed. The drive there was largely uneventful until I got into Manchester city centre, now those of you that know me well will be aware that I can navigate round Manchester on foot pretty well, however, by car in pretty lost. The sat nav actually was no help at all. For one it didn’t recognize the post code, and in the city centre it started to get confused about what road it was on and decided to do some kind of weird dance. No amount of screaming at it seemed to help. After some reckless driving and self endangerment, I managed to locate the Cathedral visitors centre and get set up.

As per my table looked dreadful, but I had picked up a few tips from the fait at Hucknall; so I tried standing books up, stuffing the Frogula bags so they would stand up and actually look like bags. Compared to other crafters it’s still pretty lame, but it would do. Other, professional crafters go to such lengths to make their stalls look good, with easels, stands, mirrors and rails, I can’t help but respect that. They even do rehearsals the day before. It’s not that I couldn’t be bothered, it’s just I can’t really find the time.

It was really good to meet some fellow folksy people. Quincifer was there, of Purple Shmurple fame, and Mary of Quite Contrary Crafts, It’s always nice to see (sort of) familiar faces.

The day on the whole was really slow, a lot of the crafters felt let down by the organization of the fair, the cost of the tables were quite high, this was reflected in the expectations of us all to have a busy day, where in actuality many of us made a loss or just about broke even.

As always, I try to think of a positive spin, its still few more people that know about Waldo.

It didn’t really help that I felt really ill and I was worried about the drive home and if I’d fall asleep at the wheel.

I was hoping to go out tonight, but I’m too run down, so its bed time for me, the power is out on my estate tonight and somehow the toilet is blocked!! So I’ve driven to my parents to watch the X Factor.

All in all it was an experience, it’s always good to see what other artists are doing and to make new friends. Sometimes I can’t be all about the money.

Dave

Ps. Oh, there was a lady there, who bought a badge pack, as her nickname was ‘Waldo’ I thought that was pretty cool.

Howdy, this is the temporary home for the info about Waldo T shirts.

They are now available in the Shop

Hello Everyone! Happy August! So yesterday was the Hucknall Craft Fair, that’s somewhere in Nottingham for those of you that don’t know. It was arranged by Sam of Skyjewels fame.

The whole day felt like a ‘Folksy Event’ with lots of sellers on this site in attendance. I inadvertently set my stall up between two sellers that I had not come across before. Neil from Natural Wood Jewellery & Gifts and Helen from Petal Textiles. Both very friendly and talkative people who had great stalls. FYI, I think Neil is some kind of genius sent from the future! he did however, refer to me as ‘a cross between Dennis the Menace and The Mighty Boosh’.

The venue was a great little place with a nice setup. Everyone’s stalls look great and meticulously put together… as per I wasn’t really prepared and had to use a pink bed sheet borrowed from my parents, and a throw that our cats had pulled to bits.
Some people felt that the day was a little quiet, but that said, its not like we were in the middle of London, so all things considered it was pretty good!

The free tea and coffee was an added bonus and Sam’s mum had made cakes that were absolutely awesome.

I also met SusieJ and her husband, they did a fair share of Waldo promotion on the day which is always welcome.

The great thing about craft fairs like these is the other people that you meet, it’s a great opportunity to pick up ideas and generally network. I wasn’t really fussed about how many sales I got, the way I see it, if just one person buys a book, then that’s one more person that knows about Waldo the Worm! Fortunately, I sold more than one book.

All in all the day was really lovely! A truly positive experience and nice day out, I hope Sam does put on another one, as I would love to do it again, and maybe buy myself a proper cloth for my table.

Dave

Check out everyone’s Folksy store at:

http://www.folksy.com/shops/petaltextiles
http://www.folksy.com/shops/woodJewellery
http://www.folksy.com/shops/skyjewels
http://www.folksy.com/shops/susiej