At eight years old, Rachel ‘Rachie’ Goulding is one of the youngest entrepreneurs around.

But not too young to be a featured vendor in the upcoming Creative Finds Art and Fine Crafts show scheduled for Dec. 1 at Sullivan Hall, where she will showcase her own line of hand and body lotions, and flavoured lip balms and breath fresheners – Rachie’s Yum Yums.

Artists and craftsperson Nicci Battilana, organizer and impresario of the debut event show, said she considers the diminuitive business mogul a ‘creative find’ herself.

“As soon as I heard about her and was in touch with her, I couldn’t resist having her in the show,” Battilana said.

Mom Linda Goulding explained that Rachel, who is home-schooled, developed her products after experimenting with essential oils and flavourings used in Linda’s own line of home-made natural skin-care products.

“I’d never have thought of some of these combinations,” Linda said of Rachel’s gleeful willingness to mix cinnamons and peppermints and bubblegum flavours for breath fresheners and lip balms.

But they’ve already proven their marketability in a successful foray to White Rock Farmer’s Market, where Rachel soon sold out the product she brought, particularly to other little girls intrigued by her flavour mixes.

“She even drew out her own name and logo and business cards,” Linda added.

“I called them Rachie’s Yum Yum’s because they’re yummy and a lot of people call me Rachie,” Rachel explained.

“And I thought of butterflies because they’re pretty and I like them.”

Linda said the idea of Rachel’s products started when her daughter, fascinated by the scents, would frequently query her whether this or that product was edible.

“They’re all natural,” Linda said.

“They are safe for kids – you could eat a lip balm,” she said.

“A lot of products out there are packaged for little kids, but they’re full of chemicals. They say they are not safe for children, but how many mothers would take the time to read all the ingredients?”

Rachel also has a claim for all those opposed to animal testing of products.

“She says I test them only on family and friends – she’s the youngest of six,” Linda said.

“That way no animals are getting hurt.”

The idea of creating and marketing better products is in keeping with Battilana’s own determination to create a different arts and fine crafts market.

Well known for her fun stylized ‘girl’ paintings, jackets and handbags, she’ll be using the show to help launch her newest line of jewellery using her decorative designs.

“I’ve done many arts and crafts shows from little ones to Circle Craft,” she said.

“I’ve learned from each of them what I haven’t enjoyed, and what I do like, so I decided I’d do one on my own.”

So confident is she of the success of her new venture, she’s already booked the date for a second annual pre-Christmas show at Sullivan Hall, set for Nov. 29, 2008.

“We have 30 different vendors for this year and we’ve tried to keep them unique,” she said.

“There may be some with the same kind of product, but they’re very different styles.”

Among them will be another Peninsula entrepreneur, Kerry Neild of Red Chair Studio, who will be showing her paintings designed specifically for providing decoration in outdoor garden and patio areas.

Other products include jewellery, scarves, hats, paintings, photography, laser-crafted pens, wood-turning, wooden signs and imaginatively presented candies.

Typifying the hand-made – yet stylish – feel of the show are the uniquely tactile indented letterpress stationery and custom invitations created by Erin McCall of Sunlit Media.

“It’s a very old fashioned kind of printing, unlike all the desktop work that is happening nowadays,” McCall said, pointing out that she works with two antique presses, one circa 1900 and the other dating from approximately 1911.

“One of them was actually used for printing one of White Rock’s earliest newspapers,” said McCall, who trained in letterpress printing at Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design.

“There’s a real movement to go back to the hand-made,” she said. “People are tired with the mass-produced. With this type of printing there is some identation in the paper and card – it’s a little different from the run of the mill.”

No need for artist Kerri Neild to tell you she likes colour. Just stepping inside her Red Chair Studio, near Five Corners, is like immersing yourself in a warm bath of therapeutic hues.

Her distinctly decorative floral-botanical paintings range from semi-realistic close-ups of blooms to hard-edged stylization and even playful motto-driven works, all featuring a spirit-lifting rainbow of shades.

But while it may seem Neild’s taking the outdoors indoors, she’s actually doing the reverse with works that use outdoor house paints and fully-sealed canvases designed to resist the elements.

It’s all part of the design trend toward blurring the line between outdoors and indoors to maximize the use of home spaces.

Thus interiors borrow from or extend outdoor elements, while more and more furniture, lamps rugs and other decor items are geared to making greater use of balconies, gardens and patios as living spaces.

Neild’s work is designed to bring an additional brightness and colour to the equation, making outdoor spaces all the more livable and enhancing the view outward from indoors.

“When it can be so cloudy for so many days, you can look outside and have this splash of colour,” said Neild, former owner of the Picasso’s Cousin art, decor and gift store.

“I’ve been in home decor for around 17 years now and this seems a natural next step. I started doing my first outdoors pieces a couple of years ago and started the Red Chair Studio officially in February.”

Neild said her background has helped her assess what work is likely to sell and she has a broad range of price points in the studio, from tiny related canvases to large one-of-a-kind pieces.

“Florals are really big right now, and I’m trying to keep my colour palette very current.”

Neild said the paintings mark a return to subject matter she has always been drawn to.

“I always doodled flowers, since I was little,” she said.

“My mom would put paper beside the phone so I wouldn’t draw them all over the phone book. In art school I didn’t want to do flowers – they weren’t cool. I would do mostly figurative work, but now I’ve come back.

“A flower is a beautiful image, and very symbolic of a lot of things.”

Although her paintings have been thoroughly tested for their outdoor durability, she still finds she sells as many for indoor use as for outdoor hanging. But she will also paint pieces on commission for outdoor areas.

“It works well for me to paint something specific for someone’s home,” Neild said.

Other commissions have taken her outside her usual subject matter – everything from herons to a large piece for a coffee company incorporating frogs and a jungle-like atmosphere.

She’s also been called on to paint a really large old French door for a client who had been carrying it around for years with out knowing what to do with it.

“I also do vintage windows that have been taken out of old houses – I clean them up and paint them,” she said.

Neild is also taking pains to gear her work to the seasons, she said.

“I’m now working on things specifically for Christmas; magnolias and amaryllis and birds on branches. I have a whole line of Christmas pieces, particularly smaller paintings, that are great for teacher gifts. And I’m going to be doing art shows, craft shows and things like that.”

Foremost among them will be the Red Chair Studios own pre-Christmas open house, coming later this month.

It will coincide with another feather in her cap – having her work featured in an upcoming issue of Canadian Gardening.

The latter recognition has reaffirmed for her that she has found a niche in the art field in which she is almost alone.

“I’ve researched it, trying to find someone else who is doing what I’m doing.

“Apparently in the same issue there is also an article about a man in Ontario who also does work for outdoors – he’s the only other one I know about.”