Christmas CRAFTfest is on the way!

Just a quick post to mention that the Christmas CRAFTfest will soon be with us. It's another week long online craft event, where you can browse and buy to your heart's content from the comfort of your Mac, laptop or PC (and probably any other Internet based device you care to mention!).

I'll be there as usual, together with a (growing) number of my online crafter friends. 

It's a great way to buy your Christmas presents and without fighting through the heaving crowds in overheated shops, something I always dread! I'll certainly be browsing for handmade things I can buy for the husband, not to mention my family and friends. If you want non mass produced, unique, unusual, beautiful, handmade, then it's a really good place to start.

If you are interested in getting a stall, the link to Creative Connections (the host site) is here. A stall for the whole week is priced at an excellently reasonable £5.00 and it's really good promotion for your Etsy. Folksy or any other online shop you have. 

The Creative Connections community is really nice too - so even if you don't want a stall it's worth joining and it's free too.  


And a bit more about what else I'm up to this week. I've been super busy with a new batch of freemotion felt tattoos and other freemotion embroidered designs. Which I've been making for The funky Aardvark shop, in Chester. 

A couple of designs haven't worked out as well as I'd hoped, in fact I might have to scrap one piece altogether. But out of the 23 individual pieces I've been working on, I'm really pleased with most of them. 
I still have quite a bit of work to do 'colouring in' the designs and have been experimenting more with machine shading and also some more solid freemotion machine embroidery.  I don't have any pictures to share yet and I keep telling myself that I really should remember to take before and after photos - I like to see how I've progressed with a piece but I get so engrossed in sewing that I always forget.
I will remember to take photos of the finished pieces though. 

Have a good Friday everyone and happy crafting!

Another wet and grey Monday morning.

Yes it's raining... again! To be more accurate, it's hammering down.... again! So we're in for another really wet week, here in wet and soggy England. 
I don't really mind it raining (as long as I don't have to go out in it for very long) but it's the really low light that drives me potty. Anyone who handmakes really needs a lot of light to work with, craft lamps and daylight lamps never seem to work as well as actual daylight and low light conditions can be the bane of any crafter.
Just in time to cheer me up, comes Alison of Frutejuce - our current Craft Britannia shop of the week. I'm seriously in need of something summery and cheerful and her handmakes fit the bill nicely.

Here's a small selection of the items in her Etsy shop.

Freemotion camper van t-shirt

Sweeten your undies drawer or scare the moths off your socks with these!

Some of Alison's pretty bunting.

OK, I'm sneaking in one more picture of Alison's lovely bunting, because I'm in love with this sweet blue and white shed.


Here's a link to Alison's Etsy shop and her Craft Britannia blog interview can be found here.


Onto some news I promised you last week. Well it's official Kipper Tie and Cake now has some retail space in Chester! 
A couple of weeks ago, I found a brand spanking new shop and art centre, called The funky Aardvark, had opened it's doors on the rows in Chester. I popped in to have a look around and got talking to the owner Bex Raven, who's a pretty amazing, creative person! Anyway, to cut a probably long and boring story short, she was looking for people to rent retail space in the shop and after looking at the info on her website, I decided this was just the type of place I had been trying to find for my handmakes. 

So as of last Saturday, I now have a selection of my handmakes, in the shop (including handsewn bears, freemotion felt tattoos and freemotion felt brooches). As you can imagine, I'm pretty excited about my news, and it's given me the extra boost I needed to get moving and make more things! 

Here's are the links to Bex' shop and the project. It's only 10 weeks into being open, but already it's becoming an amazing place to show and sell art and handmade. There are also workshops,  and photographic walks available, plus the creative hub will be opening soon, for anyone interested in computer graphics.

The Funky Aardvark 51 Bridge Street East, Chester 

Also, The Funky Aardvark Project 

Oh and here's a teeny selection of the things I have in The Aardvark at the moment.

  Some of my freemotion embroidered felt brooches.

Singing birds freemotion embroidered felt

Freemotion embroidered felt tattoo.

A current work in progress, I'm thinking of making a canvas out of this particular piece.

You can of course find me on Etsy still, I'm not giving up my online shop anytime soon.

Fingers crossed for my new adventures in a non virtual shop and I'll pop back again soon.