Inside the pop up shop

here's a little preview of whats in store for you when you come to the pop up shop!

Flower image is by Ryokan Art on canvas. Tea towel is a lovely new flower circle design by littlechook (me!) on a 50% linen , 50% cotton tea towel. The bag is by the lovely urbanknit and is my favourite one of all her bags and purses in the shop. The little kids treasure bag is a mini tote with a flock print - this one is called Tweet. The cards are by Bombus and use recycled maps and magazines.

The shelf and the elk came from my house which is looking bare with all the furniture now in the shop.

We worked hard on saturday to get all the stock uploaded onto big cartel so we can now take crdedit and debit card payments too.

Craft Friendly Southern Illinois

I was featured on Kat Eyez blog yesterday! http://craftfriendlyso-il.blogspot.com/ She found me on flickr and featured my tea towels, vintage fabric cushions and cards and used the pictures from the Brixton Craft Market on her blog.

I had a look at her lovely blog and flickr pics and found that she is pretty crafty herself and produces lovely applique work on baby clothes, baby booties, bags, coasters etc etc. This is one busy lady! Her items are beautiful and she chooses some fantastic fabrics to work with.

I love the way the internet connects all us crafters, artists and designers.

littlechook loves brixton

Didn't manage a post yesterday out of sheer exhaustion! The day started at 4 am when the little lady woke up early. I left for the market at 6.30 am getting horribly lost on the way (those AA road maps are rubbish!) I managed to get to the Elephant & Castle and muddled my there from there!

The market was great. It was on the famous Electric Avenue. Brixton totally rocks! It has such a fantastic atmosphere. I saw so many ladies wearing the traditional nigerian wax prints made into beautiful dresses and loads of folk just rocking their own look.

I managed to sell a fair amount of littlechook handmade goodies (mainly cards but also two cushions) but I am not sure the organisers publicised the event enough. One of my last customers of the day was the chair of the local residents association and she said she didn't know the market was happening and it was something she would have sent details of to her mailing list.

There were some other really talented folk selling crafts there and I will hopefully blog about them this week.

Hubby and the little lady joined me after lunch and they both had a great time. My daughter just seems to take everything in her stride and she was walking round the market charming all the shopkeepers!

We got home in time to watch the Euro 2008 final but I slept through most of it only waking up to see Spain lifting the trophy. Yay!

Today was catch up on sleep and housework day. Hubby is kindly making me spag bol tonight and I am enjoying a glass of red wine.

the calm before the storm

I am sitting here surprisingly calmly the night before the Brixton Craft Market and drinking fruit cider. We had a brilliant day today with lots of sunshine and just general family happiness. I put together a trial layout of my stall for tomorrow and I have a fair idea of what I will do tomorrow.

I am really on my own though tomorrow with my sister at Glastonbury and hubby looking after the little lady. We decided it wouldn't be fair to get her up early and then have her spend all day at the fair so I am driving there and setting up on my own. To unload by my stall I need to arrive between 6 and 7 am. I'm hoping there's somewhere around to have some breakfast!

I'm actually looking forward to the whole thing as it will be a good chance to get feedback on my work and to chat to other artists and designers. Still bit gutted that I have no t shirts though as I felt they would sell well at an event like this. Instead I have vintage fabric cushions, badges, cards and tea towels. I am looking forward to seeing all the handmade goodies on sale.

Wish me luck!

Vintage Fabric Button Badges

I finally got around to uploading these to my etsy shop. They are made from vintage fabrics using my lovely badge machine. It seems like a fun way to use up off cuts of the fabrics from my cushion covers. I hate wasting lovely vintage fabrics! My photos of the badges are not very good! I think it is because of the plastic film that goes over the badge to protect it. The fabrics do look much nicer without the film but they'd get marked or might not handle rain too well.

I have also added some badges to some of my handmade cards but I am keeping these for craft fairs rather than etsy for now.

Next weekend is the brixton craft market so I am busy preparing for this event. Tomorrow I am going to practice setting up my stall so off to check out the flickr group for craft shows to get some inspiration!

And finally our purses from peppermint designs arrived and they are gorgeous. They even come in a linen bag to protect and store them. Just lovely!

Pulse 2008

Spent the day at Earls Court at the Pulse 2008 trade show. It has exhibitors covering jewellry, gifts, home furnishings, bath and body, cards etc. It also has a launchpad section for new designers. It was intersting wandering round and seeing the types of products on offer from a variety of companies. My particular favourites were thornback and peel and snowden flood. There were alot of real 'cutesy' stuff which is not me at all and I did think it would be more 'design' led.

Afterwards we zipped up to Kensington High Street and went to Wholefoods Market which is just unbeliveable. Floors and floors of organic, fairtrade, fresh - you name it they have got it. So tonight we feasted on loive bread, manchego cheese and quince paste and I have hidden away some white chocolate with poppy seeds. Mmmmm

new moo cards

at last I ordered them to take advantage of the etsy discount and have chosen a new image. I went for a couple of my screenprints which are quite simple and in one colour as I wanted to get away from the really colourful vintage cushions.

I am trying to create my brand (get me!) and want something simple and stylish to reflect my fab website too. (designed by the lovely jen of http://www.jhollywooddesigns.com/ she also sells fab jewels on etsy but I will dedicate a whole post to these when my brain is less jet lagged. (Katherine is teething, has a cold and now an eye infection).

There's not much sleep her in the Duckett Road household at the mo. Fingers crossed for tonight!