bugs and sniffles

It's definately autumn now as it is pretty chilly in the afternoons and both the little lady and I have been suffering with colds and sniffles. She has a terrible chesty cough and hasn't been sleeping that well so all my well intentioned 'perpare in advance' for the christmas craft fair season have fallen by the wayside.

I've also got a part time job working for my sister at her company Neon which has been good fun. It's very interesting to see behind the scenes and I am proud to be part of her very successful company aswell.

As a little treat I have bought her a skinny la minx tote bag (and err one for myself and some stickers for the little lady...). I thought it would be something different for her to carry her work things around in.

I love Heather's work and as she featured the urban craft stars on her blog for me it was high time I visited her shop for a little purchase or too. I'm hoping the mugs are back soon as they wuld make lovely Christmas presents for my mum and dad.

day 2 in the pop up shop

and here is a picture of the outside of our shop in all its glory.

great day today with plenty of sales and lots of chat with people who love our work. Also met the lovely steven who makes toys, childrenswear and other goodies - http://www.myhappyaccidents.etsy.com/

I am really enjoying being in Kingly Court and meeting lots of new folk and Carnaby Street was buzzing when I was dragging myself home tonight. I remember the world of going for drinks after work with a spring in my step and a twinkle in my eye.... but then that was LBT (life before toddler)

And big thanks to the lovely Richard for coming to the rescue of the Urban Craft Stars today and fixing our wi fi. Beers are due!

pop up shop open for business

I totally forgot to take photos of the shop on its first day!How silly was that??

We had a first great day in our carnaby street pop up shop though and made a few sales including a bag by peppermint twist and a t shirt by my mums a hippie. I also met the manager of our neighbouring shop, Stromboli Circus Shop (vintage clothing) and he gave me some advice on dressing the window and lighting the shop which was really kind of him. We plan to change the windows round every few days to keep things fresh and to ensure that all our urban craft stars get maximum exposure.

Kingly Court really gets going in the afternoon and in the early evening they have live music so it's a really nice atmosphere. The smell of the food from the Chinese restaraunt downstairs drives me into a hungry frenzy though...

Ok, off now to update my etsy shop and then into town to open up for day two...

the pop up shop is full of goodies!

and we open tomorrow for business! Today was a day of very hard work by all of the urban craft stars and it looks fantastic. So if you are in the Carnaby Street area come and see us at 1.4 Kingly Court (1st floor).

Our stars are:

Urbanknit

Peppermint Twist

My Mums a Hippie

Bombus

Ryokan Art

FreeflowMamas

Littlechook

Hope to see you in the shop soon ready to spend your pocket money....

pop up shop is almost here!

I got the keys to our unit today which makes everything seem very real now for our pop up shop. I have also just read our fabby urban craft stars press release written by my oh so talented lil sister.

Off to bed now as knackered and need to be up early for our 'man and van' arriving to take all the props and stock down to carnaby street. I am worried I have more than a van load and will have to follow in the car!

urban craft stars blog

finally today I managed to set up the new urban craft stars blog. I am hoping that urban craft stars will become a force to be reckoned with in the UK design and craft scene helping its members to gain publicity in the press, opportunities to sell their work and time to network with each other as being a small business owner can be kinda lonely sometimes!

Whilst I love etsy it isn't the most well known site in the uk and as far as I can see promoting etsy outwith the US doesn't seem to be a priority for them. I did contact them tonight about the carnaby street pop up shop as I think it would be great if they could feature us somewhere on the site.

I need a website so I'll have to talk nicely to the lovely Jen of http://www.jhollywooddesigns.com/ , designer of the littlechook website, etsy jeweller and soon to be mama for the second time around!

So have a look at http://www.urbancraftstars.blogspot.com/ and if you would like to join us the email me urbancraftstars@googlemail.com It is not just for etsy or dawanda sellers but for any indie designer/makers who are UK based. You can do anything - jewellry, textiles, knitting, ceramics, illustration, fine art, photography - as long as it is handmade.

the pop up shop

is finally going to happen....

I saw our unit yesterday. It's in Kingly Court just off Carnaby Street. The unit is absolutely massive so I am hoping that we can do it justice.

I am keeping in mind though all the Mary Queen of Shops programmes I have been watching and how she advises her clients to keep the layout and fixtures very simple. I love the interior of the Mayfair Stella McCartney shop with its vintage style wallpapers combined with modern touches like the bright pink bag display unit.

My aim is to move us as far away from a 'craft fair' with its horrible 'behind a table' philosphy to a place where customer can browse and touch the product, see demos of knitting, embroidery and other crafts and really talk and get to know who is behind the product. I have a fab bunch of designers ready - some london etsy folk, others I have met at craft markets.

In order to keep costs down I am planning to use some of the victorian pine vintage furniture I have already plus we are of to find a cool sofa and chair at one of the many second hand places round here at the weekend. Plus a trip to Ikea for some open shelving too.

I have big plans so watch this space!

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.

my mums a hippie

The lovely my mums a hippie aka Monique Jivram was part of the Brixton Craft Market. She does embroidery and illustration and I love her quirky and colourful style. She had framed drawings, embroidered broaches and t shirts for sale on sunday. Her images are really diverse - wasps, fairground ride and vintage gramaphones and she stitches on top of the drawings.

I am hoping that she can join our seven dials pop up shop as I think she has an amazing talent. She isn't on etsy yet but I've told her all about it! She's on my space www.myspace.com/mymumsahippie

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!

home grown food

Ok we are not quite self sufficient yet but we ate our first home grown strawberry today and it was delicious. I was a bit worried though that the birds would beat us to it and apparently the squirrels were having a little bit of a sniff round them this morning!

Tea towel production continued but alot of the colour bleached out of the green prints. Not sure why this keeps happening but it's a pest. The butterfly prints though came out well so happy with that.

I am starting on the t shirts tomorrow and am beginning to wonder whether a second etsy shop is needed for the kids t's? Maybe it is too much of a mix with the cushions? Need to think this over but need to get sunday's market over and done with first. Ali very kindly bought me a 'bumbag' from american apparel for my takings and change. I wasn't keen on having a cash box since I will be on my own behind my stall for most of the day as Ali is off to the Glastonbury Festival tomorrow.

i want vintage!

This super cool newish website was featured in Grazia a few weeks back and I had a wee look at it and decided to take up the free trial for some ads.

Lots of the usual suspects are on there: clarissa hulse, jan constantine, ulrika may with their vintage goodies and now littlechook is muscling in.

They have a newletter for customers which this week is on the very important subject of cushions and they featured me me me! My 60s floral cushion is hanging out with the cool crowd. I can't post the feature as it's a pdf thingy and I can't figure it out!

http://www.iwantvintage.co.uk/

Apart from this excitement I did do some work today printing tea towels and cutting flock shapes for the t shirts in preparation for saturday's craft market. My lovely sister looked after Katherine. The little lady was made up to have her Auntie Ali with her all day. Thanks sis!

I love summer

Today was a lovely summer day here and we managed to pack loads into our sunday. Hubby went to the park with the little lady to run off her energy and she then slept for almost three hours.

While she was slumbering peacefully we got stuck into the jungle aka our garden. Out went half a tree, an old woody lavendar and many many weeds. The grass has been shorn and the bush trimmed.

We then decided to have a bbq. The lovely John and Anna who we bought our house from left us a fab kettle type bbq so we cleaned it up and lit it. Unfortunately the charcoal had been in our cellar and I think to be honest it was a bit damp. I tried to light the bbq and failed then hubby took over (man fire and all that) and with much fanning and sweating he did get things going.

By this time though we had already had to cook the food in the oven as Katherine was starving hungry!

My sis though made the most fab veggie food. The receipe roughly is:

Cut chunks of red pepper, courgette and shallots. Add whole mushrooms and halloumi cheese and marindae with rosemary, basil, chilli sauce, soy sauce and partida agave syrup. Wrap mixture is foil and bake for 30 mins or till the veg is cooked.

Delicious with our burgers. Thanks sis!

Tonight got down to sorting through the kids tshirts and tea towels for next saturday's craft fair in Brixton and I have quite a bit of printing, washing, ironing and packing to do before then but I am feeling confident about it and raring to go. Etsy is great but it will be nice to chat face to face with customers and get their feedback on my designs.

And Spain went into the semi finals of euro 2008 - yay!

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!

my heat press is here!

I'm very excited and have bought some flock on ebay to make the sample kids tshirts. Hopefully the flock will arrive tomorrow or saturday.

I haven't unpacked it yet cos it is so heavy.

Also discovered another potential craft market. The eco baby and children fair in on 26th april in Muswell Hill. The company, futurefriendly fairs has another in Islington in May which I am going to look into. Would be a fab place to see what customers think of my kids tees. www.futurefriendlyfairs.com

My etsy shop is filling up too. I have 61 items for sale now and the vintage fabric cushions seem to be getting a good number of views. Will add this blog address to my shop announcement tonight too.

Off to bed now, am knackered from all the fresh air at the park.