Giveaways

Handm@de at Cambridge is on 4th April, that's pretty soon! The first 200 visitors get a goodie bag which will have various promotional items from sellers at Handm@de.

I've been busy putting together my gifts. I've packed up about 25 brooches and magnets.


You can see some of the work that will be for sale on the flickr group here. You can also get further details from Handm@de here.

The stone soup challenge

After a week of buying a few presents and something for myself from folksy I'm really getting in to handmade items. From now on I'm going to try and The Stone Soup Challenge. Don't worry, this isn't the latest diet, read on.

The Stone Soup Challenge is a grassroots movement founded by artist Laura Bray. The goal of the challenge is for artists and crafters to help one another by promising to use a portion of their monthly profits to invest in a fellow artist’s shop. To join us in helping artists everywhere and to read more about the challenge, please visit the blog.


Everyone who is in on this will have their names on the right hand side of the blog. I'm hoping that they aren't going to react like the Livingetc.com forum did when sellers from folksy turned up. It would be an interesting story if you had nothing better to do, i won't go into details as I'm sure you HAVE got something better to do...like sign up for the Stone Soup Challenge.

Buying and selling craft

I have spent loads of time online shopping this week but only have two things to show for the hours I've spent on folksy and other online stores. There are so many lovely handmade things it's hard to decide what to buy.

My first purchase this week was a lovely dark brown leather phone case from Evie who runs Milomade on folksy. It's custom made for my phone with my choice of dark brown leather and teal stitching.

I love it! I only ordered it Wednesday and it had arrived by Saturday morning, that is great service. It's perfect, so thanks Evie. Check out Evie's shop Milomade for similar items and other great stuff.

I have also been online looking for things to buy a good friend for a birthday present. After hours of searching i decided to buy something rather lovely from Notes, can't tell you what it is yet as i haven't given it to her. This is the kind of thing that Notes sells. A lovely clutch purse made with Amy Butler’s Martini in Mustard fabric.

Also getting her something else made but that's top secret for now, will post about it next week.

So that is the buying now to the selling. I had my first sale from my shop on Coriandr.com. I haven't spent much time on the forums or on my shop but am pleased to have sold one thing on there. I'm also pleased as it was a blank pen pot to sew your own buttons on, as much as i love sewing them on I'm also happy for someone else to do it! There are still more in stock if anyone is interested!

Creative Spaces Part 2

Following on from last weeks creative spaces feature there are three more folksy sellers featured today. Thanks to Bonita Keay, Hannah Pinnock and Momtaz Begum-Hossain who have let us into their world.

First off is Hannah Pinnock who is based in Lulworth, Dorset. You can read up on Hannah via her blog and buy her lovely resin and silver jewellery via her folksy shop.

Hannah works with silver and resin, the versatility of which, offers a mixture of many qualities including high gloss finishes & unlimited inclusions, resulting in pieces, which are mystical, lively and enchanting.

This is a Silver Gripped Pebble Love Heart necklace set into blue hand pigmented resin which is then gripped by the handmade brushed sterling silver clasp. View it in Hannah's Folksy shop here.

She takes pride in hand crafting each piece, every one an individual gem to capture the imagination. Hannah works with found objects using iridescent and translucent pigments to hand dye the resin, and this is where it all takes place. It looks like a great workshop with loads of space.

The second folksy seller is Bonita Keay (Beaky), who lives in a little victorian terrace where she knits, crochets and sews. You can find out more about Bonita via her blog. Here are just a few items in her shop, pin cushions, lavender dolls, bags and scarfletts, i love them all!

Here is Bonita's workspace, she has to keep it tidy as i mentioned before she lives in a little terrace house. Looks like a great use of space, and very tidy too!


The third maker is Momtaz Begum-Hossain who lives in Greenwich, South East London. Momtaz makes Colourful, shiny, textured, felty, knitted accessories, textiles and sewn things. You can visit her folksy shop here, her blog here and her website here. Below are a few brooches from Momtaz's folksy shop.

Momtaz crafts all over her flat,in the bedroom, living room and a little 'office' space in the corner of a spare room she shares.Here she is busy at her sewing machine.

and when Momtaz says she crafts anywhere, she really does, even in bed!


So that's it folks, thanks for taking part, and thanks for visiting, I'm off to list some items on my online shops now, I'm feeling inspired!