Saturday 3oth of November and Sunday 1st of December I took part in selling my wares on a stall at the fabulous Craftaganza.
Here I am ready to sell after the longest stall set-up ever on day one,
I’m so glad I arrived with plenty of time as my new christmas tree Earring display, which I was so happy to find, was the fiddliest thing ever to set up when you are shaking with excitement and nerves about a fair! As you can see to my left I also found space to display my dads hand made GIANT knitting needles!
I was sharing a stall with the hilarious and lovely Lisa from Stoats & Weasels who was doing her first craft fair ever:
Her designs are simply fabulous and every potential punter that came along to look was laughing away to themselves after a few seconds of browsing- proof that if you want to give someone a laugh this christmas then Lisa’s designs are a must have! I have to add that for a first fair Lisa’s stall looked amazing, handmade badges, books cards and magnets, beautifully branded, Lisa had even brought a matching table cloth and wore a matching dress!
To my right for the two days was Cherie and her beautiful fused glass work (My Three Trees)
It was wonderful to meet Cherie, she was such a lovely craft fair companion, offering lots of advice, ideas and compliments to me and my work. Her coasters sold like hot-cakes! (It’s no wonder why, check out the close-up photo of the hare design above, so beautiful!) she was even wondering whether to try and make some more when going home to Portsmouth in between the two days!
Opposite to us on day one was the best view you could wish for at a craft fair; grumpy bears!!! (and plenty of them). Pygmy Cloud are a London based Duo Diana and Dave who make fabulous felt cushion mountains, plushie and cushion bears, woodsmen, cloud coasters and other scrumptious designs. Their stall looked amazing, and was a very pleasant view for us, the subtle earthy tones they use for their felt designs are just a delight. I love the fact that all their bears/woodsmen faces are hand painted and would some day like to purchase a few of their items (when I have a new abode!).
My only (tiny) criticism is that I think they should include a woodswomen to the range, to prove that women can be woodsy too!
I get itchy feet at craft fairs and kindly Lisa and Cherie looked after my stall while I went wondering probably a few too many times, I always want to check out the other stalls to then share them on my blog so I’ve taken some pics of some of my favourites:
Day one:
Claire who runs The Fairy Tale Fair was there with her Cat-a-cake creations stall, I don’t know how Claire has the time to run a fair, do craft fair stalls, make quirky fabulous designs for laser cut jewellery and cards, help out with Brighton Etsy team website etc and have another job too! She is an inspiration in time and creativity management!
I came across Sugacandipop who make cute little cloth dolls that have fully customisable everything, you can either buy a ‘ready-made’ one or have them made up to your specifications, the selection of materials was fantastic and these dolls would make any little boy or girl very happy this christmas.
Next is Kate Rowland Illustration, her illustrated laser cut wooden badges, earrings, rings and necklaces feature fantastic designs stemming from popular culture, television shows and movies such as Breaking Bad, Ghost World, Twin Peaks and more…
I absolutely love the way you can see how the laser has cut the wood, it creates tiny little lines which to me make the designs look like they have been coloured in using fancy felt tips (brown felt tips!) each piece is different from the next depending on the grain in the wood, Fab! Apologies to Kate for the fact your eyes are closed in this shot, I was rushing to get back to my stall and it was the only shot I got!
Rockcakes was present rocking her ‘mazin laser cuts and highly original and very fun silver jewellery designs:
Day Two:
Two lovely women came over to say hello to me in the morning introducing their knitwear stall, we planned to each publicise the other during the day with the ‘knitting’ theme in common, I love their designs, the pom pom hats look fab and those geometric designs beautiful. I’m said to say I only got the name of the dinosaur pom pom hat designer which was Kate Morris of Bedroom factory knits, if someone could tell me the name of the lady on the right in this pic below who made the geometric knits I will happily add a link!
My next amazing stall was that of Lou Taylor Illustration, I’ve been stalking her designs on facebook for some time and I absolutely love the way she has transformed from paper cut extrodinaire into a papercut inspired jewellery designer!
It was lovely to meet her in person, I absolutely fell completely in love with one particular piece of hers that was having it’s first reveal to the world at craftaganza and somehow I ended up coming away from Craftaganza owning one, look at these brooches below, aren’t they just a knitters/crafters dream!!!
More fab people and their designs:
Charm and Laundry‘s beautiful undies:
Gorgeous designs from Laura Dumbrell:
I love Kate Holden of ‘Oh Someday‘s jewellery every time I see it, one day I will own some, I’ve asked Santa so we’ll see!:
I finally got myself a Hello Dodo screen print!!! can you guess which design I got from this photo below? (I’ll give you a hint, my name gives it away a little!) Was lovely to see them, always bright and cheerful, I’m waiting til we get our new flat to put my print on the wall, it will make a lovely moving in gift to ourselves!
Kirstin Stride hiding behind her stall on the right in the photo above, as usual her beautifully illustrated shrink plastic brooches etc were shiny and delightful, Kirstin provided the music for the day in the form of a six hour long christmas playlist that did not repeat a song once, simply lovely for the stall holders not having to listen to the same music all day, the tunes were fab and caused random acts of dancing from the owner of the next stall I wanted to feature whom is Katie from oh squirrel. I met Katie at my first Craftaganza in June and she’s a lovely lady with a gorgeous laugh, her fabric tags were flying off her table at a rapid rate, she was even making more as she ran her stall:
One stall I’m very sad to have not got a picture of was Dinah Dufton’s, her beautiful silver jewellery complimented with gorgeous semi-precious stones and highly original dog tag designs are amazing, it was absolutely lovely to meet DInah I think she is now officially one of my biggest buyers/fans ever, she was very complimentary about my work and very positive about what I am trying to do.
Here are her chunkilicious rock rings (picture taken from the craftaganza blog):
Aren’t they amazing!!
One person I also want to mention before I sign off is Zoe the Craftaganza fair organiser, she has just had a baby and how she managed to run the fair both days and will do again next weekend I don’t know, she too is an inspiration. The fair was amazingly well organised, such high quality work, everyone was really friendly and I would not hesitate to do another next time.
Now to relax, blogs take far longer than I think to write, probably because I want to include a million makers!
Claire x
Yellow bear wares 