Xmas Fair

You're invited to the event described below, where I will be selling stuff!

Arts Club Christmas Market
Art, craft, gifts and more for adults and children direct from the makers. Please come along on Sunday, 2nd December, 2 p.m.-5.30 p.m. The market is being held at The Welcome Centre, Church End, Walthamstow Village, E17. Nearest tube: Walthamstow Central

Skirts for a little Madam

Here are two skirts I made for my little girl, now nearly seven months. One is made from vintage material, the other is made from a pair of jeans with appliqued flowers and sequins, plus a fancy button. They are securely fixed so she won't pop them in her mouth.

For baby

I made a little comforter for my baby, it has pretty
ribbons at the ends and she likes fiddling with it.

Etsyptional!

I'm on etsy now with three items. They all feature flowers and they are all wall hangings. Visit www.londoncheapskate.etsy.com to see my stuff. I'm new to selling crafts and wonder if someone will ever like them or even buy them! Time will tell. I'm looking forward to add more items soon.

Beautiful makes in paper and fabric

I created these items a few years ago. The decoupaged box is made of papier mache with Victorian-style decorations, cut from pretty wrapping paper.

The stationery box is made of papier mache with flower motifs decoupaged on its sides, top and three drawers. I cut the floral images from a pretty paper bag.

The tote is made from turquoise upholstery material with inserts of Chinese silk and vintage gold buttons from the swinging Sixties. Gold sequins create a glittering border for the inserts.

I'm still pondering what to make to sell online and considering that I have to post my items, the best option is to stick to fabric. Papier mache creations are fragile, time consuming and make your house smell of glue, paint and varnish.

Selling crafts

I've been told that you can sell crafts on http://www.etsy.com/. Has anyone sold handmade items there? UK sellers have a great blog here at http://uketsysellers.blogspot.com/

Arts & Crafts in Danger

For months now, I have taken an active interest in the funding problems of the William Morris Gallery.

I'm a 'Friend' of the gallery and the membership is international. The council has cut the funding and the curator has been made redundant.

The Friends are worried that the collection will be endangered and the gallery will face closure in the future. At the moment things are in limbo and the opening days have been reduced.

There's a campaign going on and you can participate and/or make your views known at http://www.keepourmuseumsopen.org.uk/. When you're there, please sign the petition and find out what's going on.

I love Morris's designs and here's a wallhanging I made. Sandersons has bought his archive in the 1960s and is still manufacturing fabrics and wallpapers with his wonderful designs.

Trash to Treasures

I made the quilt and the bed spread using recycled fabrics and yarns (wool from old jumpers and a pair of curtains bought in a charity shop).

The quilt took a very long time to make and it's much in use in cold winter days. I snuggle into it to watch TV or to enjoy a good read.

The flower pattern has a vintage feel to it, while the blanket is old fashioned in execution as the squares and rectangles have been joined with a black crocheted border.

I wanted to include the quilt in a craft book I was pitching and I was told that people nowadays want quick and easy projects they can make in a weekend, so the quilt is out!

Craftpeople unite

I'd love to find out who's creating and who's selling online. Calling all crafspeople. There are some great blogs out, I quite like the one called Nancy's Creative Mess

I wanna be global

I am writing this short update to be accepted by Technorati (Technorati Profile) and, hopefully, to be seen by more people (http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping). Check my previous posts and let me know what you think of my craft creations!

Here's one I made earlier

For the past ten years or so, I've been recycling fabric from various sources. For instance, the fabric for the E17 artwork was discarded by a seller of my local market. I suppose it was too short to be sold as an offcut! I picked it up, washed it and used it to make my textile artwork. It was the perfect colour, forest green, as the glorious Epping Forest! I think it was used for school uniforms as there's a local school that uses that colour.

This pretty wallhanging for my baby's room was made from curtain material (a leftover my partner gave me, it came from his old house), small pieces from various shop swatchbooks and a few bits and pieces from discarded things.

100 uses for a plastic bag

Yes, I've been meaning to write a book with this mesmerising title. It would be very topical as all major supermarkets are trying to entice customers to recycle their plastic bags! The fact is that I've been recycling plastic bags for years now, although some of my uses might not be that orthodox. You might guess some of them: to store stuff in the freezer, to keep bread or a cake in an open tin fresh, to put shoes and dirty clothes in when I'm travelling, to carry my wet stuff after a swim, to put a dirty nappy in...

But there are other uses you might have not thought of, such as: to fill with cuttings from my garden to tip in the compost heap, to dispose of snails and slugs (which are eating my vegetables and flowers), to store compost and other stuff in the shed and to use as a head wrap when I'm dying my hair or doing some DIY.

I'm sure if I think hard there are other uses, but motherhood has softened my brain, so that's it folks. I'm open to suggestions, though!