Palace Green Pavilion Arts and Crafts Week

Monday the 1st August sees the start of the second Taster of the Arts and Crafts week at Palace Green Pavilion, Berwick upon Tweed.  Following on from the success of last year's event the programme has been extended and kicks off with a craft fair and demonstrations on Monday followed by a host of workshops where you can learn to make robots, jewellery and even fancy knickers!


Hopefully see you there!

Green Festival

Last weekend was the Borders Green Festival: hot, sunny, bright, chilled, cheerful and fun!  Well the Sunday was, Saturday was a bit quieter and I was a bit grumpy, but on both days I had the company of my lovely holidaying parents and their nutty-terrified-of-people dogs!

Highlights of the weekend were the egg and onion rolls and picnic joy supplied by my Mum, watching little toddlers stare under my stall when the breeze lifted the table cloth to reveal the snoozing hounds, chatting with a load of people on Sunday and the mighty Dull Fudds!

They, along with a whole host of musical talent rocked and, even though most band members remained headless from the vantage point of my stall, it made for a very entertaining weekend!

Grantshouse Christmas Food and Craft Fayre

I'll be there with my unique goodies - have been working over time to make sure there will be plenty to see on my stall! Today I'm finishing a hammered silver star pendant which I particularly like and making some more silver clay hearts, stars and circles for earrings and necklaces.

Woolly Weekend

Just look at this wee face! Meet Enoch, one of the Cairndinnis alpacas and such a beautiful creature! He was there with his half brother Archie who was more interested in his hay than posing for me! Both lads were at the St Abbs Wool Festival with John Smith and Carole Christian from Cairndinnis Alpacas who had a display of their gorgeous fleeces, yarns and knitted gifts.

R and I shared a stall and had a grand day chatting to lots of lovely customers, cooing over Enoch and Archie (ok, that was mainly me) and watching the sea through the window opposite our table.

You can see more of R's lovely work on his website.

We had much more space than our previous collaboration and I think our display has improved a lot since then making it easier for people to browse.

I do love my driftwood sign and, hopefully, you'll see my other new display bits: the slate cake stand on the far right and my battery powered LED lights. These have proved to be a really positive addition as they illuminate the jewellery and the batteries last ages - I finally had to change the batteries after two and a half days at fairs! The little angle poise ones were about £4 each from an ebay seller and whilst the area it lights is quite small and spot light like you could easily get a few more if you needed more space illuminated.

The two Wool Festivals I've done this year have been great so we've booked in for all three next year in February, August and November. After the last year of uncertainty with moving it feels good to be able to actually plan ahead this time.

St. Abbs Winter Wool Festival

In August I had the good fortune to meet a lady who runs a fabulous wool shop in St Abbs, which led to me having a stall at her Wool Festival and tomorrow R and I are returning for the winter Wool Festival in St Abbs Community Centre from 10am - 6pm.

We're both looking forward to a fun day and will have plenty of gift and card ideas ready for you to peruse, including the skinny bangle pictured above. I soldered three half loops to the bangle frame before wire wrapping the sea glass droplets so which ever way it drapes on your wrist their will be a visible piece of pretty sea glass.

Borders Christmas Fair October 2010

Saturday morning bright and early driving to the fair on a beautiful autumnal morning. The snapshots out the car window don't do justice to how gorgeous the colours were, especially the sunlight on the Cheviots in the distance.

The first set up of my stall which changed over the weekend as I removed a few more pieces from the boxes and laid them on slate. For those of you on twitter who saw it in the making check out my new Richard Johnson original sign!

I met some fab people over the weekend and had such fun watching people's reactions to my neighbours' stalls: the delectable cup cakes on one side and insect jewellery (loads of pics on FB) on the other!

There were so many stalls, too many to list here but I must also mention Laura's Chocolate because, well, just have a look!

The event organisers seemed really pleased with how much was raised for Help the Heroes so thank you to everyone who came out over the weekend, to those of you who bought my jewellery, to the man who did a double take at my stall before giving me a lovely piece of white sea glass from his pocket, to the fascinating agate man for all the agate info and to all my new sea glass collecting recruits!

The Borders Christmas Gift Fair

Hooray for festive fairs! I'll be one of many stalls exhibiting over the weekend so if you are in the Borders come on over! We went over yesterday afternoon to set up so this morning would be less of a rush and there is a giant Christmas tree - I know it's still months away but I'm feeling festive! I'd hoped to post this earlier but the internet wasn't playing yesterday.

Two Fairs and Some Studios

After a busy fair last Monday I gave myself Friday off to go and visit some of the studios opened to the public as part of the Crossing Borders Open Studios Weekend. It was gloriously sunny and we had a fabulous day meeting some brilliant people and enjoying their wonderful work. R has written about it here and I have to admit I was with him in the studio envy! Thank you to everyone who welcomed us in especially to jeweller Anne Collin and painter and sculptor Gill Walton.

The rest of the week has been spent making new pieces and preparing for the next fair which was at the Chain Bridge Honey Farm on Sunday. Preparing did include going to the beach up at Belhaven Bay for a picnic and some fresh air where I found a beast of a piece of driftwood to use on my stall.

It was a good day and hopefully lots of money will have been raised for the Rotary Club's chosen charities. My next booked fair is November the 6th and I'm deciding over a few others in the run up to Christmas. Hopefully there will be news of more jewellery making workshops in Berwick upon Tweed soon! If you are interested in attending a workshop do comment or drop me an email and I'll keep you updated on dates, times and locations.

Chain Bridge Honey Farm Sunday 5th September

In another fabulously last minute adventure I'll be selling my jewellery at the Chain Bridge Honey Farm's Open Day this Sunday, 5th September from 10am - 5pm.

St. Abbs Wool Festival

A few pictures from yesterday's fair including a giant one of me wittering. I am not being intentionally egotistical with the massive look at me pic but blogger seem to have changed the image rules and I can't fathom out how to resize!

The other pics are much more interesting though showing some drop spindle spinning, spinning wheel at work and just some of the many gorgeous knitted items on show. Anybody out there fancy teaching me how to do fancy lacy knitting? You can tell it would be a tough job; I don't even know what it's called!

We'll be back at the November Wool Festival on November 6th, see you there!

Make Your Own Sea Glass Necklace

Tomorrow at St. Abbs Wool Festival you will have the chance to buy a ready made spiral cage necklace ready to house your treasured beach finds!

This little marble is the only perfect one I have found so far so I won't be parting with it just yet!

St. Abbs Wool Festival

Next Monday I will be selling a selection of my hand crafted sea glass and sea pottery jewellery at the St Abbs Wool Festival.

Venue:St Abbs Village Hall (the old School)
Time: 10am–5pm on Mon 30th Aug

Proceeds from teas & coffees go to St Abbs RNLI

You might get to see one of these:

Images courtesy of Wool Fish

Handmade Arts & Crafts Market 12th December

We'll be at the C.O.W Handmade Fair tomorrow at the Custard Factory in Birmingham from 11am - 5pm, click on the flier to see the full list of 17 artists who will be there with an array of beautiful handmade wonderfulness.

COW @ Kings Heath Christmas Party

It's been a busy couple of days and despite the very chilly weather and slightly underweight Santa Kings Heath Big Christmas Party went well with fair sales at our Creative Open Workshop stall. The dancing Christmas trees who would stay so still until jiggling at some unsuspecting passers by kept me chuckling for quite some time.
There was a range of handmade gorgeousness from COW artists and I was joined by Sally Pepper who makes beautiful silver and gem stone jewellery and of course, COW supremo Francine Schokker who spent the morning running another fabulous workshop, this time aimed at kids who made glittery masterpieces to decorate Santa's grotto.

Creative Open Workshops

Creative Open Workshop's Pop Up Market

It's been a good weekend with a fun double baby shower on Friday evening followed by the COW Handmade Fair at the Custard Factory, Birmingham on Saturday. It's the second time I've done this fair and was really pleased to see how much it has grown since starting up just a few months ago thanks to lots of hard work by the organisers. We were moved into a larger gallery space and you can see my stall below.


Bit disappointing on the sales front but lots of people asking whether we'd be back so hopefully November will be more successful. I had my sea glass pendants on show for the first time and am looking forward to getting these listed in the shop and working on some more wire wrapped pendants.

There was so much talent on show and you can check out some of it at the links below:
Magpie Jewels
Helen Woodward
Kate Thornton Design
Judith Williamson (who we used to teach with! Small world! Lovely to see you!)  
Jaccylee Jewellery
Gill Bourbage
Rachel Warren
Silver Queen
Handmade by Tigerlily
Peewees (Michelle Witcombe)
Peeko Crochet
Said LabelDenise from COW and Peeko Crochet mesmerised a young guest at the wedding party, who had their drinks reception at the rear of the gallery, by spinning plastic bags into yarn (plarn) which she uses in her accessories range.

The COW ladies have been running all sorts of creative workshops and if you are interested in learning a new creative skill do check their blog for further details. For those of you with children there is now a whole host of children's workshops planned for October half term, sounds ace! Come on midlanders, get yourself to the Custard Factory and check out all the fabulous creative happenings! I'll see you back there on the 21st November!

COW Handmade Fair

I'll be at the Creative Open Workshop's Handmade Fair tomorrow from 11am - 4pm, with lots of jewellery including the mulled wine charm bracelet which has sneaked onto the flyer above, hope to see you there!

Top Ten Craft Fair Essentials

In the run up to Christmas we're attending a few craft fairs, so far the essentials list reads as follows:

1. Jewellery - labelled and priced
2. White tablecloth
3. Wooden bowls, mirror and boxes for display,
4. Business cards, sign or banner saying who you are, where to find your work after the fair and accepted payment details
5. Gift wrapping bits - pillow boxes, tissue paper, raffia, tags and brown paper bags
6. Cash box and float (coins and notes), calculator
7. Receipt book and order forms
8. Stationery - pens, scissors, sellotape, blu tac, notebook for recording sales, customer / contact details
9. Camera
10. Refreshments

What else is on your craft fair essentials list?

Creative Open Workshop's Handmade Fair

On Saturday R and I did our first handmade fair, sharing a table at the Creative Open Workshop in Birmingham's Custard Factory. It was a gentle introduction to fairs as host Francine was so welcoming and the other artists and crafters and the visitors all very friendly, complimentary and happy to chat. Unfortunately the day was quiet on the visitor side but we hope that all Francine's hard work in promoting the Custard Factory as the Arts centre in Birmingham will encourage more people to visit.


I still can't find my camera battery charger (it's been nearly a week and I'm getting desperate!) so thanks to Francine for these pictures! You can read her account of the day here and do check out the other fabulous sellers at the links below:

www.lemon-aide.co.uk featuring the lively print design work of two sisters who print T-shirts, bags and cards.

http://www.magpiejewels.webs.com/ Sarah not only brought a huge range of gorgeous handmade jewellery and cards but made cupcakes too!

www.sarah-roberts.co.uk Sarah screen prints beautiful floral designs and displayed a range of canvases, notebooks, cards, gift wrap, mirrors and badges.

www.ohgosh.etsy.com had a vibrant display of colourful leather bags, wallets and purses.

www.silverfusion.co.uk is the brand new website of jeweller Rachel Warren who displayed her silver, glass and polymer clay work all colour themed with lovely blues, purples and teals.

Emma Blundell and Emma Thompson set up their table with their gingerbread men cards and beaded & charmed necklaces. They are currently working on their website.