Craftacular, markets and general creativeness

It's been a busy week at work for me so not had time to update the blog until now.

So, last weekend I dragged myself from my bed (went out Friday night, intended only to stay out a few hours...ended up not back til 2am, oops) and hopped on the tube to Bethnal Green to pay the Bust Craftacular a visit. Wasn't really sure what to expect, but despite the venue reminding me very much of school assemblies, there were lots of people surrounding most of the 50 stalls.

There was a mixture of the cute, the retro, the unusual and in some cases distinctly bizarre (!) but some great eye candy and worth the trip. Favourites included the cool wooden animal brooches on the OFFCUT design stall, the gorgeous birdie artwork on offer from Little Doodles and the very cool Tatty Devine stand where they were attempting to make a record breaking charm bracelet. My sole purchase of the day was this adorable little horse brooch on the Fine City Friends stall.

Since my housemate was away for the weekend, on the Sunday morning I headed to Spitalfields market to see what was on offer there. Lots of clothes - some handmade, some bought in, plus plenty of jewellery and food from pretty much every continent you can think of. Some equally cool market stalls can be found further up towards Brick Lane at the Sunday Upmarket and the Backyard Market. So if you are at a loss for something to do on a Sunday I recommend a trip there.

So what have I got up my crafty sleeves in the coming weeks? Well, I have a silver clay workshop booked for a few weeks time that I'm really looking forward to, some belated birthday present jewellery to finish and I'm also brainstorming some ideas for a piece to enter in the Beads and Beyond magazine jewellery designer of the year competition. I'll let you know how that turns out

N

XoXo

A little netted cuff....

No, your eyes do not deceive you, I do indeed have a picture to show you of something I've made recently! Not an original design, but a project from Bead and Button - I don't really use netting much so I fancied a go at this. Not too struck on the colour but I love the labradorite chips I've used as the toggle buttons.


I have so many ideas for pieces I want to make...plus a couple of UFOs, but at the moment I am so busy at work that often I can just about summon up the energy to make and eat dinner, let alone get out the beads and thread. But I do really want to make a go of this jewellery making lark. Yesterday I signed up for a Misi account and I intend to use there and Folksy to sell pieces rather than my own website. It's a start in the right direction anyhow!!

So in the spirit of this, I have a very crafty weekend planned. On Saturday I'm off to the Bust London Craftacular to have a look at what other crafty and arty peeps have been up to, so, with the additional aim I have of blogging more regularly, look out for a report back on that in a few days time.

On Sunday I'm heading off to Spitalfields Market - in a brainstorming session I had and idea for a bracelet and I remembered that last time I was at Spitalfields there were a couple of stalls where I might be able to pick up some of what I need to make it. Fingers crossed they are there when I go, otherwise I may end up trawling Ebay for what I want.

So, to summarise...in the future, look out for my jewellery being up for sale on Misi and Folksy, and for more in the way of blogs (I hope to start featuring other craft artists in Blog posts...we crafters have to support each other after all!).

TTFN

xx