Our Craftacular Adventure

Last Sunday H and I took a trip to Bethnal Green to one of our fave handmade fairs Bust Craftacular. This year we were not only there to catch up with the usual suspects, but we were hosting a papercutting banner workshop at the event too.

What's on our desks - July

So what's been on our desks this month, it's been a busy one so lets get down to it!

Love it: Craft Fairs coming up

With so many Craft fairs coming up between now and Christmas, we thought it would be a good time to show you some of our favourites and some we want to go and see for the first time.

Of course this weekend is a definite favourite of Renegade over in East London!  We have been going to this one for some time now and it is a firm favourite with us, so many great designer/makers in one place and we get to see some of our friends too!

Then on the 22nd November is the famed Bust Craftacular which is also in East London, another favourite of ours, so much so that H has been saving up the pennies to get some treats at both of these!  It will be lovely to see all the winter stock out and see what's different from the Spring versions of both of these fairs.

Picture from www.timeout.com

Christmas fairs of course pop up all over the place from the end of November, H visited the Christmas market outside the Tate Modern and all along the Southbank last year, which was so pretty and had her favourite things ever at Christmas Fairs, no not mulled wine, but Churros!  It even managed to get her in the Christmas spirit!

Picture from www.cockpitarts.com

Last but by no means least is Cockpit arts Open Studios which we would love to go to.  Seeing all the artists work in their own space is always such a great way to buy artwork.  There are so many open studios all over the country so maybe there is one near you to take a look at.

We also found this handy guide of London Craft Fairs if you are down this way anytime soon, mentions the Crafty Fox Markets too which is great.

Are you going to any of these fairs, or any other near you?  Do let us know if you have a firm favourite as we may be able to go check it out too.

H & Sammy

Note: All photographs belong to Live it. Love it. Make it, unless otherwise stated.

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Makers Month: I am Acrylic Jewellery Making Workshops

Here's a selection of amazing things people have made in one of our workshops!

As I am sure you must be aware by now we are great lovers of I am Acrylic!  The Jewellery is so fun and the founders are so lovely too.  So we thought we would let them tell you all about the Jewellery Workshops that they are now doing to add to their workload.  Read on to find out some more.

Hi! We are Ruth Williams & Brendan Fan and we make quirky acrylic and wooden jewellery under the name I Am Acrylic!

We hand-cut all of the components for our jewellery on a mechanical fretsaw and realised recently that this might translate really nicely into running workshops, using hand-saws, to teach people how to make their very own piece of acrylic jewellery - and now we're hooked!

We enjoy getting all the equipment together for the workshops, including buying safety goggles, making bench pegs, getting lots of piercing saws and, most importantly, TONS of saw blades - as they snap quite easily!

We were a bit over-excited when all the goggles arrived! And we always swoon at all the pretty bits of different coloured acrylic waiting to be turned into something lovely!

We have an easy 3 step process for our workshops........You design it, cut it out with the saw, and then clean it up with files and sandpaper! Then we pop it on a chain for you to take away then and there! It's fun, easy and very hands on!

The 3 simple steps in the workshop and the finished thing!

We have run quite a few workshops now since our first one at BUST Craftacular fair last Christmas.

We've really enjoyed the more casual, drop-in ones, that we've run alongside our market stall at several events (BUST, Renegade, CraftyFox & Aspex) - there's no need to book and anyone passing by can just stop and have a go for half an hour or so!

We have also run longer, more involved, two hour long sessions with several lovely hosts (Knit with Attitude, We Make London, Mamahood and LOIS) and the results of these can be stunning!

When running these longer sessions we give people some advice for designing their necklace or keyring beforehand, and give them some examples from our range of the more simple or more complex things they could achieve!

A selection of our products as examples, showing a simple butterfly design or much more complex shape like the flower!

We have been really impressed with all of the designs that have been made in our workshops, and it's amazing how quickly people pick all the skills up!

It was lovely when you guys came and had a go during our drop-in workshop at Renegade this spring - you were naturals! We really hope you enjoyed yourselves as much as we enjoyed teaching you - it was fun, fun, fun!

H's anchor keyring - designed, cut and finished!



Sammy's sewing machine necklace - designed, cut, finished & worn!

One aspect of running the workshops that we've both really enjoyed, is the interest from young children - they love getting involved! - and even though we quite often have to risk our fingers to help them cut the shapes out - they have a great time doing it and so do we!

Brendan helping one of our younger makers sand the edges of a flower she was making!
(Photo Credit: http://marthalovesblog.blogspot.co.uk/)

We're getting super excited now about our next drop-in workshop that we're doing as part of the Crafty Fox Market event with the London Design Festival.  It's on the last weekend of September (26th & 27th) and is at an exciting new venue for Crafty Fox called Kachette in Old Street. The space will be decorated especially for the weekend by paper artist Little PaperVee - and we can't wait to see it!

They'll be loads of great designer/makers selling their wares there - with a different selection each day.

We'll be running the workshop alongside our market stall all weekend - it's free entry and the workshop is just £10 a go - and there's no need to book - you can just pop in!

Here's another brilliant creation from one of our workshops - a very appropriate, and very crafty, fox  : )

And finally, we absolutely love looking at our #iamacrylicworkshop tag on Instagram - there's a great selection of pictures on it that really give you a sense of what we get up to in the workshops!

Here's a selection from the #iamacrylicworkshop Instagram tag.

We LOVED dusting off our DT skills when we did the workshop at Renegade earlier this year and I think a bit of practice at the next event will hone our skills for sure!  We recommend checking out I am Acrylic workshops when you see them!  We just love the fact that they use old school methods to produce their work and help others to use these skills during the workshops.

Thanks so much to Ruth and Brendan for chatting to us.  We know they are off on their holidays for a well deserved rest and so have fun guys!  Check out their Instagram for Jigsaw puzzle related holiday snaps too!

H,xxx

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Let's Meet: Lucy Alice Designs

This month we got chatting to another Bust Craftacular stall holder in the shape of Lucy Alice Designs.  She does the cutest little animal necklaces, we both ended up walking away with one, H an owl and Sammy a cat necklace, of course!  So let's get down to having a chat and a cuppa I think!

Let's meet: Frilly Industries

This month we are having a chat with another master duo, Frilly Industries.  We met these girls at Craftacular and even after their busy morning prepping and unpacking, were on form to have Sammy buy one of their scissor necklaces.

Let's hear what this dynamic duo have to say to our questions.

Let's Meet: Oh Squirrel

This month we had a little chat with Katie from Oh Squirrel.  After admiring her work for ages we eventually plucked up the courage to ask her if she would be interviewed by us and she said yes!  In between Renegade and Craftacular and making many many sashes for the Wedding season of course!

So let's have a look at what she has to say and look at all the gorgeous things she has to offer of course too!

Love it: Craftacular Haul

Yesterday was Bust Magazine's Craftacular day and what a lovely day for going to spend the afternoon looking at more pretty things!  Of course we went to see some of our friendly faces and met some lovely new designers too, which is always good, although maybe not for the bank balance!  I am now on a spending ban before our holiday next month.

Check this out: Craftacular

From Left: Necklace from Rodology, Necklace from Promises Promises and Brooches from Frilly Industries

We are having a bumper crop of activity these past few months and now it's time for the Summer Craftacular in London by Bust Magazine this weekend on Sunday 17th May.  Bust magazine is from America and so it's bringing the cool edge over to the UK.

Another outing really just means that it's more time for us to go shopping and see some of our favourite crafters and of course find some new ones along the way.

Our favourites will of course be there, from I am Acrylic and Claireabellemakes to one of our favourite magazines Mollie Makes of course.  We can't wait to sample the treats of the pop-up cafe from Drink, Shop & Do aswell, of course.

H has picked out a few of the new people she wants to find on the day.  Are you going? Who are you looking forward to seeing?

H


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