Have yourself an Independent Christmas

We know we always bang on about this, but its for very good reason, promise.  If everyone just bought one small thing this Christmas from an independent shop it would make all the difference to making sure that we keep small businesses afloat!

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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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!

Live it: Crafty Fox talks

A couple of weeks ago we got a last minute invitation to go to the Crafty Fox Talk in London.  The very lovely Zoe from Craft Candy offered us a ticket, although it was only 'one' so it was a H solo mission - scary!  Zoe was going to be talking at the event and so it was lovely to be able to go and support her.

If you have not heard about Crafty Fox before, you can usually find them running markets in London (see more about them here), but have in the past year embarked on a talks series.  I think their website says it best and so, ahem "The Crafty Fox Talks is an event series designed to bring creative's together for an evening of inspiration, learning and sharing. Each event includes speakers discussing a particular topic with plenty of opportunity for audience questions. This is followed by relaxed drinks, tunes from the Crafty Fox DJs and a chance for guests to meet one another and make connections."   I think that just about sums it up.

The night started with chatting to a few people in the room, having a drink, looking at the inspiration table as it filled up with goodies from some of the attendees.  I got to meet the lovely Tilly from Tilly and the Buttons who was doing a talk and totally had a fan girl moment when she said she had seen our tweet just before the event!

Then, it was onto the talks which were all about using social media and blogging for your business, after a short intro from Sinead who runs Crafty Fox Markets, we met Katie from Eventbrite who was chairing the event and got us rolling. Then Tilly was up and talked about how she got into blogging and started her business.  With some great tips about social networking and finding inspiration for your blog posts, it was great to hear Tilly talk about her blog.

Up next was Jo from HAM who talked about how she started doing pop-ups and used social media to promote her brand.  Then it was Zoe's (Craft Candy) turn for a bit of Pinterest advice and how to use it to gain new followers and interest in you as a brand.  When it was over it was time for a bit of networking and catching up with Zoe properly.  I got to meet some new (to Me) bloggers and crafts people and catch up with some old friends too, from Mister Peebles to Claireabellemakes.

It was a great night and some really useful advice to take back to Live it. Love it. Make it HQ.  Did you go to the talk?  Or have you been to any of the others?

The next talk is in September and will be on the Creative Process, so do go check it out.  Its a great way to meet like minded people and learn something along the way.

H