A day trip to ... London

We thought that as we have been to a fair few cities across the country and the globe over the years, it might be great to share with you some places and things we love to do while travelling around and you may even have been to them all, never been there or think, now why would I go there!  Now, not all of these will be quick one day stops, there may be 24 hour versions, a quick hop over the water versions and of course home grown, things to do with your day off in your nearest city versions.  But isn't that the beauty of adventures, they can be as long or short and as near or far as you like.

Our Renegade Craft Fair adventure

Renegade Craft fairs have jumped across the pond from the US for the past 3 years to East London and this year we just had to pay a visit - and what a great day we had too.  Renegade have made a huge stamp in the US and have fairs in Brooklyn, Chicago, San Francisco, Austin and Los Angeles - just a few then!  As their website says 'The Renegade Craft Fair is a curated indie-craft marketplace showcasing the brightest talents in contemporary craft and design.'

This year in London was bigger than before with over 100 designer/makers and so the popularity is definitely growing over here in the UK.  These crafts are not for the feint-hearted though as there are no country crafts in sight.  You are more likely to find rude cross-stitches and jewellery that will definitely make you stand out from the crowd.

Well, firstly, where to start!  We are likely to miss some people out, but we thought we would go for some of our favourites rather than trying to get everyone in.  The full list of who was there can be found on Renegade's website.

The Fox in the Attic had the sweetest collection of hand embroidered plushies.

Sammy had a tough time choosing between all the beautiful jewellery from Eclectic Eccentricity but settled for a blue crystal pendant.

Cute envelope brooches by Amy Panda.

Quirky badges by Kayleigh O'Mara.

Sammy picked up one of these beautiful calendars from Cotton Post.

We love a bit of printing and Passa Pa had some lovely hand printed bags on offer and one of our favourites Zeena had some of her lovely screen printed goodies on display.

 DYFALNONC had a fab display of their wooden pendants, we loved the ones using vintage stamps.

These plush brooches from Kekekaka were Sammy's favourite from the Folksy curated stalls

The prize for the most unique stall had to go to the girls from The Compartment Store, whose stall was a vintage suit carrier fitted out to hold all their gorgeous stationary wares. Described as 'a department store in a suitcase' it was packed full of goodies!

There was also yesterday's Who's who and H's all round fun jewellery favourite, I am Acrylic.  They were pretty much the first people we saw as we walked in the door and they didn't disappoint, H may well have bought a few goodies!  Thanks guys for the treats!

We loved Anna Wiscombe's wooden birds and necklaces.

Some Jewellery that neither of us had seen before was by Coatt.  They use the Morse code for the word of your choice to give you a bracelet or necklace.  They had come all the way from Hollywood too!

H fell in love with these bears from Pygmy Cloud, they are so cute.  One day she is going to have a house and will be surrounded by little animals!

We love the very unique style of Ella Masters who Sammy featured back in July for her Love it ... Illustration feature.

Made by Loulabelle had some great Vintage inspired bags that utilised different pieces of fabric to make some really different clutches and bags.  Can you guess which one H liked?

Some more cute acrylic jewellery came in the shape of Bonnie Bling whose fun phrase necklaces were a hit.

We were there on day two of Renegade and by this time Debbie Greenaway had lost her voice, thankfully she had a trusty helper to do some talking for her on the Sunday.

Whilst walking around aswell we spotted Make Thrift London doing a lino printing workshop.  Daisy was so sweet, even after H admitted to seeing her on Instagram - which kind of made her feel like a stalker!

One of the great things about Lucie Ellen's stall was that you could put together your own favourite colours of her bunting shapes to make your own necklace.  We did both love her dipped wooden diamonds too.

We saw our friend Mr Peebles had a stall and couldn't help but have a look what was new.  We both have prints from previous visits and now have a Christmas card each to boot, thanks!

One of our Craft Coop friends, Isamo Crochet was there and so we couldn't resist a look. 

These cute personalised prints from Wetpaint are one to keep in mind for kids bedrooms.

Sammy fell in love with the porcelain jewellery by me me me. 

Now can you guess what Designosaur do?  Well, apart from dinosaur jewellery, there is also animals and flowers all lasercut, just for you.

More acrylic came from Hand over you fairy cakes and it was stars aplenty, which kept Sammy very happy.

So, as you can see there was plenty to see and spend our money on!  I feel We were very restrained given all the goodies we could have bought!  Although, now I feel plenty of these will be on our Christmas lists.

The venue was great and as we went quite early on Sunday morning it was a nice relaxed atmosphere.  As we were leaving though it was definitely filling up and made it more difficult to take photos let alone get to the stalls.  No bad thing for the designer/makers I am sure!  So we swiftly hot footed it down to Giraffe for some late lunch, well needed after all the pretty!

Thanks Renegade for a great day and we will definitely see you next year!

H & Sammy 

Link for the week: Brick Lane

I took some of the girls from work for a visit to Brick Lane yesterday as they had never been - so what better excuse to have a day out in London.

These were just some of the pictures I Instagrammed on the day.  You can follow me on Instagram here.

Given that I became an unofficial tour guide on the day, I thought it would be good to give you guys a few links of places to go in East London to check out the vibe for yourself.   East London has its own very eclectic and relaxed feeling to it.  It was nice to go back as I hadn't been for a while.  It was really nice to show some people around who had never been too.

We wandered through Spitalfields market where it was general market day, but that still meant there was a great array of vintage and new items along with food.  http://www.spitalfields.co.uk/

We went to Giraffe for some lunch (check out the Lemonade with mint in a jam jar glass when you go) to build up our strength for Brick lane.  Then it was over to the pop-up markets on Bricklane and a wander through the streets.  http://www.visitbricklane.org/

After all that looking and walking, we went for some cake at Maison Trois Garcons, which I had never been to before.  We all had cake and took a look around all the cafe, in which everything was for sale.  The chair is a particular favourite!

Live it

H