Link for the week: Alison Lush

I first came across the subject of this week's Link at Spitalfields market way back in 2011.

I found Alison's stall and instantly fell in love with her jewellery.  She makes rings, necklaces, bracelets and earrings and its Sterling Silver, so everything you could want really!  Well, everything I could want anyway.

I am currently lusting after the wire wrapped silver ring above!

http://alisonlush.com/

I found the bird necklace above and had to have it.  It's so simple and yet really effective on a plain top, which is why I love it so much.

If you are ever at Spitalfields market in London then do check Alison out, or you can just check out her website and buy direct from there.  No excuses to not leave with something!

Love it

H

Love it: Getting Cosy

Fox hot water bottle cover, New Look Bobble hat, Mug Cozy, Accessorize slippers, River Island Jumper, Next Reindeer throw

My place looks like a blanket factory right now with all the cosy throws I have scattered around the place! Being cosy and warm is my top priority at the moment, at home the heating is up full whack whenever I am there. Even with the heating on, I love being snuggled up on the sofa surrounded by snuggly things. I love these slippers, they are (faux) fur lined and and so comfy and how adorable is that sleepy fox hot water bottle cover? 

How do you like to stay cosy and warm at this time of the year? 

Have a snuggly weekend x

Sammy xxx

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 

Who's Who: I am Acrylic

It's Who's Who time again and this months subject is bit of an addiction for me and so we just had to find out more!  I first came across I am Acrylic at the We Make London shop in Camden and now have a bit of a collection, alongside getting one of my colleagues addicted to their jewellery too!!  So we just had to share the joy and so everyone can have a I am Acrylic Christmas!  Not hinting, promise!

Who are you?

Hello! We are Brendan Fan and Ruth Williams - AKA - I Am Acrylic. We met whilst studying fine art at Winchester School of Art in 1999.  We now live in Spitalfields, London.

What do you do?

We design and make cute and quirky jewellery, mostly made from acrylic. We like to incorporate wood, aluminium and embroidery too.

We individually hand-cut each component out on our trusty mechanical fretsaw or with our hand saw (we don't use any lasers) and then use files and wet & dry paper to clean up all of the edges, before finally piecing them together.

We like to use this hand cutting and finishing technique as it means that each item is truly unique with a lovely hand crafted finish.

We also enjoy the constraints that our production methods put on our design process. We're forced to keep things fairly simple, within the realms of what is possible to hand-cut and embellish.

How did you start?

We've been making acrylic jewellery since 2004 when Brendan made me a keyring for my birthday from some acrylic we found outside our flat.

The buyer in the shop where I worked at the time, suggested we made some to sell there, so we did!

It was Brendan who then developed the range to include necklaces and brooches, and continued to grow the business over the next seven years, approaching other shops to sell in.  In 2011 I left her job to join Brendan in working on I Am Acrylic full time.  

Since then we've developed the range further to include rings, earrings and cufflinks and most recently little pictures. We like to call these 'Wallery' because they are like little pieces of jewellery for your wall!

What's next?

We have some collaborations in the pipeline and some new designs coming very soon! We're most excited about our new Conker necklace complete with a little piece of real string!

We'd like to spend a bit more time developing and promoting the 'Wallery' range. And, well, hopefully just keep on doing what we're doing really!

What advice would you give yourself if you could go back to the beginning?

I Am Acrylic has grown quite organically really and we've quite enjoyed just following our instincts and learning from any mistakes.

What's been really worthwhile is doing a market stall. Maybe we should have considered getting out there sooner and meeting our customers. The instant feedback is invaluable and has led to several new designs and tweaks to existing ones. 

Also, in hindsight, the 70's white jumpsuit Brendan wore in 2006 and the Hawaiian number I tried in 2007 could have been best advised against!

We think that Brendan and Ruth have definitely left their dodgy fashion behind them and have a great future with I am Acrylic.  You can buy from their online shop or find them at Brick Lane market, the We Make London shop and other markets throughout the year - we just saw them at Renegade.  The jewelerry is really fun and would make 'dare I say it' great Christmas presents.  Something really different and fun instead of the same old same old.  That's if H and her friends don't buy all their stock first.

hmmm, now which one should I buy next!

H