Writing Articles for Folksy!

My first article for the Folksy blog has been published online today! I am very excited about my new series and I am really enjoying giving something back to the Folksy community who have helped me so much setting up my shop and business! The first one is all about pottery and the aim of the series is to inspire Folksy members to try a new craft, I hope it works!

Off to the shops

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I have finally finished my shop order for a lovely new shop in Barnstaple, Devon, called Atelier; which is the baby of the very talented Tracey Benton, or NiftyandThrifty as she is also known. They have a blog with information on how the restoration has been going, it is very lucky for me that it has been taking longer than they expected as I keep selling all the stock intended for them before it gets there! But finally and at last it is all boxed up and ready to go!

I have also just made a custom order for a Spinnakers customer who really wanted a stained glass surf board mobile, who am I to refuse such a challenge?  I will be taking them some of my mixed media works next week, to compliment the stained glass works I sell there.  Not sure there is a market for surf board stained glass in general, what do you think?

Craft fairs, commissions, drawing and making

My first week back from holiday has been so busy, we knew it would be and my husband Mark had the week off work to look after the children, so I could get on with stuff and he could spend a week chilling out with the girls (if such a thing is possible with our kids!)

I have spent much of the week making bunting, hearts and beach hut panels to restock what has been sold at fairs and online and to fulfill my wholesale order for Atelier Gallery in Barnstable (due this Friday).  The photos show a little of this activity; the bunting laid out ready to be soldered and then piled up, post soldering ready to be washed and hung on ribbon and the glass cut for 3 beach hut panels, (heading to Otterton Mill) with their sticky back plastic fish and waves stuck on waiting to be acid etched, then leaded and cemented.

The Exeter Craft Hub event on Saturday was a great success and they gave me a stall right in front of a massive window, which gave my stall a lot of light and I could actually hang things in the window to give people an idea of how they look at home.

My most popular designs have sold so well in the last few weeks that I have unexpectedly run out of certain materials, which is bad for the schedule, but good for some of my customers; as it means whilst I wait for supplies I have had an unexpected window of opportunity this afternoon to work on a new commission.

Jane , otherwise known as  Kind Dog (a fellow Folksy seller and talented illustrator, click on her name to go to her shop)  has kindly asked me to make a special panel for her niece’s wedding present.  I love doing special items, but this one is especially close to my heart; as she wants it to depict the North Norfolk coast which her niece loves and is the county where I was born and brought up! I hardly get to go back to Norfolk these days, the 7 hour drive is too long for my young children, so the opportunity to think about the beaches  I played on as a child has been a treat! I have prepared 3 drawings based on the North Norfolk coast around Heacham and I have gone from Holkham to Cromer in the drawings, I wonder which she will choose?

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Back from Wales

My family and I enjoyed a lush holiday in West Wales with 2 other families who are old mates from university and we get together every year for a joint holiday. We stayed in a gorgeous old quarry house in a village called Cilgarren. The house was at the foot of a gorge and its sheer rock face was the back wall of our garden with an amazing waterfall when it rained (which it did quite often) and we were right on the river, so I paddled my feet in the water with my kids and saw a King fisher, which was pretty special.

There was a castle in the village, Cigarren Castle, which was a great ruin and we spent ages clambering around it with the kids (5 in total). The children had a great time being a gang for the week and really enjoyed each others company, which was great to watch! Us grown ups drank lots of tea, ate lots of cake and had a bit too much wine! There was so much for families to do and we had some briliant days out at a farm, an iron age fort and of course the stunning coast with clean sandy beaches

We got back on Saturday afternoon and had no time to get back into Devon life as Sunday was Bradninch Music Festival, where I had a craft stall. I had a fantastic day,  sold lots of things, listened to great music, talked to lots of interesting people and our mates came with a picnic (a super high quality picnic with anchovy tart and lemon polenta cake!). I sold so much stock on Sunday that I have gone into a making things frenzy! So here are some of the fruits of my labour so far this week.

The first panel is another of my popular Art Deco Leaves design, in a new colour way and with etched detail on the leaves.

I sold my last Coombe Martin panel on Sunday, so I have replaced it with a slightly different design and a new colour combination.

The third panel is a reworking of Heckwood Tor, the first version of this is on show at Otterton Mill Art Gallery.

These items and my new teeny tiny beach scene panels (only 12 cm high, are they the smallest stained glass panels in the world???) are available for sale with all my other lovely stuff on my  Folksy and Etsy shops.

If you are in Exeter on Saturday 19th June  please come say hi to me on my stall at the Craft Hub fair in the wonderful surroundings of Rougemont Castle.  There is going to be live music, tea and cake and kids activities too, so it should be a really fun day. It is on from 11-4pm

Featured in UKHandmade Magazine!

I am proud to say one of my items is in UKHandmade Magazine’s summer edition, it is a lovely magazine with lush photography, please go take a look.