Craft Cafe a roaring success!

Yay and triple yay! I sold a ton of cards at the craft cafe, held at the Northern Tennis Club in West Didsbury. the morning was quiet but then it got really busy and my stationery was flying out.

I know I say it every time but it's such a confidence boost when I get such incredible feedback from customers and seeing their first reaction when they look. It makes me feel on top of the world to know that I can create products that make people happy and want to buy!!!!
And just the boost i need before Top Drawer.

I also road tested some new designs (will reveal all soon) and they also went down a storm. A little range of autumnal mini cards, I'll take some pics and get them on the blog as soon as I get a min.

Here are some little freebie gift tags for you to down load and print on to card. They look lovely with hot pink or orange ribbon.

Enjoy!

I'm in love with...

...these cute little boats and lanterns by Jurianne Matter. Her paperwork is available on notonthehighstreet.com. What's not to love, the colours, pattern, styling and vintage maps to boot!

This weekend, right after the crafters meet up at the design centre cafe, I'm going apple picking! The idea is that volunteers (me) pick excess fruit from garden trees and take them to people who need them such as refuges and hostels. I absolutely LOVE helping people so this is a win win situation, plus I get to spend an afternoon climbing trees - yay!

Here's something appley to celebrate:
Apple broaches by Kat Boon Design - very autumnal!

Top Drawer Eye Candy

I won't bore you with the details of my tedious journey, when I eventually got to Olympia it was well worth it. I was pleased that all the products there were fantastic - high end, quality, design led stuff.

At first I felt a bit daunted at the competition, I loved cards by Nella, the square card co, here are some pics, haven't got time to link them all yet - just comment if you want to know more.

My absolute fave of the show was a danish company called house doctor. I could fill my entire house with their catalogue! Here are a few pics but you can download the catalogue online.

One thing'f for sure I need to pull my design socks up and get cracking! No more blogging distraction for today - bye x

Didsbury Art Festival...

Quick bit of news: the Didsbury Art Festival is running from the 26th of September to the 3rd of October. There's loads of great stuff going on. Check out the website for the full programme.

I have a stall at the Festival Craft Cafe at the Northern Lawn Tennis Club, on SUN 27th 10am - 4pm.

There's a £1 entrance fee, there's cakes & a bbq on the lawn, live classical music and quality crafts (including my own goodies!). It all sounds lovely so get there if you can.

off to London Town...

This Sunday will be my recce for TOP DRAWER! It's the autumn show on at the mo. I need to get a feel for my competitors, the set up, market, etc before I exhibit myself in Jan.

I love day trips to London, apart from getting lost, sweaty & slightly claustrophobic on the tube and so on. When I was a wee nipper of a designer, many moons ago, I remember being reduced to tears of exasperation trying to find some random location in central Londres. I sat on my porfolio and heartily cried somewhere in Hackney.

Now I'm a true city girl, it's a total treat for my senses and always gives me a design buzz.

Will have a market/trend report for you on Monday (written on the train with a long coffee and lots of pics, I'll also be sketching and scribbling!)

Bike of my dreams..

My posts are like buses, nothing for a week then 3 at once.

I just had to add this bike, I keep meeting it by chance. It keeps popping up in various different places to say hello. It always makes me smile, I LURVE the winged mudguards ad the happy grass green and cream paintwork.

Today I was making the most of the sunshine by cycling to the Barbikan for a fat piece of cheese cake (calorie neutral). I just locked up my bike when along it came! I met it's owner and she was lovely too. She has a shop in the Manchester Craft Centre selling perspex jewelry and furniture, studio 3 I think.

It's so nice I might have to honor it's vintage lines by turning it into a li'l ol' design!

I know it's barely September...

...but us card designers do our Xmas selling as early as June! It's hard to think about Christmas designs when you're sunning yourself with a long cocktail.

I sold my Xmas cards as singles last year, I thought I'd offer them as a pack this year - here's the new packaging.

The packs and singles will be on sale in my shops from this evening if you want to have a little shop. I'll also be doing mini stationary sets which will make nice stocking fillers or mini gifts for friends. I'll keep you posted!

I heart cassettes...

Remember the clunk and whir of stopping and fast forwarding cassettes? I'm showing my age when I say I used to listen to Bananarama (who are apparently releasing another album!) and write down the garbled lyrics so I could learn them. My sister even learnt the dance routines!

I'd forgotten about the variety of colours and hand written scribble. And you always knew your boyfriend loved you if he made you a mix tape - my husband used to!

Check out these beauties...hmmm, I feel a design coming on....