Showing posts with label craft in ireland. Show all posts
Showing posts with label craft in ireland. Show all posts

Saturday, 26 October 2013

Mini feature - Card makers

So we promised to show you some snippets of the lovely crafters we had join us at the Crafty Craft fair last weekend, check out our last post CCF Oct Fair

So today I'm showing you some beautiful card making talent.

We had the wonderful Little Miss Sofi. Sanja has been creating beautiful cards for the past 2 years and to be honest continues to surprise and impress us with her fantastic Exploding Box Cards 

Heres some great halloween themes 

how about some great christmas themes 

We'd also love to show you Fuzz Irish Crafts. Based in Dublin, Fionnuala makes greeting cards, invitations & Notecards. Just as impressive with a unique style and elegance. 


You may remember  Little Snippets Craft Supplies from previous posts. Ger is a bit of a multi-crafter, one talent of which is card making. She brought a lovely selection of cards along to the fair last weekend. 



We love that while all 3 ladies are all card makers and super talented,  their styles are completely different. So there is something out there to cater for everyones taste which as we know can vary so much. 
We hope that maybe one these crafters has impressed you enough to jump straight over to there facebook page for a browse.


The standard of crafters at the Crafty Craft Fairs is second to none so I hope that by featuring the wonderful array of talent on our blog it will spread the word about how buying handmade Irish crafts and gifts is the only way to go! 




Wednesday, 16 October 2013

Countdown to the next Crafty Craft Fair - The Plaza Hotel, Tallaght

So its countdown time !! 
Our next Crafty Craft Fair is only days away and we're very excited about all the fabulous exhibitors we have lined up to show you their amazing work!! 

We've got jewellery, crochet, knitting, christmas and halloween gifts, homewares, baby gifts, mosaics, hair accessories, handmade cards, craft supplies, fabric and felt gifts, fashion accessories and lots more ! 

We hope to see you all there! 

Wednesday, 9 October 2013

Irish Handmade Autumn Jewellery

With so many jewellery crafters in this wonderful little country, you'll never have a problem finding a beautiful handmade piece to suit, whether it be for everyday wear or a special occasion.

Being all part and parcel with the fashion industry, the colours and materials used usually follow a seasonal trend.
I've been searching around online for some beautiful Autumn inspired jewellery and I can tell you exactly where you can find them

This stunning necklace is from Ajewell
A Dublin based business, they make unique custom necklaces, bracelets, earrings, rings, bookmarks, phone charms & more.

This beautiful necklace is from Mishe Design Studio
Another Dublin based jewellery crafter, necklaces & bracelets with an irish twist. You can find more in their wonderful Etsy Shop

Here we has a beautiful mix of silver & bead 
Based in Leitrim, Jean specialises in bespoke bridal accessories like tiaras, hair combs, earrings, pins & pendants


At Peppermint you'll find handmade jewellery and accessories from the West of Ireland, Based in Galway, Joanna makes beaded jewellery along with wine charms and other accessories  

For something a little different have a look at this fab bracelet from Keiva's Handmade Jewellery
Based in Bray, Co Wicklow, Keiva has a lovely selection of necklaces and bracelets that are great for everyday or night out wear, using pretty charms and cute beads


Silver is timeless and Emer at Emer McLysaghts Jewellery makes and sculpts her own delicate silver pendants, earrings & cuff links 
Buy directly from her website http://www.emermclysaght.com/


This really caught my eye from E S Glass Envision Glass
A Westmeath business, these are beautiful chunky handmade glass beads.

Last but not least is Busy Beaders
Beautiful bead work with a huge selection of handmade jewellery 
I hope you pop over to these talented crafters and have 
a good aul nosy round what beautiful things they have to offer !


Thursday, 29 August 2013

Crafting meet up at Guidcentral

Last weekend Crafty Craft Fairs met up in Guidecentral HQ Dublin with Etsy Ireland and My Craft Portal .
Other various crafters attended to gain valuable information on the crafting industry in Ireland.



Etsy have a huge following in Ireland and it was great to hear a detailed analysis of how an Etsy store works.
 It is a crafters haven! I didn't realise how easy it was to set up and run an Etsy shop !.
They also have a great support team to help out crafters with their shop.
 It was very interesting listening to their presentation and a great opportunity to hear it all first hand. Francesca gave a great run through of every aspect with details about how important using the right description and tags are.Also providing top tips on how run a shop successfully. I will definitely be setting up my own shop with them..




My Craft Portal is fairly new to the on line craft scene. James gave a great talk which explained in detail its functionality. Another great source for crafters to sell their products . It provides an new, exciting opportunity for crafters, artists in Ireland to sell their products to customers directly. They also have an events section which we will adding our craft fairs to.
                                                     

Guidecentral have been a great outlet for crafters to date. Their guidecentral app has really taken off in the last year. Think of it as a mix of  Pinterest, YouTube and crafting tutorials. You follow a step by step photo guide to create your item. Personally i love this as I'm not really a big fan of tutorials on YouTube , i spend more time pausing and rewinding ! 
Check out one of our guides.Crafty Craft Fair guide on how to make this cake topper.




I did a craft demonstration myself on paper flower bouquets.
 I don't think anyone noticed when i glued my foot to the floor !!!






Overall it was a great morning bringing crafting communities together. A competition was held between the crafters that were doing guides during the morning. with two worthy winners, Geraldine of  Little Snippets and Lauren from Papervine winning. Prizes were kindly donated by Etsy Ireland ! 



There is a great sense of community within crafters, no competition or jealousy , everyone just gets on with their own craft. I like others love learning new techniques and crafts so it was great to see different ideas on the day.

Another successful day at Guidecentral, I hope there will be many more !


Sinead xx








Saturday, 24 August 2013

A Morning with Little Snippets

Last Wednesday morning myself and Sinead had the pleasure of visiting Geraldine from Little Snippets Craft Supplies at her home in North Dublin.

We were warmly greeted at the door and shown into her home where we found her wonderful embroidery machine in action beavering away on some Christmas goodies.

We were then lead through the house and out beside her organic vegetable garden stood Geraldine's craft studio.What a wonderful sight!
The sun was shining on this little craft haven and myself and Sinead looked at each other, both knowing that if we owned this little paradise we'd never leave it !



Inside we found floor to ceiling storage full on craft supplies. 
We had serious craft room envy ! 

Firstly, as with any "girlie get-together", you begin with a beverage, no not the cocktails & wine, a little early for that...... unfortunately!
Coffee & homemade brownies were the perfect addition and although Geraldine's modest about her baking, her brownies were divine!

With all these craft goodies surrounding us where do we start ?

Today Geraldine was going to give us a little introduction to beaded crochet.
Myself and Sinead both have modest crochet skills, we can hook up a hat or blanket but both have loads of enthusiasm to learn more....



We started with a simple technique that can be used for bracelets or necklaces.
Once she started to show us how beads can be used, we soon realised that you are only limited by your own imagination when it comes to crochet & beads.












Beaded crochet can be used in so many ways not only in making jewellery, it can be incorporated into hats, scarves, bags, let your imagination run wild!






Geraldine has a lovely laid-back way of teaching and with her large range of expertise, she has so much she can pass on to others.
Among those skills include hand and machine embroidery, crochet, patchwork, beading, jewellery making, papercraft and crazy quilting.

She first started crafting at the tender age of four!! when her aunt taught her to embroider on her wedding dress.
This is one of her early creations
Would you believe she taught her first class at the age of 10! She was drafted in to save her teachers bacon when the inspector was doing the rounds. This inspector liked the girls to know a bit of embroidery so Ger stepped up to the mark when the teacher couldn't. Go Ger!!

Among her favourite crafts are crochet and embroidery but if there was only 1 set of supplies she bring to a desert island it would be her crazy quilting supplies.

For those of you not familiar with crazy quilting .....
Wikipedia will tell you this
but I think a picture explains better and this is one of Geraldine's favourite makes.
I think we can agree these are stunning pieces of work.
Personally I've fallen in love with this beautiful craft.


With her fountain of knowledge we are delighted that Geraldine has plans to start some workshops in her studio which will cover
  • Crochet 
  • Bead Crochet
  • Christmas Decoration making
  • Crochet flowers
  • Card making
These wonderful workshops, starting the end of September, will be free of charge with a kit available to purchase on the day.

The purpose of the workshops will be
  • to learn new skills / techniques
  • problem solving - if your stuck on a project, bring it along to get some help
  • if there's certain patterns or items you'd like to learn 


For more information pop over to Little Snippets Craft Supplies on facebook where you will find more of Geraldine's wonderful items for sale and up to date information 
Or pop in her Etsy Shop for a browse through her unique custom made craft, sewing and scrapbooking embellishments.

We would like to give Geraldine a HUGE thank you !
We had such a lovely morning and could quite easily have stayed all day long crafting and chatting.
Gillian & Sinead

If you would like to be featured in our blog please email craftyfairs@gmail.com