Five Fab Finds: The Handmade Fair

Crafty finds for features

I don’t know about you but whenever I go to an exhibition or a fair I find tons of new contacts, brands, crafter/makers who I want to keep in mind to feature in the future and as soon as I get home the bag full of business cards and leaflets gets popped under my desk for “‘later’ and then never sees the light of day again! Enter ‘Five Fab Finds!’

To combat this I am going share my finds with you guys and include their links so I/we can look back and find them for when the time is right – after all a unique accessory is always on the shoot propping list isn’t it? All shots from my phone for a quick and easy post.

So, as I sit on the train on the way home from the first day of The Handmade fair typing away – here are my first fab five finds

1. Bespoke Verse

Probably one of my favourite stalls – bespokeverse.co.uk I stood reading the verses on the homewares for ages. The ‘Wishes for a child’ is beautiful. I actually laughed out loud when I read the “Without this bag I scare small children’ make up bag. All on simple, plain cream backgrounds with black fonts – very stylish. Loved it all.

2. Art Cuts

Great source for wooden shapes, rubber stamps and embellishments which are all designed in the UK using Scandinavian Birchwood, This stall had tons of cuteness and was actually the only stall I bought from. Totally unoriginal I know but I love a letter!

artcuts.co.uk

3. My stuff and nonsense

This stall caught my eye for an eco post I’ve been planning for a while. This lady recycles old books and turns them into purses and books. She includes scrolls with pages if they are special like this one with the date July 1901 on it. Cute eh?

She also uses the pages from the books to make table confetti …..

mystuffandnonsense.com

4. Kira Jade

Kira Jade is a printed textiles designer and maker. How beautiful are her fabric designs? They were at the front of the tent and really caught my eye. She has cushions, lampshades and fabrics by the meter.

KiraJadedesigns.com

5. Swarovski

Okay – I know this isn’t strictly a new find but did you know that Swarovski do these crystals for crafting – eyes, diamond shapes, tons of ‘beads’ I had no idea and wanted the rings, chipped necklaces – all of it. It was also lovely to see the fabulously crafty Christine Leech doing demonstrations on the stand – I have to share the gif we did.

Oh and a few extra

Red Dates from abakusfoods.com which are sold in Whole Foods, Planet Organic and via Ocado. I kind of got roped into trying each of their packets of dried, chewy, sprinkled samples as I was too polite to walk away but they were really good – if a little expensive. They’re a superfood though so you kind of expect that don’t you.

Annie Sloan – gutted to have missed Annie Sloan but still loved her tent which had the most fantastic work table. I just wanted to hang it up on the wall!