Craft Fairs Galore!

Christmas is coming and the Crafty Claires are working hard! 

We are extremely busy at the moment working on building up our craft stocks as we have just started a run of 5 craft fairs back to back which will take us from Armistice to two weeks before Christmas! 

We are both busy making our individual crafts. No 1 has started working on a new selection of Christmas cards including wobbly rocker cards, and her more usual decoupage delights!

Meanwhile No 2 has been trying to make more knitted items and bags. She has also promised to make some more felt bags which went down so brilliantly before. 

If this wasn't busy enough No 2 has also been working on the new Crafty Claires range for Cats & Dogs. Yes, that's right we are launching a new pet range! It is totally cool. No 2 has made some lovely fleece patchwork blankets. They come in three different sizes; small, medium and large. They can also be made to order in your choice of colours and size depending on the size of your dog or cat!

 If you want something more pampered for your pet we also do quilted patchwork fleece dog/cat blankets. Again these come in the three different sizes and can be made to order in the colours of your choice. We will post some photos of these lovely blankets soon.

 Another pet product is a pet-sized microwavable hot cushions. Again these come with a fleece cover and are fabulous for keeping your beloved pets warm in the winter. They are particularly ideal for bringing comfort to puppies and kittens or soothing the joints of older animals. Like the blankets they come in a variety of sizes and can be made to order.

They are also suitable for human use to!

Shelby Stormchi trying out a new
Crafty Claires Tuggy Toy!

As well as cushions and blankets for dogs and cats, we have also started making tuggy toys for dogs! No 2 became the very proud new Mummy of a gorgeous long haired Chihuahua puppy this summer who absolutely loves these toys, so she thought they might appeal to other dogs too. They come in a variety of sizes and colours, suitable for the smallest pooch to the largest hound. These products have been tested on a variety of breeds including Chihuahuas, Staffs and Jack Russell terriers.

Here is a photo of the gorgeous Shelby Stormchi (sister of No 2's gorgeous fluff ball) testing her pink & purple tuggy. More photos of our new pet range will follow soon.







So for now we are busy cutting out patchwork squares, making tuggy toys, sewing, knitting and card-making! We are still working on getting our website online and hope to bring you some good news on this really soon.

P.s: Don't forget we are also organising a craft fair for local non-for-profit organisation Jack's Dream on 24th November! Please come along and show your support!

Jack's Dream Christmas Craft Fair 24th Nov 2012

We are delighted to tell you that Crafty Claires are organising a Christmas Craft Fair for local non-for-profit organisation called Jack's Dream. It will be at St.Barnabas Church in Bexhill, East Sussex and doors will open to the public 10.30am until 4pm on Saturday 24th Novemer.

All money raised on the day from raffles, refreshments and table fees will go to this excellent cause. To find out more about this organisation please check out their website http://www.jacksdream.org/

We have already had an amazing interest in the craft tables from the crafting community and we still have a few tables available if any crafters are interested. Please get in touch with us via our blog, Facebook page or email (thecraftguides@gmail.com) to request a booking form. Tables are £12 each or £10 if you bring your own table. All tables must be paid for in advance. We are attempting to keep the crafts as diverse as possible and will ensure to give crafters the best pitch available for their crafts, although we are of course restricted by the venue.

Hopefully this will be a fantastic day for Jack's Dream and for the crafters. So if you want to help us raise a lot of money for this organisation, support local talent and crafts people and pick up some fabulous Christmas presents and other Christmas needs then please come along and support us on the 24th November!

More details on who will be there and of course photos from the event will be posted on this blog.

Mo-Makes

Crafty Claires have got another craft fair next weekend which we are starting to get ready for. Whenever we do craft fairs it is never just the two of us. We are always joined by No 2's Mum and Nana. They make wonderful jams and chutneys, as well as various beautiful knitted items. We usually have three stalls between us although this weekend it will be only two as the jams and chutneys will be staying at home.

No 2's Mum has come up with her own brand and business for her knitted crafts which she is calling Mo-Makes. Of course Mo-Makes is affiliated with Crafty Claires and we would like to help promote her wonderful stuff. As well as making beautiful knitted jackets such as this circular knitted jacket she also makes other things including lovely soft baby blankets.

If these were not special enough she has also just started to make knitted jackets for dogs. They look super cute and Crafty Claires hope to bring you some photos of these soon. She is also taking orders and is eager to develop this range so if anyone is interested please leave a message on this blog and we can pass it on!






She has also started a Facebook page called Mo-Makes which is well worth checking out. If you wish to contact her directly for any interest in either dog jackets, or baby blankets and baby and children's knitted items then you can use the Facebook page to do this too.

As I said at the start Mo-Makes will be available at certain local Craft Fairs as well as Crafty Claires, so why not come and see us when we are next at a craft fair!

Male Greeting Cards

Making cards is a lot of fun but one of the main problems with this craft is making suitable male cards. It is very easy to make cards for females and children as there are an abundance of stuff available. However trying to make manly cards particularly for older men is not only difficult but limited in what designs you can use, often falling into cliché! However recently I have been lucky enough to find some new designs that were workable and I wanted to show off some of the finished results. I still have more to make but here are a few of the ones so far!

As mentioned in the previous blog we are taking a break from Craft Fairs for July, but we are still doing our own crafts. We have another craft fair in August and we are both hoping to have some new stuff to display. No 2 is busy working on quilts and knitting while I have a new range of female cards as well as the male cards to make.
As soon as we have some more stuff to show you we will put some photos on here. Also don't forget to check out our Facebook page either!


Hugs


No 1
xxx

Rebranding

Throughout July we are taking a break from going to craft fairs, due to other commitments. However this does not mean we are not doing any Crafty Claires stuff. In fact far from it! We are currently working on rebranding and trying to finish the design for our new website so we can finally get it online. Its taken longer than anticipated but we hope to finish it very soon. When we are ready to launch it, we will of course let you know on the blog too!

One of the hold ups has been sorting out a new logo. This seemingly simple task has actually taken us ages and we were starting to think we would never find something suitable. However over the last few days we have had a bit of a breakthrough and we are delighted to report we finally have a new logo! Yay! So here it is. (This is a bit of an exclusive as nobody has seen it yet, so this is its first "official" outing!).

Ta dah! So what do you think? Cool huh? We wanted to incorporate the many different aspects of Crafty Claires as well as being creative and fun. We think it is very cool and are looking forward to using it on a more regular basis and seeing it on the aforementioned website. 

As well as working on the website we are also carrying on with our many crafts. No 2 is currently working on another baby quilt as well as her knitting. She recently finished making some fabulous patchwork bags and a patchwork cushion that sold as soon as it was put out. She also keeps promising to make some more of her felt bags which went down so well when she made them previously. On top of this No 2 is also looking at expanding her craft range into a dog range. Once she has started making some things we will put some pictures on here for you to see. 

As for No 1 she has been busy making male greetings cards for the recent Fathers Day and male birthdays. She has also been trying to diversify the design of her cards to suit a much more varied market, while also making cards for a few upcoming family birthdays and a recent Get Well Soon card for a very brave young man who had an operation on his lip. She is also continuing to work on a lovely range of knitted baby cards with No 2's Nana. The framed decoupage is also still an option but so far has not had much interest. 

Both of us are always looking at ways to expand and diversify our range while also developing our own craft kits. We are both creative people and ideas can strike in the strangest of places. The starter for ten is usually when one of us says to the other, "I have had an idea......."! Thats when we know we're in trouble!! 

We will be back to doing Craft Fairs in August when hopefully the weather will have finally realised its suppose to be summer, which doesn't just mean sunshine but also not much rain, no gale force winds and warmer temperatures! 

Quilts

Crafty Claires has recently started working on quilts. This has included quilted bags as well as small baby quilts.  We are also currently working on another quilting idea which we will tell you all about really soon.

This is the very gorgeous Tigger baby quilt!

When I say we have been working on quilts, in actual fact the majority of the work has been done by No 2. She is the seamstress. No 1's involvement was mainly helping chose the fabric and helping to pin the patches together for the quilted bags. Beyond that it was words of encouragement and "oooing" and "ahhing" at how good they were looking! No 2 keeps threatening that No 1 will be doing more sewing stuff soon but for the time being I think it best if No 1 sticks to her papercraft! Not that I am biased or anything!

Another baby quilt is on its way. This time its a Beatrix Potter design, as well as more patchwork items and more information on our other quilting plans!

More photos will follow soon as we are always working on craft stuff and finding new ways to expand the Crafty Claires range.

My First Attempts at Iris Folding

At Christmas my Mum gave me a large goody box filled with individually wrapped craft presents! There were many gorgeous treasures for embossing, stamping, decoupage, as well as card stock, backing papers, glitter glue etc etc.
Amongst these wonderful things were two Iris paper folding kits and papers. I had seen Mum's iris folding cards but had never had a go myself and it was on my list of things to try hence why Mum included them in the box. As I have been so busy since Christmas with museums, dissertation and craft fairs I have only recently got a chance to have a go. Here are some photos of my first attempts!

I really enjoyed the paper folding part and was very impressed with the finished effect. However I did find it difficult to finish off the rest of the card and find different ways of doing it. In all the examples I could find they had used peel offs to create borders and decorate the edges. I wasn't too keen and thought that looked a bit plain, so I have tried experimenting with different ways of finishing them off including embellishments and beads, glitter glue and the odd peel off.

I am not 100% satisfied with the finished cards however other people have been delighted with them, so perhaps I am just being too hard on myself. Anyway now you have seen the photos you can decide for yourself!

TTFN

No 1
xx

More Cards from No 1

Due to need and demand I have been trying to expand my range of cards! Here are some photos of my latest New Baby cards, and Male Birthday.

These New Baby cards with the very sweet knitted booties on are a joint project between myself and No 2's Nana. I made three originally which she was very impressed with and has asked me to do more. So she does the complicated knitted part and I turn them into gorgeous new baby cards. 

I will share more creations soon!

No 1

xx

New line

Here at Crafty Claire's we are working very hard on our new lines to add to our existing table bookings.

Between Dissertation writing no 1 is working on a range of New Baby cards. And between the children and Heading up the Events team at the Museum No 2is working on finishing off Patchwork shopping bags. We are hoping that these will appeal to people as they are slightly different.
Another of our new range is going to be patchwork quilts and children's quilts. We will be offering the normal type of quilts and what are now known as memory quilts. I (No2) have started making a memory quilt for my daughter, it is made out of patches of her favourite clothes and fabrics. This will i hope be something she will treasure as she grows up, and if she has children of her own it will be passed down to them.

This is something we will be offering to customers if they wish to have one made specifically for them. They can provide some of their favourite materials and we will co-ordinate the rest for them. They are to choose the size and shape.

Our next fair is the 2nd Sat in May at St Barnabus Church. In fact we have booked for every month this year except July and August.

Birthday Cards by No 1

St. Barnabas Craft Fair 10th March

Today Crafty Claires had its first craft fair outing at St.Barnabas Church's monthly craft fair. No 1 showed off her cards and framed decoupage while No 2 displayed her various bags, scarves and snood! We were joined by No 2's Mum and Nan who also had a table each selling jams, chutneys and preserves on one and knitted items on the other.

It was a very busy day with plenty of people out and about enjoying the sunshine and warmer weather. There was lots of people looking at our table and No 2 managed to sell one of her felt bags. We also sold one of our Crafty Claires Stick Weaving Kits. No 2's Mum did a roaring trade with her jams, chutneys and preserves with many people asking if she will be back next month!

There were lots of fantastic craft stalls at the Fair and we made sure we took the time to have a good look around at the other stalls. We met lots of interesting people and made some useful contacts for The Craft Guides website.



We had a very enjoyable day and have already booked another three tables for April! Better start making some more stuff ..........!

Happy Crafting!

No 1's Framed Decoupage

Following a suggestion from No 2 I have branched out from doing cards. These are my first and second attempts at doing framed decoupage pictures.

No 1
xx

No 2's Scarves & Bags

Here are some of No 2's wonderful scarves and bags that will also be making an appearance at the Craft Fair this weekend!

No 1's Easter Cards

As we are attending a Craft Fair this weekend I have been busy trying to make Easter Cards! Here are a very small sample of some of my recent Easter creations!
Hope you like them
No 1
xx