Rye College Summer Craft Fair & Fun Dog Show - Sat 6th July

Its been nearly a week since the Rye College Summer Craft Fair & Fun Dog Show and I think we and Stormchi Chihuahuas have almost recovered!

It was an amazingly hot day and in fact probably a bit too hot and lovely, as it seemed to  send a lot of local people to the beach or their back gardens with a barbecue instead of to the Craft Fair and Dog Show! However the Dog Show was well attended although that too suffered because of the sun with many dog owners choosing to keep their beloved dog at home and in the shade. But those that did come along had a wonderful time and really enjoyed the experience.

Best In Show, Best Reserve and Best Puppy Winners!

There were 12 classes in all and every class had placings from 1st - 5th with rosettes and goody bags. In addition the 1st, 2nd and 3rd placings of EVERY class also received a bag of dog food kindly donated from Precept Plus.

Winners of Best Pedigree Class

Child's Best Friend Class Winners

There was various classes including pedigree and veterans, as well as fancy dress, waggiest tail and Child's Best Friend. It was a delight to see so many beautiful dogs and to watch them in the show ring. It was also lovely to see the youngsters having a go at showing their dogs! Well Done to everyone who took part!

As well as winning their individual classes all the winners from the 12 Classes were up for the prestigious Best In Show, Best Reserve and of course Best Puppy. The winning dogs won yet another goody bag, a massive 12Kg bag of food from Precept Plus, a beautiful trophy and a gorgeous large rosette!

Best In Show was sponsored by us, the Crafty Claires, while Best Puppy was sponsored by Stormchi Chihuahuas and Best Reserve sponsored by Rye College Governors. We would also like to thank the various places who sponsored the classes including Wagg, 1066 Gym and many others.

Congratulations to all the winners and thank you to everyone who took part!

Winners, organisers and our lovely Judge!

We would also like to say a massive thank you to our lovely judge Hayley and our Steward Malcolm. Thank you for your help on the day (and for taking such brilliant photos!)!

Of course there was also a craft fair and we want to say a massive thank you to all our craft stall holders who turned up on the day and put so much effort in. Your stalls looked amazing. Thank you for your continuing support and we hope you had an enjoyable day despite the heat and numbers!

The Steady Hand stall, just one of the many craft stalls

There was a variety of crafts and stalls including papercraft, fabric craft, flower arrangements, ceramics, jewellery, nappy cakes, cup cakes, knitting, jams & preserves, dog coats, leads and toys, organic dog treats, handmade soaps, wood turning, photography, leather items and mosaics to name but a few! We were also joined by Junkanoo who offered face painting and craft activities for the kids.

As with all our events we do try to offer as diverse a range of stalls as possible although inevitably there are overlaps, so we try to limit our stalls to only 2 of the same craft/produce unless, like with our lovely fabric crafters, there is significant differences between their work so we can have a few more. Thank you to all our stall holders for sharing their beautiful and talented creations with us and the people of Rye.

We would also like to thank the Rye College PTA in particular Cheryl for her hard work and support.

And finally, a massive thank you to all those people who did brave the heat of the first decent summers day we have had this year to come along and support the local crafters and enter the dog show. You were a massive part of the day, so thank you!

Some of No1s recent card makes

Hi Everyone

Here are a few examples of No1s latest card creations. She is very busy at the moment with her dissertation, but she has found time to make some new cards. She also is really excited about the new release from Crafters Companion of Barkley the Dog, although unfortunately its only been released as a CD ROM at the moment! Do Crafts (another of her favourite craft manufacturers) have also recently released a lot of new ranges which are on her wish list including Tilly Daydream, Lucy Cromwell At Christmas, and A Country Christmas. Hopefully she might be able to treat herself to something from her craft wish list soon!!!  Until then hope you like these latest creations!

Hugs

Crafty Claires
xx

Rye College Summer Craft Fair & Fun Dog Show

Rye College Summer Craft Fair and Fun Dog Show will be a fantastic way to spend a summer Saturday!

Saturday 6th July 2013 - 10.30am - 5pm

There will be a wonderful selection of craft stalls inside and outside, selling the very best of local craft and creativity including papercraft and handmade cards, knitted toys, knitted clothing, jams, preserves & Chutneys, beautifully decorated cupcakes, ceramics, fabric crafts, handmade soaps, dog related products and much much more!

Outside there will also be a Fun Dog Show running from 1pm with registration for classes starting from 12.30. There are 12 classes and a Best in Show, Reserve Best In Show and Best Puppy in Show with Rosettes up to 5^th Place.

The 12 classes are:

1 - Best Pedigree
2 - Best Non-pedigree/Cross-breed
3 - Cutest puppy
4 - Best Veteran (7 years and over)
5 - Childs Best Friend (junior handling)
6 - Best Condition
7 - Best Rescue 
8 - Sweetest Expression
9 - Best Movement
10 - Waggiest Tail or stump
11 - Best Fancy Dress
12 - Dog the judge would like to take home

It only costs £1 per dog per class to enter so why not bring your beloved doggy along and have some fun!

If this wasn’t enough there will also be an array of refreshments including a barbecue and licensed bar, as well as live music from the excellent students at the school. Food will be available until 4.30pm.

This is a fundraising event for Rye College so all the money raised from the refreshments and dog show etc will go to the school. There will also be a raffle which will have excellent prizes so well worth a punt on a ticket or two.

Please come along and support local crafters, a local school and have a really good day out!

Free Parking in the school car parking area subject to available spaces. For directions please look out for the signs and the student stewards. 

Time passes quickly

We haven't forgotten our readers! Things have been so busy in our lives that we haven't been able to keep up with anything.
Claire 1 is working hard on her dissertation and i am working hard on being a full time mum, running around with daughter to gym and all the accompanying things for children.

We are working hard on organising another Craft fair, and have a couple of fairs booked and stall holders too. We have our Winchelsea one that we did last year. And Brede we did for the first time last year and had fun so we have booked that again in Nov.

 A new one for us is Parkhurst Hall in our town, this is in August and for a local group called Special Kids. They are a support group for families who have children with special needs. We have booked 2 tables and Mo Makes (my lovely mum) and Nanna's Knits (my nanna) will be having a table each too. They will be there with jams and knitting. WE have our little family of crafting going on and its great to be doing events together. Hopefully it will be successful for us and the support group.

We will be doing our best to stop by and update with our latest antic and craft attempts.
In the meantime its back to ideas and making for me.

C2 x

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