Craft Fair News

Well I did the St Andrews craft fair on Saturday. It was a great venue – a lot more roomy and spacious than the hall in Dunfermline. But I don’t whether it was beacuse of the crappy weather, the time of year, or that all the students started their exams on Saturday [???] but all in all it was a very quiet day. There were a few crowded moments and a few rushes of sales but all in all very slow. So I was quite disappointed by the end of it. I did meet some lovely people though.

First and foremost, I got to meet Kirsty of Lovely Pigeon whose work I’ve admired since I discovered her stuff on Folksy earlier on in the year. She creates the most amazing unique brooches from vintage buttons each with their own personality and name. Visit her Folksy shop to find out more. She and her family, I soon discovered, are badge mad and they bought loads of my badges made from recycled envelopes and magazines. These are a couple of Kirsty’s brooches, the one on the right called Lola who apparently “loves flea markets, vintage and Sunday brunch with lots of friends”.

The stall next to mine displayed the lovely work by Sandra Cassidy who runs Ruby Loves Red. She makes really adorable toys ‘stuffed with love’ out of lovely fabrics some of which are recycled clothes. I particularly like her mice with their cute smiles and frilly little skirts.

Opposite me was the stall of Shelley Konopinski who makes the loveliest little dresses known to little girls under the name of Pinski’s…Lil’ Bubba Things. She uses vintage fabrics mixed with doily’s and handkerchiefs. The dresses come in a variety of sizes, but unfortunately not in adults sizes – I did ask! The whole idea came from being fed up with standard children’s clothes with their multitude of buttons and zips and small openings – with a wriggly active child it was all too complicated and time consuming getting dressed. So she created these dresses that are all made from a single piece of fabric, not unlike a pinafore, that wrap around the child and have press stud buttons on either shoulder. So simple and beautiful. They were really really popular and Sandra and I sat opposite watching her make sale after sale. She doesn’t have a website, so I took this photo of here stall.

I love the way she’s created the clothes lines and I asked her how she’s done this as I thought I could do a similar thing at my Christmas craft fairs to display my festive decorations.

Right at the end when I was packing up Aileen Clarke came up and introduced herself. I’ve seen her work online via Folksy and she’d seen mine. So it was nice to meet a fellow Folksier in person. Unfortunately when I went round the stalls first thing in the morning, I hadn’t made the connection and she wasn’t at her stall to say hello, so I missed out on having a good old natter with her. Maybe I’ll see her at the next one. She makes yummy stuff out of felt:

Visit her shop on Folksy to see more of her work.