Renegade Market London Saturday 22nd November 2014

On Saturday Chris and I made our annual trip to the Renegade London craft market  and it was as awesome as ever.

Luckily for me it's just after my birthday so I hold out and Chris buys my gifts from there so I get lots of things I really want. Below is a picture of my haul and where each item came from. Excuse the pic, it's a quickie I took with my iPhone and then Instagrammed!

Temporary Cat Tattoos and Postcard from Hello Harriet

Hand painted Cat necklace and brooches from Emma Carlisle

Chevron Necklace from Nylon Sky

Pencil Brooch from Rock Cakes 

Cat Tape and Notebook from Charlotte Farmer

Acrylic Cat Necklace and Ring from Little Moose

This is really only a drop in the ocean compared to what I wanted to buy. I'm already trawling through Etsy looking for the things I left behind!

I Make Fun Stuff Pup-Up Shop: Staff Picks

The pop-up shop has now been open for 5 weeks and we have been really busy promoting it, and the work we sell, a lot of the time using social media.

One of the ways we have been showcasing products is by each staff member picking their own "Staff Pick" when they are working in the shop. We then display it on the table as people come in so it is easy for them to find when they visit.

I thought i'd show you some of the fabulous work that has been chosen as Staff Picks over the last 5 weeks. 

This lightening bolt knitted purse is by Bob & John Knitwear and is just £16. These are contemporary and quirky, just how we like our knitting!

These fabulous card packs are made by Katrine Macklin. They are one off collaged cards with original illustrations screen printed over the top, each one is different (obviously) so you'll have yourself a unique piece of art as well as a card to give to a friend. Just £5 each!

This Orford Ness Lighthouse print is made from an original painting by Rebecca Pymar. Mounted and ready for your to frame for just £18. We also do this image as a card too, a bargain, and a mini artwork at just £2. All of Rebecca's work that we stock depicts places, attractions and resorts local to us in Suffolk, that's why it's so popular!

This handmade pouch by Kellee Rich is painted be hand, it's an original illustration and one of a kind. So what more could you want? This one is currently in our Maritime Weekend themed window. There are Maritime themed things going on in Ipswich all weekend which is part of the Celebrate Ipswich Festival.

More Staff Picks to come in the future! 

Check them out every day on our Facebook page 

Practice Makes Perfect

For the last few weeks I've been concentrating on practicing my drawing and illustration skills. I want to be better at drawing people, facial features, proportions and hands and also develop a style I can call my own. 

Every year I have students who hate drawing from observation. Usually because they struggle with it so don't want to do it. And I always say that the only way they will improve is to practice. Even if no-one ever sees it, practice is what makes perfect. 

So here are the results of my practising. Some went wrong. Some aren't finished. Some i'm really pleased with. 

I like sketching out in pencil first then using a fine liner. I've added colour to these with Posca pens but I'm about to try using some gouache and combining it with my Poscas. More of that to come. 

What do you need to practice? 

I Make Fun Stuff: The Shop is Open!

Wow I've been really slack haven't i? I'd been pretty good at updating this hear blog and then it slipped back into obscurity again. I'm sorry for that but there is good reason! We held our summer street market on the 22nd June and then the very next week we opened our shop. So it's been a bit manic. 

So because that's the reason why I've been AWOL I thought it would be the best thing to blog about. Then I'll show you what I've been up to art wise since the shop opened.

The shop was opened by our good friend Freddie Millerchip and his Dad, local illustrator Joel Millerchip. Lesson learnt there, make sure your scissors are sharp!! They got there in the end. 

The shop is filled with work by artists and designers from East Anglia who regular take stalls at our craft and vintage markets. We carefully selected the work to ensure that it was of the highest quality and unique. It's so important to us that the shop is individual, a one-off and some thing new and exciting in our home town of Ipswich and sells products you can't buy on the high street. 

Feedback so far has been really positive so we're really looking forward to what will happen over the coming months and to start holding workshops and talks in the space as well. 

Let me know if you've visited and what you think! 

The Edit: Pick Me Up 2014

Chris and I went to Pick Me Up back in April, it's an awesome contemporary graphic arts festival held every year at Somerset House. I wrote this blog post just after we went but it didn't publish, so here it is now. 

We wanted to go because we're both really into graphics and illustration and love gathering inspiration but it was also really exciting to see how the artists/designers had set up their spaces. It gave us lots of display ideas for the shop. 

I'm afraid my photos aren't that great but here are my favourites for you...

Lynnie Zulu

The Great British Emporium

Puck Collective 

Animaux Circus

I have lots of other badly taken photos so I'll keep those to myself but we had an absolutely fantastic time. My ideas are firing away I just need time to get making and experimenting. I've been on a creative high ever since! 

If you went to Pick Me Up, tell me who's work you loved. 

Norwich Art Car Boot

Yesterday Chris and I went up to the Norwich Art Car Boot. It was partly organised by our friends at Print to the People who regular take a stall at our I Make Fun Stuff markets. 

We we're so excited to go and see what it was all about. Their posters were so cool (what would you expect from a group of printmakers?) and it sounded like a perfect Sunday activity. I'm telling you know, it was worth the trip! 

I mean look at that! Supremely cool. Here are some pics from the day....

Test Prints for sale from Print to the People 

Looking twinkly in Redwell's Brewery where there was live music.

We also gorged ourselves on "Beast" burgers (pulled pork and beef brisket) from Harbercue which were absolutely DELICIOUS! Oh my word they were amazing. If you're ever in Norwich go check them out. I can't recommend them enough. 

All in all we had an awesome time and bought lots of goodies. We also found some more stockists for the I Make Fun Stuff shop, so more about those in the future. 

I hope they do the Art Car Boot again! We love you Norwich Art Car Boot. 

I Make Fun Stuff Shop Update

Hi guys! I'm sorry I've dropped off the radar a little bit. We've been so so busy getting the pop-up shop ready I've thought about nothing else. And definitely haven't had time to make any of my own work. 

So I though the most sensible thing to do would be to post about the shop again. I hope that's not boring! 

We had loads of stock come in and I'll be previewing some of the fabulous goods we currently have in stock in the coming weeks. So we changed the window display, it was a little painful to clean our painted logo off the window. Hours to create and minutes to remove. Now it's full of stock and bits of furniture we've discovered. 

Above you can see me tweaking the display a little. It was so much fun unpacking all the wonderful things we've been sent. Like Christmas but none of it was for us! All future presents will be bought from the same place from now on!! 

Heres a picture of the window as a whole.

And a wee close up. 

Sorry the photos are a bit dodgy. It's very hard to take good images through reflective glass.

More photos coming up later in the week of products! 

 

I Make Fun Stuff: The Shop

This year is looking very exciting for I Make Fun Stuff because we were recently asked if we would open a pop up shop in our town, Ipswich. Of course we said, YES! 

Ipswich is currently part of an EU funded project called Recreate. It is also happening in other towns in the UK and Europe. In Ipswich, Recreate aims to improve the economic prosperity of our town by helping new creative businesses grow and make use of empty shop spaces. Their website at http://www.ipswichrecreate.org gives you stacks more information so go take a look at that. 

So we said yes to the shop knowing that we three would not be able to staff it as we all have full time jobs but by using volunteers and local arts organisations that would continue Recreate's work of supporting creative entrepreneurs. We will stock the shop with a selection of work by the fantastic people who take stalls at our regular markets and other small creative businesses from around the UK. 

We got the keys on Tuesday so we checked out the space and did some measuring and then on Thursday we drew on the window....

We also made a time lapse video of the little project. 

We plan to document the process of setting up the shop and when we change the window displays so subscribe to our channel to keep up to date with videos.

We are now busy sourcing vintage and retro furniture to use for display and contacting our sellers to send us products to stock the shop. This is probably the most exciting thing to happen to I Make Fun Stuff in our 5 years of existence!

New Product: Patterned Shapes Tote

I recently finished printing a design I'd started months ago. Do any of you start a project and then just leave it, unfinished because the momentum you had has gone? I do that too often than I should really. 

This design started off as just the three circle prints in yellow, green and turquoise. I planned to print lots of different coloured circles originally but then the other week I was inspired by some wrapping paper I bought that was lots of different shapes. So I decided to just go for it on top of the circles. 

I also was rather excited because I had a little fluorescent pigment I wanted to try so I cut these little confetti shapes and printed over the top. 

What I love most about screenprinting is the layers you can create from printing colours on top of each other. I predominantly use a print paste which has a transparent base giving you that layered depth of colour. However the fluorescent pigment works best in an opaque base and I think adds a great POP of strong bold colour to the design. 

You know it's good when you shout "OH MAN" when you lift up the screen! I printed the confetti on to 3 blank bags I had and will add to that design over the next few weeks. 

If you don't already follow me on Twitter and Instagram my handle is @jesskabroad I'm going to have some exciting news to announce tomorrow so follow if you're interested. 

Handmade & Timeless Market 6th April 2014

Today was the second I Make Fun Stuff market of the year in Ipswich Town Hall. We had 41 stalls offering beautiful handmade wares and the best vintage clothes and homeware you could imagine.

I didn't have time to take photos of every stall sadly but I did have time to part with some money and buy some fabulous things. So here are the awesome things we bought.....

"Wood" zine by Mister Millerchip. Inspired by a wall in Christchurch Park, Ipswich. 

"Anning" necklace by Eclectic Eccentricity. They have lots of beautiful necklaces at the moment featuring natural and tumbled gemstones. That's right up my street! (I used to want to be a geologist) Sorry to Alice for featuring the fabulous specimen card.

Front and back shots of an awesome A4 notebook I bought from Print to the People. I love these guys, so many beautiful screen printed goodies. And yes, that is a space shuttle that is also a wolf. How good is that!?!

"Make it Happen" wall plaque by Jubilique and Louise. These are new and so cute. There was also "Home Sweet Home" and "I Love You to the Moon and Back" as well as cute little triangle ones too. All very reasonably priced!

A beautifully neat handmade notebook by Shedquarters. These guys were new to the market and came all the way from Cambridge. They had beautiful notebooks, massive prints and printed bags. Go check out their Etsy shop. We hope they want to come back! 

I also bought something else for a good friend of mine, for her birthday so I can't show you that one. I'm sure I didn't buy enough though! So many other things I could have bought.

The next market is on Sunday 22nd June. I better start saving up!