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: 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!

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!

Saints Festive Street Fair

It's here! It's here! It has finally come around and we are gearing up for a fantastic day on Sunday!

We have a fantastic range of stalls offering vintage and handmade products so if you love old stuff or you love handmade, unique new stuff come and see us, i'm sure it's going to be a fantastic day.

Keep your fingers crossed for no rain for us! I'll post loads of pictures after the event.

DotComGiftShop

Well everyone, I had a very exciting email yesterday! Dotcomgiftshop have reviewed this hear blog on their website in their own "Crafty Blogs We Love" section. How ruddy exciting is that?! That's the first time i've had a response like that to my little blog. More news there soon hopefully. Especially as its the kind of online shop that stocks lots of yummy vintage style things, polka dots, flowery and french style! I'm pining after one of the Victorian Parasols myself!

In other news I have been busy sending away internet orders (these are on the up aswell which is also very exciting!) and making loads of new badges to sell at the upcoming I Make Fun Stuff Craft Market. I have also started printing new tote bags for the same event. I am really enjoying printing my new designs. I bought an A3 screen for printing bigger designs and it is so darn cool. I wanted to show you pictures of the new stuff but since Autumn has set in all the good light in the evening has left. Luckily it's half term next week so I will be at home during the day and can take some shots.

Watch out for those, blog posts are much more exciting with images I know!

Woodbridge Vintage and Comtemporary Fair & A Sorry!!

Hi everyone!! Firstly i'm sorry i've been so incommunicado for the last few weeks. Very few updates I am very sorry! I started back at work at the college and am working so many hours then popping out in the evening to Chris', my folks' and to see friends I am shattered every night! I haven't even had time to make anything and have bought magazines I haven't had time to read. Now i'm feeling a bit more with it (its Saturday thank god!!) I must not neglect you again!!

SO!!!! Here are some images from the second Woodbridge Vintage and Contemporary Fair. This time LoveOne had a stall which I helped run with Nicola who you can see in the picture sitting at the back sending a text hehe! Isn't the stall lovely?? We had such a successful day! Oh my goodness so much better than the last few events Cathy and Myself have done. It was an excellent day and I got some goodies myself which I will try and take photos of tomo. I was giddy with vintage excitement! OooooO!!!!

There were so many excellent stalls over flowing with goodies and beautiful things to buy. I sold lots of union jack bunting and badges which was so exciting!! AND had a few shop owners interested in my stuff and several stall holders interested in our fair at the end of November (post about that coming up)

What an excellent day we had! There is another on 12th December and if we don't get a stall this time we'll definitely be visiting!

i make fun stuff

Chris has just made a website dedicated to our craft fair project I Make Fun Stuff.

www.imakefunstuff.co.uk

We will be updating the site with any information or new developments with the project. I am currently waiting to hear back from a potential venue and then things will really start coming together.

So if you are interested in the fair, but not sure whether you want in or not yet because it really is at it's beginning stages keep checking the site, and maybe you'll feel more interested soon!

Craft Sellers Wanted

For several months now Chris and I have been thinking about putting on our own craft fair. As regular readers will know I have done a few fairs in the past few months and they have not been very successful! I have many ideas on why that is but the main one is that I think there are too many different types and styles of craft put together and that so far my 'style' hasn't fitted with everyone elses.

Luckily thanks to reading many blogs some of which based in my region (East Anglia) I know that all is not lost and there are people out there doing similar things with the same intentions. And there are similar fairs going on with lots of success!

So here is the first step of this process. We are looking for craft sellers who would be interested in having a stall at our planned fair. It will be in central Ipswich, and the stalls will be very reasonably priced as long as we get enough people. We want cool, fun, exciting, interesting, crafts and arts, we want to stand out from the usual craft fairs.

We are in the very early stages at the moment because we don't want to hire the venue and not get enough stall holders so we are just looking for people to register their interest with us so we can then say 'yes' to people and book the venue and give you a date and other info.

Please email imakefunstuff@googlemail.com to say 'Yes i'm interested!' thank you!