Fair from the madding crowd

It was the 2nd Annual Craft Candy Spring Fling yesterday, held at the Millennium Gallerys, and I think it was the best one so far!  It was a beautiful sunny day, and hundreds of people stopped by to say hello and shop!

The Millennium Galleries, Sheffield (photo by Owen Waterhouse)

Surrey Streeet entrance (photo by Owen Waterhouse)

I didn’t have a stall this time, but I was helping out on the welcome table in the morning with some of the other Craft Candy ladies…Vyctoria, Kati and Alison, and we had a lovely time chatting and selling raffle tickets to everybody.

The Welcome girls

Kati, Alison and Vyctoria

All of the raffle prizes were very generously donated by the stallholders, and put together were worth a fortune!  All of the proceeds from the raffle will go towards keeping the craft fairs and workshops running in Sheffield.

Yes it is

The raffle prizes

As soon as the fair opened at 10am, there were lot’s of people coming in and looking round, it was really busy.  There were over 1200 people in attendance over the course of the day!  I think it’s a Craft Candy record!

Escalators

Shoppers (photo by Owen Waterhouse)

The Long Gallery (photo by Owen Waterhouse)

Some of the stalls in the Long Gallery, in a moment of calm

When I finished at 1.00pm, I met up with Joey.  I couldn’t wait to look round all the stalls!

Heather Dewick Bookbinding - beautiful handmade books

This is Heather’s stall, I love Heather’s handmade books, they are really lovely. She makes sketchbooks, notebooks, journals, photo albums, and any other sort of book you care to imagine, as well as doing book restoration.  I did the bookbinding workshop last year and learnt how to make one myself!  There will be more workshops coming up, so if you fancy learning how to handmake your own sketchbook, check the Craft Candy workshops page.

Abi on the Picky Miss sock monster stall

Abi’s sock monsters are so cool, they’re crazy and amazing, and I bought a brilliant pincushion.  It’s shaped like a turtle and I love it…I’ve been after a pincushion for ages, but I didn’t want a boring one!  Abi makes all sorts of monsters, big, little, scary, cute, they all have their own characters!  Click here to read her blog, I’ve spotted Pinkerton on there! (that’s the name of my pin cushion turtle btw, yeh it’s good aint it?)

My new sock turtle pin cushion, Pinkerton!

Abi also does sock monster workshops sometimes too, so if you want to make your own, check the workshops page!

Get out of my head! From the Lilidrawspictures stall.

I got a fab badge from Kay of Lilidrawspictures fame!  And I got another from Lily Be Funky, who was stall sharing with Molly’s Mum!  Both girls belong to the Nottingham Craft Mafia.

Yellow bird - I love the way the badge is packaged too!

The Molly's Mum, and Lily Be Funky stall - I like that orange fox, see him?

There were so many stalls that I loved, and I couldn’t take pics of all of them, but I did particularly like Sarah Culleton’s table.  She had made it look really antiquey and pretty, and she’s a very clever lady too coz her bags and purses and brooches are amazing!

Sarah Culleton's table - I love the half moon clutch bags with enamel flowers!

I saw a beautiful blue bag with some kittens on it!  And I went back and bought it!  I love it!

Kitten bag, by the talented Sarah Culleton

Sarah’s bags and purses are all unique, and distinctive.  As it says on her business card, they ‘are designed and handmade to perfection, from the finest fabrics, vintage findings, and recycled materials’.  You can really tell that a lot of work has gone into every item!  You have to check out Sarah’s shop pages (I think she has a new website coming soon) so in the meantime, here is the Sarah Culleton Etsy shop, and here is Sarah’s Big Cartel shop…beautiful lovely things, I love my bag, practical as well as gorgeous!

Our neighbours cat (Cookie) called round this morning and also liked the bag a lot!

The shopping continued as I bought a green (favourite colour) hair comb from Do Dads and Whats Its – they don’t have a link as they only sell at craft fairs, but they do lots of the Sheffield vintage ones too I think so look out for them!  They sell bright customised jewellery, like brooches and hairslides.

Green feather comb

The Do Dads and Whats Its stall (photo by Owen Waterhouse)

I also must say that I really love the work of Elodie G!  She was sharing a table with James Green Printworks, and I think her drawings are lovely.  I bought her little book, called ‘Funny things people said to me recently’.  It reminds me a little bit of the quotes book I keep, and I do love the things people say!  Elodie’s book  is beautifully illustrated!

James Green Printworks & Elodie G

I also have a copy of  the Castle Market fanzine reserved, which Elodie collaborated on with our friend Diane.  I can’t wait to see it!  Infact, if you want to get a copy for yourself, you need to be quick as only a limited number have been printed!  Click here for more info!

Funny things people said to me recently - by Elodie G

One of Elodies beautiful drawings from her book

That was it for my little shopping spree, but here are a couple more stalls which I love!

Lucy Spurrier (Lucy Lettice!)

Lucy is a talented Sheffield artist who sells digital collage giclee prints, which are really quirky and colourful.  I really like the treescape, and the framed squirrel pic on her table. She’s also started selling cards too, which are just as good as the big pics!  Check out Lucy’s Etsy shop to see more.

Siansburys! (pic by Owen Waterhouse)

And I do love Sian’s monkeys so much…here she is disappearing under a pile of them!   Sian was sharing a stall with her Dad, Bryn, who is an amazing painter, have a look at his website here.  I tried to get to their stall to say hello, but there were so many people crowded round I didn’t quite manage it!  I dream of owning my very own sock monkey one day soon!

Here is Bryn, hard at work on his stall.

Other artists whose work I really liked included Jane Nicholson, who is an illustrator and screenprinter.  She works in ink to produce simple line drawings of burlesque themed ladies.  Her printed bags with the cheeky drawings on made everybody smile!  I also really liked Vicky Stevensons illustration and photography stall.  In particular I loved her polaroid images, and her cute little badges and stickers.  Check out her website here. She is holding a free to enter giveaway at the moment, where you can win lots of lovely stuff!  Go to www.vicky.com/giveaway to find out how!

Jane Nicholson with some of her framed burlesque illustrations (photo by Owen Waterhouse)

Vicky Stevenson's stall (photo by Owen Waterhouse)

I can’t wait until the next fair now, which will be in July.  If you want to keep up to date with the Craft Candy fairs and affairs, then check the Craft Candy website for more details.  Also, there are going to be loads of exciting new work shops coming up, so remember to check the workshop page!  Thanks to both Sarah and Kati for putting together the best fair yet!  They put in a lot of hard work and organisation.  Oh and if you want to see lot’s more photos of all the stalls, all taken by resident fair photographer Owen, then click here! (He’s not really a photographer btw, he’s a silversmith, but he’s multi-talented!)

People who like cake - meeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!

After the fair, Joey and me were just passing the new Fancie Cupcakes stand in the Winter Gardens on our way to the pub, when we were drawn over and felt compelled to make a purchase, agreeing that it was a ‘special day’, and that was a good enough reason to eat cake.  You really need to try a Fancie cupcake if you haven’t already, mine was delish.

Fancie cupcakes - mine's the pink one, it had hearts and glitter on it! YUM!

In the pub Joey showed me the latest copy of Making Crafts Magazine, the new craft mag that both she and Claire have appeared in recently! Clever girls!

Making Gifts Mag

Joey's interview!

There was a meet the maker type interview with Joey in this months edition!

Joey's Jewellery Roll, I love the stars!

Joey's patchwork bag

Claire’s featured project shows step by step instructions on how to create a beautiful cross stitch wedding sampler.  I’ve never done any cross stitch before, I wouldn’t mind having a go one day!

I hope Lucinda and James live happily ever after!

Claire's Cross stitch sampler

Click here to read Claire’s blog!

The big wheel

I took this on my way to the bus.  What a lovely day!