Craftwerk crimbo goodies
When I came home from Craftwerk last Sunday, I had quite a haul of business cards for cool independent creative people who sell their wares online. Just in time for Christmas, I can pass their names and websites along to you! (Pictures below link to the individual shops if you click on them.)
I kind of fell in love with the the smaller charm bracelets and necklaces made from vintage trinkets and reclaimed jewellery at the Vanity Found table. They’re pretty, and the charms are quite unusual. I particularly like the “tea for two” series, pictured below. Her business cards were also cool, and succinctly combined two of my favourite things, with contact details rubber-stamped onto the backs of found photographs. Such a great, and simple, idea - I’m almost tempted to steal it to make my own business cards, instead of ordering them through Moo next time…
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Ninja Bunny by Philip Spence is a comic all about the adventures of a cute, but evil rabbit with killah skillz. I like the badges. Badges and mini comics make good stocking-fillers!
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There are some interesting accessories made from recycled fabrics at Conversations With Flowers, like this fabric foliage bracelet.
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Julia Pott is an illustrator who makes art books which you can buy at her shop. They’re a cross between travel sketchbooks, graphic design illustration and autobiographical visual notes, as far as I can tell. Worth a look for an unusual present, as they’re less than a tenner.
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Jessie Chorley, makes art books and jewellery. I like the fairy-tale brooches.
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I also fell in love with some of the whimsical jewellery made by her studio mate Buddug Wyn Humphreys, especially the pretty pendants and brooches printed via enamel transfer.
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Mary Kilvert does pretty, feminine illustration and seems to favour birds quite a lot. She has an Etsy shop where you can buy lovely low-cost pocket mirrors and badges. This sausage dog badge set is a winner.
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Naomi Ryder does embroidery illustration. You might have seen her recent magazine work for things like Plan B. She doesn’t have an online shop as such, but you can order work to commission.
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I bought this cute and funny little Gocco Print (below) from cactus hands for the princely sum of 50p, but she also had some lovely Christmas stockings on sale, made of unusual printed fabric for £8.00 each. Which would be perfect for you to buy for Crimbo, so Santa can fill them up, except her shop doesn’t seem to be online yet. Shame, that. (She was also one of the Craftwerk organisers, but the other site doesn’t seem to have anything on it apart from the flyer for Sunday’s event, either. Ah well.)
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Annoyingly, the mmmbiscuits site seems a bit broken, as there aren’t any proper links to the illustrations, which is a shame because I like her drawing style and wanted to show it off a bit here. She also makes and sells ugly-cute monsters, some of which can be used as pendants, like this one pictured.
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Really cute accessories from creamrose, mostly made from buttons with appealing illustrations on them. They have a great range of hairclips, earrings, badges etc. which are all quite affordable and would fit in an envelope for easy sending. I like the pretty, girly flowery hair-clips made from vintage buttons, like these yellow chrysanthemums:
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There was something incredibly familiar about Anke Weckmann’s illustration, but I couldn’t work out where I’d seen it before. It occurs to me that it’s the kind of thing that shows up on ffffound from time to time. She has an Etsy shop where you can buy cool prints and brooches, like “this girl“, pictured below:
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Handmade books and screen-printed cards from Alex Czinczel. I loved the tiny hand-bound Alphabat book (it would make a lovely poster too!), and the little book with the embroidered illustrations, but I couldn’t really afford one, so I settled for a screen-printed chinchilla postcard at 50p instead. There’s a fun quirky sense of humour about her work, though. Look! A dog playing the piano!
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This postcard image (below) actually shows up in the photo in Wednesday’s Comiket post, because it was too big to add with all the business cards, but I actually bought it at Craftwerk. Great use of colour from Karoline Rerrie, but unfortunately her site isn’t working either so you can’t buy anything from her just at the moment. But when it is, you should! She also does a fun x-rated comic called Nurse Pussy.
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Xtina Lamb also doesn’t feature in the photo at the top of this post because , being a friend of mine I already knew who she was and how to find her wares, but she’s definitely worth a mention in this list because her handmade books and prints are ace! Plus, she sells hand-printed bunting at £2.50 a letter and you can buy the bunting-tape and threaders off her as well. Everyone needs a bit of bunting joy (and I’m not just saying that as an excuse to use my “bunting” tag again!)
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You can also find quite a few of these talented ladies on Flickr if you run a search for them.