Homemaker Pop-Up Sale

Isn't it great when a local arts venue opens up right on your doorstep? The East End of London is a thriving place with plenty of crafty retro festiveness in the likes of Walthamstow, Shoreditch, Bethnal Green, Spitalfields et al but not a lot happens in .... East Ham, which is where I live.

It was great last winter to be able to walk 5 minutes to a local Christmas craft market being held at Red Door Studios. The creative entrepreneurial spirit is fostered by Dolores and Gordon who have taken the lease of a small run down workshop space formerly a glass factory, and turned its use over to creative community events. So far we've seen a craft market, craft workshops, R&B night, Sunday jamming sessions and most recently an Art Exhibition featuring local artists.

There's always coffee, cake and a great deal of goodwill and ideas sloshing about at Red Door events. When Dolores mentioned she wanted to hold a pop-up retro sale, I was more than happy to get involved (especially once I realised Dolores is a bit of a hoarder collector and has a stash of vintage bits and pieces including a shipping container full of old buttons that would make your eyes water).

Behold the first Retro@RedDoor event will be born in September - The Homemaker Pop-Up Sale.

We will transform the studio space at Red Door using furniture and Bric-a-Brac against a backdrop of atomic 50's loveliness designed by myself and built by our local chippie Jason. Here's a scale model of the Sanderson inspired mobiles backdrop I put together so Jason the carpenter knew what to build.

From the model stage to the finished flats utilising my wallpaper hanging skills.

The backdrop is almost finished and we are continuing to source furniture, collectibles and craft items from sellers with a retro edge to put on sale. Along with one off vintage furniture finds, haberdashery and collectibles there will be a stash of 'architectural salvage' and pre-loved 'up-cycling supplies' if sanding down, nailing together and adding your own paint is your thing.

We are drawing on local artisans and volunteers to organise the Homemaker Sale, but we want punters from far and wide to visit the event, buy our wares, drink tea, eat cake and have a good time with us.

We will have a few craft demos and 50's hair and make-over sessions over the two days along with music and general 50's ambiance - there may even be spontaneous dance break outs if I have my way.

So in view of all this crafty retro loveliness bubbling away in East Ham I will continue to post news about the preparations here on the blog and you can follow Homemaker Sale tidbits on Twitter here.

Local blog readers in the area please spread the word and come and visit us in East Ham on September 15th & 16th. My lovely blog readers from further afield - if you've staged similar events please share your tips with me on what makes a successful day and send us your good vibes!

Crochet Card 3D Wall Art - Java Jive

I've been making a few crochet card thingies since I mastered the technique here, but there's a limit to how many pencil holders and nik nak boxes I can have around the place, so i thought ... let's stick it on the wall.

I have always admired the tea-cup shape that I posted about previously from Tea With Friends but I don't drink tea. I dink coffee, a lot of coffee. So here's my homage to my morning Java shot.

I worked out a template in card, then chose some suitable imagery - 'Modern Art'.

I really like the Edward Hopper image of the woman drinking coffee at a table (Automat - Hopper 1927) - I wanted her inside the cup in her isolation so that you had to peek to find her. 

My machine embroidery skills are still in their infancy as you can see! But it's great fun, I'll be practising this over the next few months especially as I picked up a wonderful retro book on the subject from a charity shop last week - deserves a blog post all of its own.

For the background to the finished piece I chose two contrasting fabrics, ran them through the sewing machine then stretched and glued the lot to stiff card. 

Once I'd placed the cup and saucer in a nice dynamic position, a few stitches held the cup and saucer in place and ... ta da!

I'm linking this post with the Handmade Monday linky party - see what everyone else is making this week.

Another Blog Win

Yes! I appear to have a winning streak!

These inspiring pencils came through the post today - my prize from Laura at She Draws. I came across Laura's blog when I was blog hopping looking for drawing inspiration and her blog is inspiring, do check it out.
One of a stack of 2012 promises to myself was to sign up to an art class - I want to get deep and dirty into actual sketchbook productivity - you know with real pencils, paint and glue and all? (Pinterest can only hold my interest for so long).
My first class is in a week or so and I'm looking forward to getting away from my desk and into an Artroom once again - and then out and about as the course promises field trips.
So I'll need to brush up on my camera skills too, which was another promise to myself for 2012 - to read the instruction manual for my camera. The whole manual. And understand it.

I've noticed quite a bit of blog buzz about Bloglovin recently, so in order to keep up to date with blogs I love and people who make me want make, I will be signing up.

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

That's another promise for 2012 - to immerse myself in the good stuff, but know when to shut the laptop and unhook the phone.
Has anyone started a self-help group for Pinterest yet? I hear a lot of crafters say they're hooked into the void of endless cupcake, kitten and fabric pinning.