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Posted on 21/02/202030/05/2023 by Louise Hancox Textile Artist — Leave a comment

Featured Artist!

It is well known that many artists and crafts people often struggle with self- esteem and find it difficult to acknowledge their own talent. It can be daunting to put your work out in the public domain. When there is so much time and passion invested in carefully crafted pieces, it can feel as if you are baring your soul for scrutiny.

If, like me, you have no formal artistic training and are completely self taught, feeling your way, experimenting and exploring techniques as you go, it is easy to feel a bit like a fraud amongst other talented makers and artists.

It takes time to build confidence and just one positive comment can make you feel ten feet tall.

So it was in a bit of a mad moment that I applied to be a featured artist with World of Wool. I didn’t really give myself time to talk myself out of it, I just filled out my details and sent off the form!

The site regularly features a variety of makers and their gallery is full of seriously talented textile artists, including the fabulous Moy Mackay.

Imagine my surprise when I received an email two days later telling me they would like to feature me in their latest monthly blog and newsletter!

I was beyond excited and thrilled to think that an organization was interested in my work and prepared to feature it and share it with thousands of their subscribers.

This morning when I opened my email, there it was! A copy of the article and my face staring back at me from the World of Wool newsletter. It feels amazing to have my work acknowledged and it has given me such a confidence boost, just when I needed it.

I started to get feedback on my social media pages almost instantly, lots of congratulations and support from followers and fellow artisans. There was one comment, however, that really made my day, from a lady I hadn’t heard from before and this is what she wrote:

‘And that’s how I came across you. You’re work is beautiful and inspiring. I had lost my mojo a bit with felting even though had just recieved a big order from world of wool. You’ve made me want to get felting again ❤️’

What a wonderful, uplifting comment, how fantastic that someone would take time out of their day to say that in response to my post. She had read the article from her inbox first thing and by the time I had shared the article on social media, she had already looked me up and was engaging with my thread. It was incredible to think that my work had helped to reignite another artist’s passion.

So thank you World of Wool for accepting my application, thank you Andrew Novotny for such a great write up and thank you to each and every one of you who read the article and left some feedback on my social media pages, it really means a great deal.

Please continue to support small business where you can, it’s hard work to find recognition but I am delighted to tell you that I did a little happy dance all the way to my studio this morning!

If you woud like to read the article , please visit:

https://www.worldofwool.co.uk/apps/base/blog/featured-artist-louise-hancox

Posted on 17/02/202030/05/2023 by BeckyCoggins — Leave a comment

Just a Card

Have you heard about the Just a Card campaign?! If you are a fellow maker, or a fan of shopping with independents, you may well have done but if not, grab a cuppa, settle down and let me fill you in!

The Just a Card campaign was founded by Sarah Hamilton who was spurred into action when she spotted this quote from a gallery that was having to close its doors “if everyone who’d complimented our beautiful gallery had bought ‘just a card’ we’d still be open”. Not only is this just super sad to hear, but independent shops, galleries and small businesses are vital to local economies – they make our towns vibrant, interesting places to visit and are a great way for designers and makers to be able to showcase their work. Our high streets would be a lot more boring without them! So the aim of the Just a Card campaign is to encourage people to support and buy from artists, makers, independent shops and small businesses.

You’ve probably heard the saying “every time you buy something from a small business, an actual person does a happy dance!”? Well this couldn’t be truer. Shopping handmade really does mean the world to independent artists and makers – not only are you helping small businesses to stay open, but you are supporting creativity and somebody’s dream. Plus, have you ever noticed how much people appreciate a handmade gift?! They show you’ve taken the time to seek out something you know someone will really love, something that might be really personal and unique – so really, shopping small is a win, win!

The Just a Card campaign really reinforces the message that all purchases, no matter how small, are crucial for independents to survive. And it doesn’t have to be just a card – it could be just a print, just a book, just a mug, just a pin – but every purchase makes a massive difference to artists and makers, and enables them to continue doing what they love.

The campaign is run by a team of wonderful volunteers, and if you would like to support them you can donate on their web page or buy the Just a Card pin, window sticker or print. But the fabulous news is there are also loads of ways you can support the campaign even without spending a penny!

How to get involved:

there is a bunch of free stuff you can download from their website such as blog buttons and flyers & posters for your events
follow the campaign on Twitter and Instagram and like, share and RT their posts
add ‘Just a Card supporter’ to your Instagram bio like this
take part in Just a Card Indie Week – usually in November
and most importantly just help SPREAD THE WORD! Every like, share, RT and conversation about the campaign helps spread the message far and wide!

So who feels ready to be a Just a Card Warrior?! Hopefully the above links are useful and from this handmade maker, thank you very much for taking the time to #shopsmall and #supportindependents!

Posted on 17/02/202030/05/2023 by Fiona — Leave a comment

Winter is slowing creeping away as Spring gathers pace

I have to confess the weather of late has been confusing, from a cloud burst of snow one afternoon, clear blue skies followed less than 24 hours later, chasing its tail the howling gales and flash floods across the country, it’s cold enough to be winter, but the bright blue skies suggest a different story.
So what plants, bulbs, or seedlings can you realistically look at panting whilst the weather is so up and down?

To answer this question it does also depend on a many other factors, including but not limited too the PH levels of your soil, whether you live in a sheltered area or are fully exposed on a cliff top , availability of a greenhouse or somewhere light warm and airy, essentially draught free to give a few answers.
February gardening is all about getting the seeds planted, so get out your old planters and scrape off the top layer of compost and replace with fresh. Seed wise you can sow lettuces in readiness for fresh leaves in May June time, but do ensure they are protected, varieties such as Winter Gem, and Valdor are good winter hardy types but do make sure you plant under cloches

As a general rule, bulbs can be planted out as well, but do remember they tend to prefer light well draining soil, if they are left in wet, heavy soil they are unlikely to thrive. So you can consider broad beans, carrots, parsnips, beetroot, cabbages.
If you are lucky enough to have a greenhouse herb seeds, tomatoes, cucumber can get a good start.

I have started to list a few deeper, larger metal garden planters, these were specifically designed to enable the rooftop or patio gardener to have access to deeper soil thus enabling root vegetables to be sown. grown and eaten from the single metal garden planter. So if you fancy one do let me know!
Fi

Posted on 27/01/202030/05/2023 by BeckyCoggins — Leave a comment

Meet the Maker: Crofts Crafts

So, here goes on my first blog post EVER! And I thought a good place to start would be to share a little bit more about me and Crofts Crafts!

My name is Becky and I currently make greeting cards and gift tags here in the beautiful North Norfolk countryside. If you’ve checked out my shop, you can probably tell my style is quite minimalist – clean and simple and I try to keep it quite natural and rustic looking! Most of my cards are made from recycled Kraft card which I print the greeting on myself, and then use a variety of materials to decorate them including felt, hessian, wooden embellishments and twine. I try to hand make as many embellishments as I can, which can lead to some pretty fiddly work!

I started making handmade cards when I moved to Norfolk from London a few years ago. It started off as a hobby, to send to friends and family, but I found it to be really relaxing and I really enjoyed doing something creative which was very different to the day job! I slowly started doing a few local craft markets which were great fun, and a brilliant way to meet fellow makers and get involved in the local community.

I make cards for most occasions, and also have several ‘just because’ designs. I’m a big believer in encouraging people to connect via good old fashioned snail mail to let someone know you are thinking of them, especially these days when it’s so easy to use technology to connect! There’s nothing nicer than receiving some happy mail and knowing that someone has taken a few minutes out of their day to let you know they care – especially by sending something handmade! I’m also trying to make my cards more sustainable and am moving away from using cello bags – I’m a big fan of the Naked Cards campaign…but I’ll save that for another blog post!

My aim for this year was to set up an online shop to try selling to a wider audience, so I was so happy to find, and be accepted to, TBCH. I love the fact that TBCH is celebrating British designers and makers, and that it is also a relatively new venture (like me!) and I’m excited to slowly grow my shop and get to know other fellow sellers and the TBCH community!

Posted on 24/01/202030/05/2023 by Fiona — Leave a comment

Metal Window Box …..what will you grow in yours?

: Metal Garden Planters Handmade Metal Window Boxes

In many towns and villages around the UK you will often see this beautiful ironwork frames sitting underneath a stunning set off windows, usually the sash wooden framed ones, not your modern uPVC triple glazed designed to lock the world out. This image was taken last year, on a damp grey drizzling kind of day, the triple story house in question is undergoing a mammoth refurbishment, formerly a butchers with the thick wooden floor and huge shop windows on one side of the property, and the other corner the image you see attached, the “private” entrance to the living quarters, notice the railings at street level to the cellar, or coal store as it may well of been. Anyway the reason for my picture….. whilst this one was made from wood, I can very easily make one out of metal, to sit inside these ironwork frames? I can also make the metal boxes to sit either sit of the entrance door, to plant a clematis or ivy from.

Of course you don’t need a fancy pants iron frame to hold a window box in order to breathe some life and colour into your windows, you just need a cill – here is an image from a very happy customer who loves gazing out of her kitchen window and seeing some flowers, some colour and not just her neighbours wall

So, I do take commissions, I always try to manufacture out of the “scrap” pile to reduce our carbon footprint, so if you would like to inject some colour in your window cill, maybe grow some lettuce leaves or have some herbs on your window ledge, do drop me a line and let me help you get growing!

Posted on 21/01/202030/05/2023 by Joysofglass — Leave a comment

The Birth of a Joysofglass Water Lily ..a Work in Progress

I thought you might enjoy some pictures showing how I make my suncatchers so I took some photos when I was making my latest Waterlily and am sharing them here. One of these days I will get Bob my husband to video the process more fully but in the meantime I will leave you with these pictures of most of the stages the Waterlily goes through before it gets into my shop here.

1. Cutting out the pieces. Lay the chosen piece of glass on top of the pattern and trace round each piece using a black permanent marker. Then score each piece with the spring loaded oil-filled glass cutter and snip each piece out. Sounds so easy………
This is the water lily with the leaves and water pieces cut out and waiting for the pink petals.

2. This is some pink glass with the petals marked ready for cutting out.

3. Here is the water lily with all the 39 pieces roughly in place. Now each piece needs to have the edges smoothed on the grinder. To make sure the pieces fit snuggly together and the edges need to be clean and smooth if the copper foil is to adhere firmly to them. Grinding is the messiest process , glass grinders have a water reservoir and that water splashes about and is cold (and wet !). In Winter I always top up with some hot kettle water to stop my poor finger-ends freezing

4. Sometimes I find I am having to press really hard when grinding the glass pieces which results in sore fingers until I realise that my grinding bit has worn smooth. Bob to the rescue as he has a good strong allen key in his toolbox which can change the grinding bit for me in a jiffy.
Thanks Bob xx

5. And so to the grind. I Always wear gloves. In fact I wear gloves whenever I handle unground glass. It takes seconds to put my gloves on and off but if I cut my fingers it takes minutes or even hours to stop the blood enough so I can carry on ! You would be pretty amazed at how long my fingernails are considering my frequent use of a glass grinder. Fingernails also protect finger ends from damage from the grinder so a win win really. Fortunately I usually grind with my right hnad as I’m left handed and need to use my left hand to hold the phone to take the picture !

6. Next process is done sitting down on the sofa.
For a pattern like this I take a photo to make sure I know where each piece goes as they can be quite similar and even if I mark the numbers with my permanent marker the numbers often wear off in the grinder water and the hot soapy water I wash them in. First of all I have to wash all the glass pieces to remove the ‘grind’ on them as they need to be clean and dry for copper foiling.
Then daytime rubbishy program on the TV for company, I sit at my little table and painstakingly cut a piece of self-adhesive 7/32 mm copper foil to fit round each piece and then I wrap them one at a time. Once the foil is round each piece I use my allnova fid to go round each piece, the edge, back and front to burnish / seal it to the glass as tightly as possible.

7. Then to fit all the pieces together onto a nice clean and dry paper pattern (I always print two as the first gets wet during grinding). Hopefully they will all fit beautifully together. This little beauty did. Sometimes I have to return to the grinder to take a little notch off here or there. I can fill a little hole with solder but I can’t solder over a notch !

8. Now to solder. Switch the soldering iron on and while it’s heating up make sure all the pieces are very neatly together and don’t breath on them in case they move !
I tack solder first putting little blobs on each seam to make sure they are secured in place, then solder along each seam and round the edge. Then turn it over and repeat. Then round the outer edge. For this suncatcher I solder a piece of twisted double wire round the edge… it makes a neat edge and also gives quite a lot of strength. After soldering the wire in place I then do some lovely neat soldering along all the seams on the back and repeat on the front making sure to get as nice a rounded bead as possible and no lumps, blips or rough bits. I finish it by soldering little wire rings on the top for hanging.

9. All soldered. Then a wash in warm soapy water and a dry. Add hanging chain using little split rings fitted to my wire rings. Then a polish with Simonix car polish (contains carnauba wax) and it’s all ready for a photography session.
Easy.

THE END xx

https://staging.thebritishcrafthouse.co.uk/product/water-lily-stained-glass-suncatcher/

Posted on 14/01/202030/05/2023 by Jo — Leave a comment

Meet a Good Right Hooker

I’m a 50 something mother of 4 and granny to 6. I have been surrounded by craft of some sort or another all my life, my grandmother was a prolific knitter, my mother is a wonderful embroiderer and seamstress and my father was always fashioning something out of wood.

I was taught to knit and sew at a young age and have always had a project on the go, sometimes useful ( I made all my children’s clothes when they were small) and sometimes purely decorative.

After trying to teach myself to crochet for more years than I’m going to admit here, a very good and patient friend eventually managed to teach me to make the humble granny square and I haven’t looked back since!

As well as my little crochet business, I have a day job where I’m a housekeeper in a large busy house. No two days are ever the same and I love it.

When I’m not at work or crocheting you’ll often find me out on my bike in the beautiful Norfolk countryside, last year Mr Good Right Hook bought me a proper road bike so I’m fairly nipping along those lanes now.

I’m so excited to be a part of The British Craft House and I cant wait to see where it will take me in the coming months and years.

Jo x

Posted on 06/01/202030/05/2023 by Cheryl Jenkins — Leave a comment

Gold and Red Radiance

I gain a lot of inspiration while out running with the dogs, did you know it’s actually a sport called Canicross or Canix for short? I don’t enter races, I find that I get enough satisfaction with the local trails…which is where certain tiny details in nature catch my eye.

It was while I was out on one of these runs that I passed a wonderful Cotoneaster plant cascading over the ground with it’s scarlet leaves and berries. It was quite a sight!

The tiny leaves and the number of them and did I mention the colour!? Wow! I knew that I had to make something based on this! Paired with another find of the gold centred red leaves of brambles also turning in the cold late autumn weather I had the perfect combination for something very special. Did you know that red is considered a lucky colour by some people?

This is where the Red and Gold Radiance bridal range was born.

Starting with a clear acrylic hair comb, while I mulled over the larger details of the tiara, and a number of different coloured beads of various sizes and shapes I drew together the elements that would work well together adding in extras to embellish and be a contrast against the richness of the red and gold; something to draw the eye in and to hold the attention.

Working very much in an organic way the gold centred red leaves and foliage began to take shape. Wire twisting and bending into curved stems. Stems building and a dense design beginning to unfold and grow.

Stems secured onto the hair comb by the tail ends of the wires, twisting and trimming the excess the before the finishing touch of a band of red and gold could be placed as a boarder hiding all the working and bringing the piece to a stunning conclusion.

https://staging.thebritishcrafthouse.co.uk/product/red-and-gold-radiance-bridal-hair-comb/

Posted on 19/12/201930/05/2023 by Fiona — Leave a comment

“Tis the season to be jolly ….

‘Tis the Season to be Jolly, I have always loved Carols around a tree, the pretty lights, the anticipation of piles of gifts on Christmas morning, the buzz of excitement in the air but I will confess as I have got older the magic is fading for me. I see adverts on the television of happy families sat playing games and enjoying themselves but in reality as I read the papers I see a different world one where many families are separated and the older generations are possibly spending the day alone as they don’t want to be burden on relatives, or those families who don’t have money to put food on a table let alone buy gifts, who then have to deal with the question why Santa leaves lots of gifts for some Children but not them.

I read a lovely article in the Telegraph yesterday, saddened slightly by its content, but felt it was also full of Christmas Spirit as it made reference to a school in Blackpool where the Head is opening the school up on Monday to have a Christmas Eve eve party for the children, with Santa and hot food, to ensure that all children had that magical experience and a hot meal over the holidays. I am sure this isn’t first school to do this, and I doubt will be the last.

For many of the gifts I will be giving this year they are sourced from small businesses not large corporations, I will try and avoid the pressure of the sales post Christmas, and only purchase something if I really need it.

It is a most wonderful time of the year, but we do shop all year round, not just a Christmas so if you could continue to buy from the small business owner I can hand on heart tell you that really does help put food on the table, and keep a roof over someone’s head. Perhaps you can spare the odd gift for a child who is without, or pop an extra roll of toilet paper, or can of soup in the trolley for the food bank at your local supermarket – you never know the joy that small act of kindness could bring someone. Don’t get me wrong I have nothing against the corporates (I am an Amazon Prime Customer ?) , but I am hugely aware that by using them we are feeding anonymous shareholders but by buying from an independent you are helping keep that small business afloat, and that alone does deserve a happy dance ? Merry Christmas and wishing you a Happy New Year

Posted on 04/12/201930/05/2023 by Joysofglass — Leave a comment

My glass makes lovely presents for Christmas

I had my one and only Fair of the year last weekend at Sandon Hall and it was absolutely fantastic. I love it when someone sees my glass from across the room and comes across for a closer look and Smiles. That smile makes my day.
I often get ‘complaints’ that I provide too much choice….. that’s because I like to make sure I have something for everyone and for every occasion. Hope you find something you like in my shop.

I’ve been making pretty collages of some of my glass to promote the lovely British Craft House site to the world at this busy, busy Christmas shopping time so here are a couple…. to help you choose if you fancy some of my lovely glass