London shopping - Designers Makers Market Old Spitalfields

I went on a trip to London on Saturday on my annual Christmas shopping pilgrimage! (Whilst my  mum looked after my Heulwen Designs Christmas craft stall in Swansea selling lots of corsages and cushions for me, I've bought her some lovely flowers to thank her!)

I saw and did sooo much in one day so I'm just going to blog about the morning in this post!! I went East to avoid the crazy shoppers on Oxford St..only 7 sleeps until Xmas Day!! I had a very lovely morning browsing the Designers Makers Market in Old Spitalfields. Its a monthly market showcasing the UK's most talented designers and makers. Its held every third Saturday from 11am - 5pm. There was some wonderful handmade work for sale and so much I wanted to buy! My favourite designers from the market were... Claire Shields shop Lil3birdy  

Claire Shields

I also liked the work of Swedish illustrator and maker Hanna Melin I love her humorous 'banana man' designs, her Blog is really interesting too. I bought this Christmas card below from her.

Hanna Melin - Banana man

I also liked the work of another Swedish illustrator Karin Akesson. She works in London as a freelance illustrator, exhibiting her work throughout the UK and creates designs for a huge variety of clients. Her prints are lovely and made me smile with quotes like ' Today something wonderful will happen' on her prints.

Karin Akisson - A reason to smile

I also discovered the lovely lovely lovely work of Lui!! She hand makes jewellery using collected travel keepsakes, from Colonial French stamps, to 60's Hong Kong souvenir slides. Beautiful long lost memories are transformed in totally unique ready to wear jewellery. Beautiful! She has an online etsy shop Luimadeit. I wish I had bought one of her gorgeous pendants there last Saturday!!

Lui

I also had a browse around Brick Lane and visited fabulous Vintage shops around the Old Truman Brewery, saw some gorgeous fur coats and xmastastic woolly jumpers from the 80's!! I popped into Rough Trade East and bought one of Rough Trade's top 10 albums of the year, a new find but a bit melancholy Veronica Falls. I also bought a beautiful debut album by Villagers - Becoming a jackal who I saw at Green man festival this year. Watch That day video below.

Christmas Fashion Windows/ Manchester

I'm on the train home to Swansea now after a lovely weekend visiting old uni friends in Manchester. I thought I'd share photos of some of my favourite Christmas windows!! I took photos of exclusive department stores Harvey Nichols and Selfridges&Co. I also loved the British eccentricity of the miniature winter scene display at Links of London. These were taken on my phone camera, so not the best quality unfortunately!

Harvey Nichols Manchester: they never fail to surprise me with their imaginative displays. I love this Christmas frozen wonderland theme!

Harvey Nichols Manchester

Selfridges Manchester: Jolly santa and huge cartoonish eyes on mannequins!

Selfridges Manchester: Jolly Santa

Links of London Winter scene window display: British Winter scene

Harvey Nichols Manchester on a busy Saturday evening

Screen printing

Printmaking evening class update!! I have really been enjoying my evening printmaking classes. Our current project is screen printing. I found inspiration for my stencil designs in the Tropical Deco textiles of the 1930's era. The tropics hold a particular appeal to me at the moment to reinforce the mood of fun, fantasy and escape.

Fabulous fabrics of the 50's

Cult artist Rob Ryan's clever and quirky work has also inspired me whilst I have been using my simple paper cutting skills to stencil my screen print designs. His evocative book A sky full of kindness is available now to buy on Amazon.

Ryan had been screen-printing for years before he started the silhouette-style and minutely detailed paper- and laser-cut pieces for which he is now known. "I just fancied doing something a bit simpler - all you need it a pencil, paper and a blade," he said. "It's not about colour or perspective, it's all about silhouette and shape." Guardian 19 Oct 2010

Romantic and wistful Rob Ryan screen print

My simple cut paper stencil before printing.  The stencil is supported by a fine mesh stretched on a frame. Ink is pushed through the mesh with a rubber squeegee to create the print.

My screen print on Canvas, I still have two other colours to print on top.

Ring ding ding da da ....Snowflake rings by Heulwen Designs and inspiration..

Snowfall ring by Heulwen Designs

Glitzy rosette ring by Heulwen Designs

Winter wonderland..inspiration

Paper Snowflake making....

Vintage glam corsages

Deluxe floral corsage necklace by Heulwen Designs now available to buy on Folksy

Deluxe floral cluster brooch by Heulwen Designs on Folksy

My new collection of Autumn/Winter 11 corsages have been inspired by the Vintage glam of the Seventies and the Gucci collection which was inspired by Florence Welch's  vintage- tastic wardrobe!

Florence Welch of Florence and the machine in Gucci

Gucci corsages

...Christmas corsages

New Collection.....Here are a couple of photos of Heulwen Designs new winter party season corsages!!..will soon be available to buy on etsy..

Corsage Clusters

Corsage using vintage buttons

...Printmaking!

I have enrolled on an evening printmaking course to develop my designs for my portfolio, I love it and I now look forward to monday's a little bit!! ;)

We have covered quite a lot already such as colagraph printing, monopriniting and lino printing. I have uploaded some photos from tonights class. 

The theme of this years course is natural forms.... My work for this project has been inspired by my travels to the jungles of South America and SS12 fashion trends.

Lino cutting a toucan :)

Lino cut and black and white print

Tis the season to be jolly...Christmas craft fairs!

Heulwen Designs

Heulwen Designs was at the Grand Theatre Christmas Craft Fair event this weekend the 11th and 12th of November. The established event was a great success! I was selling items from my latest collection of luxury homeware such as cushions, framed prints, lampshades and greeting cards. I was also selling a new collection of fashion accessories such as co-ordinating corsages, rings and hairbands. 

 There was a fantastic wide variety of of over 40 stalls on 3 floors selling high quality unique local crafts. I have added some images from my stall and also pretty Christmas gifts from other stalls  at the fair this weekend.  The next craft fair event from the Grand theatre arts wing will be held in the new year.

Heulwen Designs

 

Heart Felt Creations by Catherine Gammon 
Gorgeous bespoke felt accessories and felt jewellery. 
All her items are handmade and many fabrics used are recycled

Heart Felt Creations by Catherine Gammon

There were also some members of the Gower Craft and Artisans group, promoting Swansea's local crafts and producers who attended for the first time with lovely craft stalls including Ultimate Drifter and The bead life.

Ultimate Drifter
Driftwood & recycled practical art - designed by instinct & re-usable materials.

The Bead Life  
Unique handcrafted beautiful designer jewellery

Elissa V Evans - Cat illustration

I met Swansea based illustrator Elissa V Evans and jeweller Jeannette of BeadyGonzales at the Grand Theatre Craft fair. It was lovely to meet them both. Here are some of Elissa's original illustrations.

Elissa V Evans - Illustration

If you want more information about Elissa’s work, you can contact her on elissavevans@hotmail.com

New fabric collection

Rose print Linen

I've just a few metres of fabric digitally printed with Digetex  I'm so happy with the result! I'm planning to make lots of new homeware items to add to the Heulwen Designs shop.

Leaf print on 100% cotton

Rose print on Linen

Hay-on-wye...town of books

I went to the Telegraph Hay-on-Wye book festival yesterday, the first weekend of the 10 day festival.  It attracts the most exciting writers, filmmakers, comedians, politicians and musicians to inspire, delight and entertain. There were also lots of nice craft stalls there! 

I went to see a really inspiring talk by the novelist and travel writer Paul Theroux about his new book 'Tao of Travel' with journalist Rosie Boycott. I also bought a ticket to see the entertainer Paul O'Grady talking with Sandi Toksvig about his new autobiography The devil rides out he was brilliant, "oh my gawd!" lots of funny stories! I spotted Professor Brian Cox too and the actor/stand-up comedian Mat Horne wandering around.

I went to some lovely cute gift shops in the town, my favourite was Chattels on market street. There was also some fabulous work by artisans at the Butter Market.

At the Butter Market I bought some ceramic butterfly buttons from Alejandra Bernales of ideas ceramics

Old books

I liked this Harper Collins dust jacket I saw in a book shop

Another cute bird print

Telegraph Hay Festival goody bag, like the bold graphic print on this bag

Other side of tote bag "All ideas start somewhere"

Outdoor books...

Lovely felt headbands

I just came across this amazingly talented bridal designer and blogger - Princess Lasertron . Megan Hunt works with vintage felt and buttons to create some beautiful hand embroidered floral hairbands for brides and bridesmaids and also quirky bridal bouquets and pins. I have put some of my favourite customised flowery headbands on here.

Harvey Nichols Bristol - Window display

This Harvey Nichols window display really grabbed my attention when I walked past the store in Bristol the other day. I love the playful Hollywood inspired surreal fantasy theme!