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.