Make-aholics of Britain, its time to get excited for the best craft fair of the year- Kirstie Allsopp's Handmade Fair!
Set on the green of Hampton Court Palace, the fair will be returning for it's 4th year from Friday 15th- Sunday 17th September and as always there's plenty of activities to get excited about. Creatives- sharpen your craft knife and get your paintbrush at the ready for what's set to be another amazing year!
The fair gives you many an opportunity to try your hand at everything from crafts such as transforming a tote bag, to hoop screen printing, duck tape roses and so much more!
Kirstie will be returning to the Super Theatre to talk arts, crafts and other projects with her hand picked experts in each field such as Annie Sloan, Mr X Stitch and many more. I'm super excited and proud that my wonderful friend Claire of Claireabelle Makes will be taking to the stage to talk all things Pinterest live on stage which is guaranteed to inspire everyone with their future crafting endeavours.
Having attended The Handmade Fair in 2015, 2016, The Handmade Christmas Fair and meeting Kirstie herself, I can safely say I'm hooked and incredibly excited for this year. There's so much to do, see and make your creative juices will be flowing in no time, especially in the feel good atmosphere of the fair.
And it doesn't stop there- oh no. As well as workshops, grand makes and theatre talks there is of course an exquisite shopping village too where you can stock up on your craft materials, buy hand crafted pieces (perfect for Christmas!) and feast on the wonderful artisan food on offer.
The fair has very kindly given you lovely readers of mine a discount on your ticket (hooray!) and the details are as follows:
15% off Full Experience or Entry + Super Theatre tickets Full Experience tickets: This includes entry, 1 x Super Theatre, 1 x Skills Workshop, 1 x Grand Make £27 instead of £32 – save £5
Entry + Super Theatre: This includes entry and 1 x Super Theatre session
£17 instead of £20 – save £3
Book at thehandmadefair.com or by calling 0871 230 7153* quoting GENTRY15
*Calls cost 10p per minute plus network extras. Booking fees apply. Offer ends 14/09/2017 or when sold out.
I hope you all have a brilliant time a the fair and I'll see you there!
Last month I had a lovely invitation from The Handmade Fair (read about the fair here) to attend a meet and greet with Kirstie Allsopp. Of course I said yes and hoped on a train (at an ungodly hour) to meet her at 8 am before the wonderful fair opened.
Now before I get into the interview I have to say I'm a huge fan of Kirstie and her passion for crafting, so trying to keep my inner fan girl in check was pretty hard!
What is your absolute favourite craft?
I have a really bad habit of being completely in love with the latest thing I'm doing. Yesterday I went to an exhibition by an artist called Ann Carrington who works with buttons. She’s absolutely amazing and she did all this stuff for the royal barge for the Jubilee. She's now done these vases which are made of horse brasses. You used to see them in pubs all over England and now it’s much more fashionable decor and to see this vast vase which was just horse brasses that was just fused together, I was like right, that’s it! My new thing is to reclaim old horse brasses and that is literally as of last night!
"Bringing up a family and running a small business on the side and that was absolutely my ambition."
Do you still remember the feeling when you put your first book or show out?
Funnily enough the first book I ever did was a home buying book with Phil but then we did Homemade Home. We had this extraordinary meeting with lots of publishers to pitch to us and the publisher that won the right to publish the book came with a box of things that people had made in the office. This was the first time I really realised that crafting wasn’t such a niche thing.
Do you watch your own shows on TV?
You have to watch the shows to do the voice over but often you’re voicing a bit you’re not necessarily in so you don’t see yourself much when you’re on voice over. I never watched the shows in the old days but now with social media you engage with the shows on a different level. Often you watch the shows in order to tweet about the shows. People will tweet you questions and unless you watch the show you’re not necessarily working out what the hell they’re talking about so I watch the shows much more now. I don’t think I’ll ever be confident with that but I've got used to it.
"My Achilles heel is symmetry but I've been really pushed into three is better than two"
What made you decide to start the handmade fair?
Chris Hughes who owns Brand Events started the first Country Living Fair and I worked at Country Living when that started. The first ever fair was massively over-subscribed! Me and the then editor had to go and apologise to the queue and so I worked then with Chris. I was very junior so he didn’t know then who I was and then when my agent said about starting a fair she said there’s this guy from Brand Events. He didn’t know I knew him but I said let’s have a meeting at home and then I’ll be honest with him. He was doing the pitch and I said to be honest with you Chris if anyone could do the fair it’s you as you did the first Country Living Fair and I know you know what you’re doing. The problem with doing the fair is that I’d have to have faith in the person doing the fair and I knew how it all works and how it goes wrong and it’s very important to me. I thought that this year knowing that it does work, I’d go to bed and sleep but I literally laid there with the same worries even though I knew it’s a better location etc. You still feel that it’s a responsibility. If someone is committing to take a day off work or in some cases get child care, they need to feel they’ve had a good day and that’s more important.
With crafting being a part of your job, do you still do a lot of crafts in your free time?
I do a lot of mending. I find that my big thing at the moment is just running to keep up which drives me bananas! It’s not new projects and it’s because I live with four boys, my husband and the dog so there’s not as much time as I’d like but there’s a pile of things I want to be getting on with.
What do you think was the main trigger of your career?
Accident! It really was and I feel a bit anti-feminist saying this as I’m a passionate feminist but I didn't have ambition when I was younger. My mum was married with four children and had a framing business and I thought it was the way forward. Loads of people here today are doing just that- bringing up a family and running a small business on the side and that was absolutely my ambition. Nobody would marry me and I still haven’t got married so I was like- I’m going to have to work then. I worked on country living magazine, loved that but the problem was that magazines are very cyclical. Ironically now my life is incredibly cyclical so even in TV you come around but then I started finding flats for people. I had this little business finding flats and absolutely loved it. This journalist employed me and he wrote about me and the TV companies asked if they could make a show and I said no to the first one that asked! Then the second one asked and they didn’t want to film me, they wanted me to help create the thing. We did the pilot and they were supposed to find other presenters but they never did so that’s Phil and I. We made the show at the weekends for the first three years and ran our businesses during the week. Channel 4 then lost a show and they said can you make eight shows in eight weeks. That’s when we made the jump from running our own property search businesses to being full time presenters. The craft thing goes back to Country Living and I always wanted to bring that to TV. If you can film peoples’ houses you can film peoples’ crafts. If I’ve got time off I don’t shop but if I'm working I find it the best distraction. My producers were very aware as I’d go off in my lunch break and find things from charity shops. They knew I had the passion and that’s how we carved out the show. I do not have a talented history of being a crafter. I’ve learned on the job and continue to learn and if I can do it, anyone can do it. It’s a real thing. People say to me I can’t do that- you absolutely can! I’m always far too inclined to do things neatly and leave it and other people have always pushed me to embellish more. My Achilles heel is symmetry but I’ve been really pushed into three is better than two. My number one tip is three is better than two unless its bedside tables- that’s weird!
So that was my interview with Kirstie! She was so wonderful to meet and chat to and really made you feel at ease. I hope you enjoyed the interview and ifyou’re gutted that you missed this years fair, don’t fret as there’s a Christmas fair in November. Once again sponsored by Hobbycraft and Mollie Makes, The Handmade Christmas Fair will be held at Manchester Central as an indoor event. Kirstie commented “This unique event will see craft lovers of all age and ability, join together to share, buy and make. I’m thrilled that we have the chance to bring The Handmade Christmas Fair to Manchester, especially as it is one of my favourite times of year!” So if you’re wanting to get into the festive and crafty spirit, check out The Handmade Christmas Fair for tickets and I’ll see you there!
From the 18th- 20th September at Hampton Court Palace,
there was a rather wonderful craft fair held called The Handmade Fair.
The remarkable craft fair was put together by Kirstie
Allsopp and her team of experts; bringing buying, learning and making all
together for craft lovers alike.
It was my first time at the fair and I was fortunate
enough to blog the event and actually meet and interview Kirstie!! Excited doesn’t even cut how I felt
about this but that’s for another post- watch
this space. All I will say is she was even lovelier than I imagined and it
was so nice to sit and talk to her.
I went along on both Friday and Saturday to experience
the fair, doing workshops and watching demonstrations with my lovely mummy on
the Saturday. The fair had a festival
feel to it with its large tents, live music playing and balloons and bunting
strung up at every available spot. Kirstie was there to open the fair and
welcome in the first crafters of the day, which was really exciting to see!
On Saturday Mum and I started off by looking around the
shopping villages. They were huge!
Separated into two tents, there was the East village and West village crammed
full of fantastic vendors such as Deathby Tea, Reloved Magazine, Victorious Bee, Sloane,Betty & Dodge, Flossy Teacakeand many more with
their products displayed beautifully.
The tents were a visual feast of prettiness and there was such a variety of
things to buy from craft supplies for all your making needs, to ready-made
handmade gifts- making perfect presents. We came away with bags upon bags of goodies,
excited to take on new projects when we got home.
The workshops were great for learning a new skill or to
perfect an existing one you know and love. From paper craft to fashion, upcycling
to yarning there was something for everyone. We did two workshops on the
Saturday, the first being finger knitting and the second was upcycling a photo
frame using decoupage. Both the classes
were such fun, chatting to fellow crafters at our table and getting really
stuck in with what we were doing, so much so that I was covered in glue when doing
the decoupage! Finger knitting was surprisingly simple once you got the hang of
it and also very quick, making a bracelet in a matter of minutes. We were
actually meant to be sewing with wire but there was an issue with the materials
which was a shame but finger knitting was a great alternative. Decoupage was
run by Reloved Magazine and using old copies of the magazine, we upcycled old
photo frames. The different textures from the bits of paper gave a really nice
dimension to the frame and looked really effective as well as being fun to
make. Everyone loves a bit of gluing and sticking!
In between shopping and making, we found some fabulous
food stalls selling grub that literally made your mouth water. There were lots
of picnic benches set up, with everyone budging up to let people sit down. You
could happily chat to fellow crafters who were eating, going through their
goodies and even crafting in their own little groups. It was such a great
atmosphere to be a part of. There was also a rather wonderful collection of
cocktail bars… We were rather drawn to the Deco Bar with its airstream prosecco
on tap, 20s music, comfy chairs and photo booth! As you can see Mum and I got a
bit carried away with the photo boot …Ahem…
In the Super Theatre, we watched Kirstie with her expert
and close friend Sof McVeighgive a live
demonstration on how to create home-made beauty treats. I didn’t realise how
simple it could be to create products in your own kitchen, using some
ingredients that you’d have in your kitchen cupboards or growing in your
garden. I can’t wait to have a go myself, knowing that what I make isn’t full
of unwanted chemicals and also makes for great gifts.
As I said earlier, I was fortunate enough to be blogging
the event, being one of the official supporters of the fair this year which
meant I had access to the press tent. Here they had the wonderful wedding and
lifestyle blogger Louise from B.Lovedblogteaching fellow bloggers to take instragram-worthy shots of pretty
things, using the hashtag #InstaPrettyParty . The press tent was styled with
all the pretty things from upcycled sofas, a rustic table with props and a huge
floral wall with 3d flowers on. It was sooooo pretty! We were given free rein
of all the props and Louise showed us some great styling tips to make super
pretty Instagram posts. We were also given tips on editing apps, lighting and
rules of thirds to give us optimum images. It was really worth going along to
her class and I picked up lots of tips and ideas for styling photographs for
both Instagram and my blog too! I bumped into a couple of bloggers at the fair such
as Victoria from Random Nerdery and
strongly urged them to go check out the tutorial!
Here's some of the #instaprettyparty photos I took.
All in all, The Handmade Fair was truly fantastic. For me
it was also a wonderful way to spend time with my mum as we’re both avid
crafters and both share such an enthusiasm for it. I didn’t realise just how
many people were into crafts until I visited the fair and it was so nice to see
the age range of people in attendance.
I also vlogged the fair so if you want to see more, click the video below:
If you’re gutted that you missed this years fair, don’t
fret as there’s a Christmas fair in November. Once again sponsored by
Hobbycraft and Mollie Makes, The Handmade Christmas Fair will be held at
Manchester Central as an indoor event. Kirstie commented “This unique event will see craft lovers of all age and
ability, join together to share, buy and make. I’m thrilled that we have the
chance to bring The Handmade Christmas Fair to Manchester, especially as it is
one of my favourite times of year!” So if you’re wanting to get into the
festive and crafty spirit, check out The Handmade Christmas Fair
for tickets and I’ll see you there!
