Craftiness

The award for hardest to read title ever goes to...

HELLO. So it has literally taken me over a month to finish off writing this post, just because there have been so many things I've been trying to do! But here we are. Welcome. Let's get started

I feel like this every single time I finish a blog post

Crafts. I've been trying to figure out how to start this post by standing at a train station platform and saying the word "crafts" to myself in a variety of different accents. It hasn't really helped me in anyway apart from to at least make it look like to the casual skim reader of my blog that I may have written, or attempted, some form of introduction.

Are we done with that? Yeah? Yeah. Good. 

So, I wanted to write a post about crafts, like, arts n' crafts, but more specifically about some of the lovely people I have met in the last few months who have just blown me away with their megaskillz and awesome products. Brighton is a great place to be if you have a creative idea, and want to be surrounded by helpful, friendly creative people who can offer you bucket loads of advice and support. This has been highlighted especially well in the last month by the Brighton Etsy Team, who have recently been running "Mentor Month", in which some of the extremely talented members of the team, who have had experience in running their online brands for a while, offer help and advice to the less experienced members. A true collective thing of beauty.

Anyway, a bit of context to why I've had the opportunity to meet so many lovely folks, then. If you've read my blog, looked at my Flickr or talked to me in the last two years, you probably know that I am a friend of a girl named Karli who, along with her man friend Jacques, run Designosaur, an awesome jewellery designer. We've known each other since univeristy, where I studied Photography and she studied Product Design.

I'm sure you can already see the links forming in this story.

So since her final year project, and pretty much since the creation of Designosaur, I have just sort of hung around and helped her with any bits and pieces she's needed photography wise. Over the years, she has been a very helpful photography assistant to me since we first met and started hanging out. So our ratio of helping each other has somewhere probably evened itself out along the way.

Read about Karli and see a lot of photos I've taken of her over the years here -
http://uniqueandchic.co.uk/geek-thursday/2951/

Through just visiting her at craft fairs and events that she's helped organise, I finally started to be able to put some faces to names I'd seen online quite a lot and also names to faces of people that I recognise from visiting craft fairs around Brighton for the last five years. So I'ma write a little bit about some of these delightful folks, and force their etsy, twitter and facebook links down your throat so you buy their things. 

helloDODO
http://hello-dodo.blogspot.co.uk/
http://www.etsy.com/shop/helloDODOshop
https://twitter.com/hellohelloDODO

I feel that helloDODO make things that pretty much summarise what a lot of people like about Brighton. And by that, I don't mean that what they sell has actually anything to do with Brighton itself (though a few designs do, of course!) What I mean is that their designs are bright, colourful, cute, cheerful and funny. AND INFUSED WITH ANIMAL RELATED WORDPLAY (ok, maybe you can't describe Brighton with that last one. I wish you could). There is so much pun, honestly, it's just wonderful

Party Animal

Bear With Me

Hello Hello Dodo

The Quick...

Lovingly screen printed, you can get prints, tote bags, t-shirts, badges (who doesn't love a good badge?). I currently have two of their prints hung on my wall!

Caleigh-Ill Art
http://www.caleigh-ill.com/

http://www.etsy.com/uk/people/caleighill 
https://twitter.com/caleigh_ill 
https://www.facebook.com/caleighill.art

They all have great names. I'm saying this because I think one was called Bob. No relation.

The illustrations of Caleigh Illerbrun are definitely my favourite things at the moment. Possibly one of my favourite things that I've found this year. Often focussing on animals of the woodland or forest variety, they tread the line of dark and slightly creepy yet insanely cute at the same time, and that is a fine line to tread. Her series of "naked owls" illustrations and hand painted owl-Russian-dolls hit both of those boxes perfectly, and reminds me a little of soem of the reasons I mentioned for loving some of the artists I mentioned in THIS post about drawing and illustration (re-reading it, it's not a very in depth post. But WHEN DO I EVER WRITE IN DEPTH POSTS? Never, right?)

I also love these paintings that she has created, so much that I bought three prints which I have just hung on my walls! They're printed on a wonderful kind of cloth that really adds some amazing texture to the images. How exiting... but anyway, each image has such curious potential to an amazing story behind them - what are these creatures? Why are they where they are? What other things inhabit these strange landscapes. I want to know. Immediately. 

Comes in A3 and A4 prints, phone cases, stickers, tote bags, russian dolls. Funnily enough, I found that I actually have one of Caleigh's stickers on the back of my acoustic guitar that I must have put on there about a year or two ago from a craft fair!

ilikecats

http://www.i-like-cats.co.uk 

https://twitter.com/tobyoliverdean

http://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/ilikeCATSshop

Cats. What could ever be more appealing as a gift for a loved one or for yourself than cat related goodness. And you wouldn't want to buy cat related things from someone that didn't love, or at least like, cats. AND THAT IS WHERE TOBY COMES IN, with his brand name and URL proudly declaring his love of felines. Lovely simple, joyful illustrations of cats, I have bought things from him on more than one occasion for my cat-loving mother. I actually just sent her a card in the post. THAT COULD BE YOU SENDING CAT-CARDS IN THE POST.

I really need to rein in the use of these capital letters.

Mooshpie
http://www.mooshpie.co.uk/
https://twitter.com/mooshpie
http://www.etsy.com/people/mooshpie
https://www.facebook.com/Mooshpie

Lost Girls

Mooshpie! MOOOOOSH! Such a great word. And such a great style to match it also. Simple and cheerful but at the same time managing to hit being strangely nostalgic right on the head. I feel like a lot of Cheskas work would have fit right in on my bedroom wall when I was younger. She also has a shed-studio, which I think is just the best thing ever.

Bear

Fox

Kate Rowland
http://katerowland.co.uk
http://www.etsy.com/people/kateslittlestore 
https://twitter.com/helloiamkate

I only discovered Kate Rowland at a craft fair in Brighton a few weeks ago, and I have decided this - If there's not at least one badge or necklace in this array of fantastically designed pop-culture references that makes you go "I MUST HAVE IT, TAKE MY MONEY", then you and I are probably not going to get along, and you should leave now and educate yourself. And then return and buy some things. Twin Peaks, Game of Thrones and Arrested Development. AND SPACY THINGS. All the best things. She's also got some totally rad illustrations and paitings on her website. Yes, rad. What? WHAT'S WRONG WITH THE SERIOUS USE OF THE WORD RAD?

Award to worst formatting of a blog post ever goes to me. I truly have accomplished something today.

I also made this video at the Brighton Etsy Craft Party. It's got some lovely music on it

Good memories of a fun evening...