How To Host A Crafternoon

Although I'm a crafter, most of my friends aren't! Some have never been to my craft night or have no interest in being creative. They don't understand what I'm talking about when I say I'm running a craft workshop or working at a craft event...so for once, rather than bringing crafts to strangers at the public workshops I run, I decided to introduce 'making' to my friends by holding a Crafternoon around mine. Here's what happened...

Food
I couldn't entertain without laying on a spread. Cooking for others is a good excuse to try dishes that I can't normally make for myself (i.e. an entire cheesecake) so I took it as an opportunity to make food I wanted to eat! Although I'm vegetarian, I lean mainly to vegan food so I took the high risk decision to cook a vegan starters and main for friends who are all meat eaters. As I prefer my food to have a healthy edge I tend to cook with lots of herbs and spices...but no salt. I don't add salt to anything so I'm used to the taste but I'm fully aware that most people do, so I was slightly nervous about whether my guests would be able to eat what I gave them. Thankfully there was nothing to worry about. Although shocked to discover there was no salt, there were lots of comments about how good the flavour was...phew!
I served individual Aloo Chaats for starters... 

...followed by a Root Veg Kitchuri with roasted fennel and butternut squash with a beetroot and soya bean salad.

Dessert was a delicious Spiced Mandarin Cheesecake (a recipe of Dipna Anand). 

 This contained dairy - the Philadephia cream cheese filling was fused with ground cardamom and star anise which gave the cheesecake a lovely fragrant and warming flavour. 

Fun
My idea of fun anyway! I opted for an easy and effective makeover project, one I recently ran at The Damn Good Curry Supper Club to decorate candle holders...

Guests all took the task seriously, there was some proper concentration going on but it was also a good way to meet each other.

The making took place on arrival before starters arrived and was then finished off after the dessert - in between there was lots of girlie banter. 

Friends
Deciding on a guestlist was hard, I wrote down a huge list of people I hadn't seen in ages - should I focus on besties, should I invite boys and if so, which ones, but in the end I realised what I actually wanted to do was spend time with 'recent' friends I've made and get to know them better, so I only invited girls who I met over the last few months up to around two years. 

After lunch I took them on a trip to my local area. Greenwich is one of the most beautiful places in London but it is a trek to get there so I didn't want them to leave without showing them why I love where I live so much. Despite the chilly weather I insisted they all wrap up warm and then we wondered through Greenwich park to see the river views before a quick tour of The Queen's Gallery and a hot chocolate stop to warm up again.

It took me two days to do the washing up afterwards (I loathe washing up!) but it was worth it. Sunday Crafternoon was a success, one of my guests even blogged about it herself which you can check out here. 

I suspect it will be a few months (if not a year!) before I have a chance to do any more entertaining again so I was pleased to have some nice pics to remember the occasion.

Thinking of hosting a crafternoon around yours?
Here are my tips:

This was my timing:
12pm-1pm Arrive & get crafting
1pm-3pm Lunch, chatter & finish crafting
3pm-5pm Sunday stroll and hot chocolate stop off

• Keep the project simple (stay away from special techniques that not everyone will know)
• Plan out a menu and do as much prep as you can the night before
• Make it easy by sticking with a manageble number of guests
• Don't be afraid to ask guests to bring a dish if you can't prepare everything yourself
• Don't worry too much about how clean and tidy your home is, the truth is most guests won't notice as they will be too busy enjoying themselves
• Prep as much of the food ahead of time so you're not hiding away in the kitchen, but can be there to help with the making
• Don't stress - just enjoy it, even when things aren't going to plan it's fine, no one will notice! Just keep cool and craft!

Making paper flowers with A Alicia at Crafternoon Cabaret

Hurrah! I finally got to visit Crafternoon Cabaret. A fun monthly Saturday afternoon get together that involves crafting and live cabaret.
(This is what I made. But more on that later...)

The event takes place upstairs in a room at The Library, a pub on Upper Street, near Highbury & Islington tube in London.

And it's single-handedly run by Hannah (who made her fabulous reversible, length changing apron with very useful pockets.) This means she organises the craft activities, books the entertainment, liaises with the pub and does all the publicity. Six month's in, the event is always sold out, (possibly out-growing it's home), has a regular following and has received some excellent publicity.

For October, Crafternoon Cabaret hosted their first guest, Anna aka A Alicia, who many peeps in the craft community will be familiar with. She was promoting her new book which shows simple, tasteful ways to add crafty touches to your home and she adapted two of the projects for us.

These were paper cut lanterns and amazing card flowers (so simple yet utterly gorgeous).

When I arrived some people had already sat down and I joined a table which was occupied by three flatmates who were rather impressively spending some time together away from their home.There was a huge pile of craft materials to help yourself to plus instructions to make the projects, with A Alicia on hand to help out.

Not being much of an instruction person I skipped the steps, had a good look at the samples and attempted to make my own. I discovered that you can be as brutal as you want to cardboard (I've been way too timid in the past!) - it will keep its shape!

Time went sooooooooo quickly. In fact the quickest it's gone for me in ages!

As promised this was not just an afternoon of making, there was music too and we were treated to the cheeky tunes of Mr Meredith who sung about his Darlek lover and  what makes a proper man...

...which he concluded was someone like himself who can pull off sequins. Well sung!

Here are those flatmates I mentioned with their creations.

I also managed a peek at what other tables were up to and discovered these two wonderful floral fascinators.

Mine was a bit more like a strange collar turned headdress.

Which you can see better here. I totally love the card flower technique, that is one I will be using again and again. To try it yourself, cut out circles of varying sizes, cut sections out of them all the way round then fold these up and stitch through. The the leaves were done similarly with a crease along their centres.

There are so many positives I could say about Crafternoon Cabaret. Here's some of them:

• Hannah the organiser is lovely
• The timing is great 2-4pm so you don't need to wake up early on a weekend and you still have loads of time afterwards to carry on with your Saturday
• Two hours cost £10 which is a very decent 'hourly rate' 
• Materials and instructions are provided - after the sessions you can keep the instructions, go home and make more!
• There are so many things to do in London but sometimes on a Saturday you just want to sit down and chill rather than be walking around galleries or shopping or sitting in a pub...I mean why sit in one and chat when you can chat and make at the same time?
• The cabaret element added a nice touch making it feel like you'd done a whole activity 
• You get to take home what you make

The next Crafternoon Cabaret is on Saturday November 8th and has a Movember moustache theme. Check it out! A Alicia has some more workshops planned too so look her up while you're at it.

Stone Age v Digital Craft: The HCA Conference 2012

Last week I went along to the Heritage Crafts Association annual Spring Conference. 
Instead of doing a blog post - I wrote about the event for Frankly magazine. You can read about my adventures here!
 

How to make: Easy Peasy Tree Decorations

Christmas tree decorations are one of my favourite things about December. I love the really lavish ones you get in department stores like Harrods and Selfridges and for more affordable ones, the rows of colourful, sparkling ornaments in Paperchase. Monsoon also have some utterly cute characters and crafty, felty designs. Yet while I like to treat myself to a couple of new ones a year, I have everything I need to make my own at home. And when it takes just five minutes to make each one, it’s much quicker than heading to the shops and spending your afternoon standing in a slow-moving queue.

I discovered this most fabulous of glittery fabric via Hatastic! designer Chloe Hayward, which is ideal for Christmas tree decorations. Chloe made some Halloween horns for my up and coming glitter book, using a sheet of red. It’s a densely covered woven backed fabric that’s hard-wearing enough to be used for footwear, fashion and furnishings. I treated myself to a batch recently. They are sold in Josy Rose, for £2.45 per A4 sheet and the colour chart is  impressive. The sheets can be cut with ordinary scissors and either glued down with a glue gun or carefully stitched through with a very sharp needle. Like felt, they don’t fray, making them not just gorgeous, but versatile too! Hooray!

They can be cut up into any shape you want, or to make it really simple Josy Rose sell die-cut, pre-cut shapes made from the same fabric. If you’re cutting inside them (like the buttons on this ethnic snowman), then use a craft knife and mat.

To make them, cut two equal sizes of felt and take a small piece of ribbon. Stitch your glitter motif onto one side and at the top end, stitch the ribbon in, folded over to create a loop. Use an embroidery stitch of your choice to join both sides together. Running and whip stitch work well.

Keep them minimalist, or bling them up with sequins, gems and glitter glue tubes. Add them to your tree, perhaps against some other homemade decorations, like the hand written wishes currently featured at The Geffrye Museum, or like me, dangle them on your fairy lights.

Something Smells Good!

I've been wanting to get along and visit Homemade London for a while and I finally popped along last week. It's a little crafty heaven which runs creative workshops and private craft parties. Yes there's a few of these places in Londinium these days but believe me, they vary in quality (some seem to think they 'started it' while everyone else copied them)...well my view is anyone who thinks like that is not a true creative. 

The fact is if you like making things you should respect that skill sharing and accessibility is all part of the enjoyment. I believe there is plenty of room for crafty workshop venues, there should be one in every town of the UK, just like there (used to be) public libraries (but hey that's another story.) They'll always be a place for colleges and longer creative courses but short workshops, sewing cafes, ceramic cafes etc allow you acquire new skills and get inspired when you can fit it into your life. Yes you have to be prepared to invest, (average workshop prices at most places cost around £35) but they are small businesses that need investment like anything else. So although you may not be able to afford to go all the time, you can be sure that when you do, you'll get something special out of it. OK RANT OVER....back to my lovely trip.

The crafty heaven is based in a pretty village street

Believe it or not, Homemade London is just a couple of minutes walk from one of the busiest spots in London (the flagship Primark in Marble Arch) it's located in a quiet, picturesque street in an area called Portman Village (which I had never heard of until I got here...this is why I love London, it is continously full of surprises even for lifelong dwellers of the Capital like myself).

Nicola Barron, owner of Homemade London

It's the brainchild of Nicola Barron, who used to work in TV and is a self-confessed interiors and fashion junkie. She opened the 'store' less than a year ago. (Birthday coming up next month.) So it's no wonder the inside is so pretty.

Ooh, how I wish I had a making table this big!

It's fresh, light and airey though still has a sense of 'early days'. There's a downstairs and upstairs section and if you hold a private party here you can use both areas.

Getting crafty is just the start

Workshops can be designed to suit your preferences, or you can book on one of their  sessions which include bag making, handstitched notebooks, lampshade decor, wedding crafting and even lingerie.

I made my own bottle of 'Begum Blend'

I attended their newest session 'Perfume Making AND Afternoon Tea'....talk about blissful afternoon! The session runs on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons and with just four pupils in each class, yummy cakes from local bakery Cocomaya and 1-2-1 attention from Nicola herself it's a truly pampering way to while away a couple of hours (not forgetting you get to take home a scent that's all yours.)

It's all in the blend

Having no prior knowledge of working with scent I presumed it would be a fairly straight forward task, after all most people know what they like and what they don't yet I discovered within minutes that perfume blending is in fact a complete art form. I had no idea that smells and mood can change so quickly with just one drop of fragrance.


We started by having a sniff of top, middle and base notes to see what took our fancy. A huge fan of vanilla like cocoa smells, I was most drawn to Benzoin, Cedarwood, Black Pepper and Rose (the turkish delight variety) and decided I'm not keen on citrus (too many associations with all the lemon scented cleaning products I have at home.)

Farah made a fruity blend

Farah my workshop companion interestingly chose the opposite scents to me, light fruity, summer ones - her blend although not to my taste, smelt very tempting and 'professional.'

This tea set looks even more amazing in real life!

Incidently the Afternoon Tea element of the session was a nice touch though it is a little hard to enjoy yummy cakes that look like dinky chocolates when your nose is so infused with the whiff of excitement. But anyone thinking of going for an afternoon tea I recommend instead of going to a regular hotel, combine the tea and chat with doing something crafty - it's the best of both worlds so you'll leave feeling doubly as happy. A brilliant session for friends, a unique way to spend a day off work, or if you're in London on holiday and fancy seeing a different side of British life, a slice of homecrafing couldn't be more cultured.


All images from Homemade London apart from the ones taken at my workshop (it's not hard to tell the quality apart!)

Discovered: boyfriend with crafty genes

I am obviously marrying the right man! He has recently been getting in touch with his crafty side and enrolled on a raku pottery course where he made me two elephants as he knew how much I loved the ones in the Elephant Parade but couldn't afford to get one for me at auction!

Inside they have an amazing sheen, all pearly and magical looking, they join perfectly in the middle to create a whole elephant or can be two separates. 

And for himself he made an amazing pot to keep his porridge oats in. Considering he's not done any clay work since school his talents are truly impressive : )

Making and Teaching

As you know I love making stuff but I also like helping other people make stuff too! As a community artist and artist educator I get to work all over London with all sorts of people from different communities, ages etc.

For the last three years I have been working on the Geffrye Museum's Asian Women's project to engage the women of Hackney in East London with the museum. So far there have have been two groups, the first are an over 50s group who have lost their husbands and their children have grown up, so meeting up is an important part of their social life. They are all very lovely and so creative. Most of the time I just give them materials and they instinctively know what to do with them!

The second group is a younger Asian Women's group who live in a local estate. They are mainly in their 20s and don't work, so while their children are at school, they meet up and do craft activities together.

This Spring I worked with both groups to create an installation in the museum inspired at the recent Maharaja: the Splendour of India's Royal Courts exhibition at the V&A with the concept of creating a modern day Moghul living room. The groups created soft furnishings using hand embroidery, applique, sewing and painting.

The pieces aren't stereotypically Asian looking, they have a very modern East/West twist to them, representing the women's own lifestyles.

We started with an embroidery project, using different stitches to create a group wall hanging displayed at the back and then the women worked on individual projects for their own homes.

The quality of the work was amazing, one lady claimed she'd never done embroidery before but had seen her sisters do it and came up with this remarkable floral design! Wow! For most of the women it was the first time they had done any embroidery in ages but old school memories of learning the skill came flooding back to them in no time.

The installation is still on display at the museum in the downstairs art rooms so pop in and see it if you can!

Look what the postman delivered!

Yipeeee! For the first time in ages the postman delivered some interesting post !

Exciting post No 1:

Yesterday I received this box from Dylon.

Inside was a stripy tee and box of Colour Catcher:

It's a product that stops your colours running in the wash. Whenever I've lived in shared houses people always seem to do 'light' or 'dark' washes and as the letter I got with the box states, what do you do when you have a spotty dress or stripy top that's both light and dark???? Hmmm...........Well apparently you buy this product which works wonders by trapping loose dyes so that your clothes don't get ruined. Thank you Colour Catcher team for sending me the gift but I won't be using it (though I may wear the free t-shirt!)

You see I think washing lights and darks separatley is a myth, I have never done a separate wash for lights and darks, I bung them altogether and touch wood have never had any problems. Maybe I am just lucky, but with my colourful wardrobe, I should know about washing colourful clothes and I can honestly say, it's fine to mix!

I've never had problems washing my colourful clothes!

Exciting post No 2:

A couple of weeks ago I was invited to take part in an Art Exchange by Jo Cheung- it's a bit like a chain letter where you put your name and address on an email that gets sent around and within a few days you should receive 36 free pieces of artwork. Well, I received just one but it was lovely nonetheless (although it would have been extremely fun to have got more!)

Here it is:

First of all it just seemed liked lots of pretty business cards - these were for my artist Kate Lynch who liked to make cards and things from recycled materials. But then I realised it was actually an amazing stitched decoration, here's what the label said:

Recycled Decorations

Made from a variety of recycled papers and beads - ideal for brightening up any space . Hang, drape or pin up anywhere!

It's very pretty and consists of punched out shapes which have been sewn together but still retains a dangle factor. It is like a strand from a beaded curtain but much more delicate, a whole room of them would look rather spectacular. Kate also has a blog so I can keep track of my new artist friend! Art Exchange was great concept and I would happily do it again as it's a great way to get quirky handmade things for free, or in my case just thing!

Now, where to hang it??