Marketing - at the Bluebird Market

Just thought I'd share with you a selection of the lovely stalls and faces behind the creations at the Bluebird Market at Leura yesterday.

alchemista - organic bath and body products

It is full of wonderful handmade, locally created goodies.
Despite the drizzly mountains weather our spirits were high.

Andrew from The Box People

Eccentric Style herb garden markers

De from Kookabubble

Winnie and her lightcatchers

Paper Elephant letterpress stationery

lip balm and lip balm holders from Pip & Waffle

Dom from portena jewellery

Pulford Pottery

handknitted socks from sewcialisers

satchels by needle vs thread

Have you got a favorite local market?
What makes a great market - for shopping or trading?
I'd love to hear your suggestions so please leave a comment.

Mad about lace

 Lace. do you love lace?

You know lace isnt just the stuff associated with wedding gowns!
Who'd have thought you could have metal lace, plastic, crocheted lace, in fact you can make lace with just about anything!

Wikipedia says "Lace is an openwork fabric, patterned with open holes in the work, made by machine or by hand. The holes can be formed via removal of threads or cloth from a previously woven fabric, but more often open spaces are created as part of the lace fabric"

And it is the in-between open spaces which are as important as the solid parts when it comes to lace!

I felt very inspired to create my own lace after visiting the Love Lace exhibition at the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney today.

Here are some of my faves and some unusual creations.

I love this tea set and photoprinted tea bags, traditional lace, but non-traditional treatment

steeped in memory by Linda Galbraith

This dress is so wearable, it has quite a fragile look though.

whitework by Anne Farren

 Now who would think to crochet Henry Ford's first engine - using wire?
Um, not me!
But this is a wonderful contruction!

Detroit's shadow by Ann Mondro

Or who would think to use Darwin's Origin of Species to make little cut palnts out of.
There were reams and reams of paper her, but I was fascinated by the little plants.

A brief history of time by Jenny Pollack

Did you know you can make lace of of coathangers?

Sacred geometry by Lyndal Hargrave

 Or leaves?
Such a simple idea, but oh so effective.

The garden of leaflessness by Golnar Roshan

I think this was my favorite - how could it not be?

It's jewellery, right?

Lacqueus by Alison Wheeldon

 And there are many more wondrous lacey creations to be seen at the Powerhouse Museum, so if you are in or near Sydney I urge you - go and have a look!

Make lace - not war!

My creative space

Something a bit different and a bit of a story.  

 

I am a member of a craft co-operative that is in Leura, NSW. It is called The Nook.
We are a shop that is open every day except Christmas day, and it is a great venue to sell handmade goodies.
Every October the village of Leura has a gardens festival and a 2 day festival market right in the main street of Leura. Most of the shops in the street use the occassion to publicise their business, but The Nook, being upstairs on the first floor and not having a shop frontage always was disadvanteged. Sure we had  little stall outside your front door, but how to get people up there.
So a couple of years ago we came up with the idea to give our customers a goody bag, with things handmade by our members, when they spent $20 in the shop.
It worked a treat and our sales for the weekend rocketed.
So the other day a few of us got together and had a working bee to make some goobybagness!
My friend H has more fabric than I have beads I think!
These are some squares she cut out once for cushions that never really sold, so here we are making them into coasters - to give away in October.

Nothing like being organised in advance!

If you would like to join in with Our creative spaces or just take a peek at what others have been up to, pop over here.

Glenbrook Markets

What a beautiful day!
Perfect weather for a day at the market.

You have to get there early so that that you can be set up early.
then you go shopping!

There are bagels, organic fruit and veggies and fresh fish.
Great coffee to go with my breakfast blueberry bagel.

It's a friendly market, the other stallholders are lovely and a good mix of local customers and passing tourists.

my stall

Other etsy sellers who go to these markets are -

serpentmandalas

berlinski

samibop

MarkMay

xiztance

trove

as well as other local craftspeople, plants, preserves and collectables.

If you are in the Blue Mountains, you really should come and check the markets out.
They are on the third Saturday of the month.

See you there!