New Things at Little Birds Market

Hi guys!

Here are the pictures from the Little Birds Market earlier this month.  It was held inside Sloans Bar and restaurant, which has a wee ballroom!  Who knew!  It was a really nice day, hanging out with my two buddies Jo and Candace.  We talked mince, ate cakes and charmed the public.

Along with me I took:

A very large ottoman painted in grey and green and lined on the inside with British designer wallpaper.  Its a stunning chunk of wood, and it is currently gracing the window of Friday Street in Portobello.
A really cool cabinet with sliding glass doors and green highlights inside and out.  This one is super retro, not my usual style, but very fun to do!
A very cute little Ercol style chair that I picked up and painted blue.  It had a really rotten seat on it, so I reupholstered it with a grey suit wool that I found at the Borders Scrap Store in Musselburgh.
A tiny wee kidney bean shaped table that I painted lemon yellow and varnished (I dont usually varnish furniture, but this was in a chronic bad state!).
And finally, a selection of cushions.  My Russian Dolly ones, and Julia Laing of Materialised's Bunny Cushions.  Thanks Julia!

It was a good day, and I met some really smashing folk.

Watching "Lost In Translation" tonight.  Bill Murray for the win!

Be Good!

Claire x

Check these dudes out!

Had one of Flamingo Bakery's beautiful cake pops at the Little Birds Market on the 10th of July, and in the words of Janice from Friends "Oh, my, god!".

Go and check them out, now!

http://www.flamingobakery.co.uk/

More updates from the Market to come soon, I'm off to watch that Big Yin movie "The Man Who Sold God".

Be Good!

Claire x

ReMade Home is here!

Hello everybody!

The new exhibition has opened at ReMade Home, Loretto Gallery, Musselburgh!  Get along there and check out the most beautiful selection or hand-made and eco friendly items!

Below are some photos of the show, including some new items of mine.

I hope some of you can make it along to the show, its on until Sunday afternoon.

Be Good!

Claire x

ReMade Home Exhibition

Hey everybody!

I am currently in the process of reworking quite a few pieces of furniture for the upcoming ReMade Home event.  I'm really excited about it and cant wait to unveil my newest pieces!  Look out for a rescued 60's dining table, a pair of cute re-upholstered Danish chairs, a 70's glass topped coffee table, a nursery rhyme inspired rocking chair and a 70's nest of tables on castors.  The event should be a lot of fun with some incredible artists getting involved (including Julia Laing of Materialised).

So shimmy on down to the Loretto Galley, Musselburgh (across from Lucas), from Thursday morning till Sunday night.

For full information and a list of all artists involved, go to: http://www.remadehome.co.uk/

Be good!

Claire x

Empty Chairs and Empty Tables

Hi Everyone!

Just a quick hello and cheerio this time!  I have just completed these two awesome pieces this week.  The top piece is a little telephone table that Suzanne at Friday street gave me to rescue.  It was in a very sorry state!  All broken and wobbly, a horrible red stain on the wood, mingin' fabric on the seat and no drawer knob!  Something had to be done.  So, I stripped back the wood, secured all of the joints, primed and painted it.  Then all I had to do was re-upholster the wee seat part, ta-dah!

As for the wee bent-wood chair, some silly person had nailed a cheap leatherette fabric to the seat.  So, I had to pull all of that off first.  What was revealed underneath was this beautiful carved pattern.  So, after I cleaned it all up, filled some of the bigger nail holes, primed it, and painted it, the chair began to look much more appealing!  In fact, I was seriously considering keeping it!  However, it is now up for sale at Friday Street and the telephone table will be up for sale there from Monday.

Really looking forward to the Makers Market on Byres road on Saturday!  It was great last month, so hopefully it will be great this month too!  Hope to see you all there!

Be good!

Claire x

Rockin' Chair!

Hey everyone!
Been super busy again!  I have moved back out of Drum Farm (long story!) and I am now storing my furniture at Daves parents farm, which is great as I dont have to pay rent!  However, it means that if you want to see me you will have to go to one of my craft fairs, drop me a line here, email me (needleinthehay@hotmail.co.uk) or pop into Friday Street in Portobello to see stuff.

As you can see there are new photos to peek at today!  I have been busy transforming a really boring rocking chair into a totally Rockin' Chair!  I saved it from Gumtree and treated all the wood, painted it, then layered some cutouts from a 1962 copy of a June annual onto the seat and varnished it.  It looks pretty sweet and I hope you all agree!  It will be on sale at Friday Street probably from today onwards, but I will also take payments online and can deliver (within reason).

Also, as you can see, the Byres Road Makers Market on Saturday 26/3 went amazingly!  Julia and I had a lovely day in the Hillhead library selling our beautiful hand-made wares.  We both done well and met some really nice people!  So thanks to everyone who organised it and attended it.

Craft fairs coming up:

Byres Road Makers Market          Sat 30th April          11am-4pm       Hillhead Library
Edinburgh Magpie Market             Sun 8th May            11am-5pm       The Hub

I hope to see you there!

Be Good!

Claire x

Scrabble, Flowers and Edinburgh

Hi everyone!

I've been super busy over the past two weeks and have managed to secure a new studio/workshop/saleroom at Drum Farm (just off Sherrifhall roundabout on the A7).  It is so great to have a wee place that I can work in and not turn the flat upside down in the process!  I've managed to complete 3 projects that I have been working on already!

The top one "Scrabble influenced coffee table", is definitely my favourite.  I just love the colour turquoise and I love Scrabble!  Ha ha!  It will be selling from my studio.  The second one, "Edinburgh Weavers Chair", was inspired by the fabric on the seat.  Suzanne at Friday Street (Portobello) found the fabric and we decided to put them together.  I think the lilac works well with the fabric and compliments it beautifully.  It is on sale at Friday Street in Portobello, its actually in the window facing the high street.  Lastly, the little retro trolley table has been lovingly painted, stencilled (with Edinburgh tourist attractions) and varnished.  It is also on sale at Friday Street.

I hope to have a whole host of delicious new items up for sale at Drum Farm and at Friday Street in the coming weeks and months, so keep your peepers peeled!

Also, I will be appearing at next Saturdays "Byres Road makers Market" at Hillhead Library with my friend Julia Laing of Materialised.  Come by and see the plethora of beautiful treats for sale!

Anyway, I'm off to celebrate the Scotland rugby teams' first try in 17 months, yay!

Be good!

Claire x

Some thing's old, some thing's new

Hi everybody!

I hope you are all grand!  I figured it was high time that I stuck a couple of foties up of my previous work, as well as a pic of what I've been up to this month. 

The lovely young lady at the top of this post is Baboushka, my brand new Matryoshka Doll Cushion that I have lovingly made.  She has been hand sewn together with embroidery thread, and the fabric used to make her body is all 100% post-consumer recycled felt made from plastic bottles!  Shes about the length of a ruler (30cm) and soft and cuddly too!  She looks nice parked on a couch or sitting proud on a wooden chair.  A lovely wee lassie indeed.

The second fotie down is a collection of Scottish Art Prints that I first started printing last year.  They are roughly A6 in size, thats a quarter of a piece of A4 paper.  They are printed on quite heavy watercolour paper using very high quality acrylic paints.  The images were taken from photographs in Edinburgh and one taken in Killin (Hamish the Heilan' Coo).  I cut the stencils from Frisk film and use them until they pretty much fall apart!  Then I have to cut them all over again.  Its worth it though, as they look quite nice, especially when put together in frames.

The bottom one is a wee collection of jewellery that I have crafted from dolls house miniatures.  I've always loved the way these wee bits and bobs looked inside dolls houses, so I thought it was high time they got showcased in the real world.  I have fastened the tiny crockery to gold plated chains with gold plated jump rings.  The little cake has been mounted on a gold plated adjustable ring.  Finally, the copper frying pan is mounted on a wee nickel plated brooch bar.  I love all of them, let me know what you think!

Anyway, thats all for now.  Thanks for popping by, and I hope to see you here again!

Be good!

Claire x

New things to look at!

Check out these two beauties!  I have been working on rescuing furniture for a while now, but these two decorative chairs are the first that I have lovingly re-dressed with a view to selling them on. 

The pale blue and white one on the right was very, very close to becoming firewood as it was in a terribly sad state.  I sanded it back, threw away the horrible tired upholstery, primed, painted and varnished (with eco-friendly matt varnish) and hey presto!  The new upholstery was made from a recycled sweater from the British heart Foundation shop, and its really soft and pretty.

The pale lilac chair with the olive green Heilan Coo's was an extra chair from a set.  An odd set of chairs is undesirable, so this one was due to be destroyed too.  Again, I sanded it back, primed, painted and varnished the chair and embellished it with uniform Highland cows. 

The chairs are cute and trendy, and would make an excellent addition to a cool eco-savvy home.

I hope you find them irresistable.

Be good!

Claire x

I'm a blog virgin!

Hello there!  My name is Claire and I make wee bits and pieces for people to keep (unless you have bought a cupcake and ate it right away!).  I live in Musselburgh with my boyfriend David, but I'm originally from Hamilton, which is just a few miles from Glasgow.  I have been plagued by wee ideas about things to make and do since I was really small, and have usually made a good job of bringing them to life.  I started out by making jewellery boxes from Fimo, then moved on to felt cuddly toys (when I was old enough to be trusted with needles).  I would be engrossed watching programmes like; "Art Attack", "Smart" and even the making stuff bit of "Blue Peter".  The beginning of an obsession.

I won my first (of two, haha) art awards in primary one.  I came in third place in a painting competition and was awarded a certificate at our local civic centre.  I was so proud!  My mother was also very proud, the framed certificate is still hanging in my parents hallway, eek!  I continued to make things, paint, draw and even make little comics in my spare time.  At high school I picked Art and Design as a standard grade and then higher.  I got really good grades, but unfortunately, thats where my studies ended.  I put serious thought into going to art school, and my teacher assured me that I would have probably been accepted, but I decided that I wanted to work with people.  I wanted to be some kind of therapist, maybe even an art therapist one day!  Anyway, I got an honours degree in psychology, and thats as far as I got.

Since leaving uni I've had a couple of retail jobs (which were definitley not my calling, not much of a sales person, just want to chat), and now I just make things and support my boyfriends new business.  He created a fuel drain company 7 months ago called Accidental Fuelling Solutions http://www.afs247.co.uk/ which I helped him start up and now I help him run.  Its weird, I never thought I'd be capable of working on cars, but I've always been pretty technically minded so it kinda just worked!  He trained me for a couple of months and now I've completed 10 jobs, all on my own.  I might actually be the very first female fuel drain specialist in Scotland!  Go me!  Haha.

So, I finally plucked up the courage to take my handmade items to the public last month.  After having an incredibly helpful conversation with Nikki Orr of Frugal Cool (http://www.frugalcool.co.uk/) at her shop on Musselbugh High Street ( Remade), I signed up for 2 fairs: Out Of The Blue and Funk Fair.  I have to say, I was delighted with the response I received!  I sold so many things, I was really, really chuffed!  I also met some lovely people in the stalls next to me: two girls who made stunning handmade leather bags (Im sorry, I cant remember the name of the company), and Julia Laing of Materialised (http://www.materialised.co.uk/).  Julia, thanks for the pep talk and advice in general, you are a cool girl and make some bloody super stuff!

Well, I'm off to watch a Danny Boyle special on Film 4.  I hope you have a better understanding of my reasons for starting this blogger.  I also hope you might come back some day and say "Awrite!".

Be good!

Claire x