Dinosaurs and Dodo's Hang Out (Renegade Craft Fair)

Crafty Looking RCF (Renegade Craft Fair) for you slo-mos

Last weekend I was probably thee most tired I have ever been. Working all week preparing stock and then getting up at stupid o'clock to avoid rail replacement wasn't the beginning of a fresh faced and stress free weekend!

I looked a mess, so THANK YOU, to anybody that still approached our stall and bought from us, as we not only looked a mess, but I feel I was also talking delirious nonsense too!

However, now I've got that apology/rant out of the way...

Renegade is an AWESOME-TASTIC weekend for sellers and buyers alike.

Us having all the fun on our joint stall with the Epic-ly Amazing hello DODO

I am going to show you snapshots of my weekend, I'm not going to show you the layout of sellers' stalls because it's Thursday and I've already seen a million posts like that. Sorry if I have mentioned these people before, my taste hasn't changed...

Toby (i like CATS) struggling with all his luggage on the way to Renegade, he struggled on the way home too but no photos of that!

Bredan (i am acrylic) had the best badge. He's very very helpful. 

Jacques kept leaping into all of my photos...

Prawn Brooch by Magasin. I did the really annoying thing of trying to redesign somebody else's product. I really wanted a prawn-y necklace and was trying to work out if I could make this beautiful brooch into what I wanted. Sarah was EXTREMELY patient with me. She's lovely.

Cheska is super happy in front of her stall (mooshpie)

Our Crafty Crewdem leaving Renegade :( including Sally from Hand Over Your Fairy Cakes, and Amy her trusty Stall buddy! (all credit for this photo goes to Sally, except she's in it so ermm.)

So did you like my little wander around Renegade or would you prefer me to do a list of all the sellers I like and their products, because I have all the photos to do that blogpost too... let me know in the comments yeah?

ROAR!

PS I haven't edited my photos, there aren't enough hours in the day!

Florrie + Karli...

So last week we launched our new Florrie products which were styled and photographed by Florrie and her sister Rosie. They are beautiful photos with a dreamy vintage feel, which fits perfectly with Florrie's style.

I am as far from vintage, grown up and put together as you can get so I also took some photos with my sister, Amelia last week and wanted to show you how somebody who gets dressed in the dark would style the pieces. So if you also fail at dressing as a grown up and you want to have a bright and colourful winter with awesome statement jewellery, this is how I'd do it*...

Also Amelia bought a new top, and wanted to show it off so I have this photo too... 

Please excuse my photo taking/editing, I suck at this stuff...

*DISCLAIMER, I have not meant to offend anybody with this post

Renegade Craft Fair London

Next weekend we will be at Renegade Craft Fair London in the Old Truman Brewery, Brick Lane.

We are lucky enough that this is our second year at Renegade, but this year we are sharing a stall with the AWESOME hello DODO.

We will obviously have our new best mate George with us as well as all of our other new products.

Including our new Florrie x designosaur pieces!

We will also have some NEW! EXCITING! LIMITED EDITION! dinosaur pieces that will only be available at Craft Fairs this Christmas season. So come and see us next weekend!

ROAR!

Florrie x designosaur

I met Florrie whilst we were both interning in London. We made matching bracelets and I don't really know how we got to where we are now. This is our second collaboration with Florrie and she is going to tell you a little more about herself...

Florrie Ann Thomas

Florrie in her Bear Bib Necklace

Intricate hand cut paper illustrations inspired by antique lace, nature and print design. 

Since graduating from Loughborough University School of Art & Design in Multi-Media Textiles (2010) I have applied these skills and the love of Folk Art towards recreating lace through the humble material that is paper. Being a freelance designer I have had the opportunity to create window displays, commissions, collaborations and also work with other designers in this exciting medium. Being able to collaborate with designosaur has been a dream come true because of my big love of jewellery and quirky design. 

Flower ring

       

Florrie's sister Rosie modelled for all these shots, that's what sisters are for right?

I like to contrast textures and styles within my work, setting old against new; scouring vintage and antique fairs provides me with little treasures I might use for inspiration, collages or just add to my growing eclectic collection.

RAWRSOME Growling Bear Brooch

My love of nostalgia creeps in to most pieces of my work whether its Victorian embroidery, a children's book illustration or a pattern from a 1920s piece of china. To contrast against this I love modern and innovative design which brings a contemporary edge and helps my work evolve.

Cute flower earrings

Although I graduated with a degree in Textiles, illustration has always (and will always) be a major element of my work. My parents are a big influence and have always encouraged creativity due to their own talents. My dad Mark Thomas fed my appreciation with the history of illustration through being able to follow his varied career, portfolio and vast collection of reference books. 

Mini Growly Bear

The Journey from Paper to Acrylic

1. My original hand cut paper illustration of Hidden in Lace. This piece was from my degree show and easily one of my most time consuming and detailed paper cuts. I wanted to recreate antique lace through paper but bring a more contemporary element by placing unusual imagery within the pattern to catch people out. 

Florrie's original Paper Cut

2. I decided to choose this paper cut as I thought it would stand out and compliment Designosaurs unique image. After playing around with potential shapes and designs I decided on the collar style for this piece. I edited the lace in Photoshop to make it symmetrical and simplified elements.

Florrie's necklace design

3. The next stage was designosaur doing their magic! An important stage of the process is checking the file and making sure the intricate design would work as jewellery. Then the piece was laser cut in white acrylic.

BIG Statement Bear Necklace

4. The finished result! Check it out - Now available at www.designosaurYEAH.etsy.com 

ROAR!

Peace Out!

Karma Karma Karma Karma Karma Chameleon...

Hello DODO (www.hellododoshop.etsy.com) are our favourite crafty folk and since meeting them last year and loving each other's work this collaboration came naturally! They are clever, witty screenprinters who came up with the idea of  "The Necklace That Goes With Everything!" and so George was born.

Ali and George hanging out

George, is a grumpy chameleon. He is laser cut from very slightly green tinted acrylic, and is perched on a cherry wood laser cut branch before being hung from a 40cm long silver plated curb chain.

Ali and George are best mates

Our designosaur branded gift box has been pimped out by hello DODO with a two colour screenprint in peacock blue and metallic silver water-based, toxic-free ink handprinted on to 300gsm matt card.

Want to get your hands on your very own George? You can here: designosaur Etsy Shop

George hanging out in his tank... I mean box

PS Sorry for the silence. Hopefully this is the beginning of me blogging again!

ROAR!

Craft Camp! Etsy Craft Party 2013

The Craft Party took so much organisation and then was so much fun that I then had no energy left to tell you all about it!

So now I want to tell you it was AMAZING! We got together 50 of Brighton's crafty people to knit, stitch, glue, felt, make and eat cake and this eventually created an AWESOME window at Super+Super (blog post on this to come).

Welcome to Craft Camp! We spent the evening making merit badges, decorating tents and learning new skills.

I am going to show you some of  the incredible photos by Bob Prosser and the totally brilliant video he made for us... 

Crewdem - Toby, Cheska and I

Jacques with the cute little Mike Wazowski Pom Pom he made me

Etsy Face!

Deborah and Avnish knitting and Pom Pom making!

Party Bunting!

Awesome Brownies and Etsy Letters by Sarah Miss Cake

Craft Numpty... Jacques... let's mention he's repping a HelloDODO T-Shirt!

Toby makes a felted sad bear, and Jacques makes a very sprightly felted fox!

The party was mainly organised by Toby (i Like CATS), Cheska (Mooshpie) with crafting activities by Kate (Actually I Do), Karen (Karen Rao), and Suzie (Strix nebulosa Crochet). Crafting for the Community brought us all together and I hope everybody had fun!

We are are doing awesome and amazing things as a Team and it is keeping me very VERY busy as a Team Leader. If you are a Brighton Etsy Seller join our team, we are a friendly and unstoppable bunch at the moment! 

ROAR!

Pop Up Meet Up

HELLO!

I haven't blogged in forever because we have been CRAZY busy. However I have set myself the challenge of catching up on everything we have been doing over the last month in blog posts, so expect an extremely bloggy week!

As the name suggests we went to a Pop Up Meet Up at the beautiful venue which is the Emporium on London Road. Jacques and I headed down and arrived about five minutes before it all began, we sat with Cheska from Mooshpie and I commented on how we weren't late (for once) only to be given a skewed look because in the forty minutes previous they had all been networking... ooops.

It was a fantastic talk outlining what We Are Pop Up do, how they do it, and why we should be involved.

Jacques and I love these free meet ups and talks because you can learn so much from inspiring business owners, artists and designers whilst enjoying a beverage!

I wrote lots of notes, which isn't like me, I'm more of an absorb-er when it comes to information so I also drew a lot of different styles of typography... (I have photos on instagram of these things but my computer, my phone and dropbox are conspiring against me)

So We Are Pop Up was founded by Mike Salter who came down to Brighton with Abi Freeman I chatted to them both afterwards as we are interested in a Pop Up shop for designosaur and also as something that the Brighton Etsy Team could do. It was all very positive with Mike and Abi making us feel as anything was possible.

We Are Pop Up provides the link up between space and people that want space. They are currently working with Brighton and Hove Council and have placed 60 businesses in their first year! 

We were told about lots of great Pop Up's that have happened or are happening, which I'm going to tell you about...

Prop Store

Prop Store at the National Theatre

"Propstore is the National Theatre's unique summertime pop-up riverfront café-bar, built with sets and scenery from NT productions and filled with some of our favourite props.

Open every day from noon, it serves a selection of delicious street food, Meantime draught beer, Sipsmith spirits and English wines. Friday and Saturday nights mean DJs 'til 2am and a variety of exciting live bands."

Amazing huh?! I want to go. 

Little Green Pig

Little Green Pig Writing Project is a non-profit creative writing organisation for children and young people,  based in Brighton & Hove. Their plan is to create the Pop Up "Pet Emporium" for exotic pets, how about rainbow drops for your unicorn or grooming products for your dinosaur? We love this idea and we'd love to get involved in this project!

So basically a month ago we had an awesome time learning about Pop Ups, networking and drinking in an awesome venue... I LOVE BRIGHTON!

Oooo look I drew my signature, cool huh... (not really if you are called Bob Prosser, he's the only person I think won't be excited about this)

Craftaganza Live Talk - MIY Workshop

I'm Meme Dendy, little (sometimes annoying) sister of Karli. Karli has introduced me into the world of social media and now she's getting me into the world of blogging. So you lucky people get to read my first ever ever blog post EVER! 

Flyer from last nights talk (we didn't take any photos!

Last night I was thrown into the world of craft which my sister has become so accustom to. She very kindly took me along to a Craftaganza Live talk. I got to meet some of the people who I've seen so much about on social media and I got to put a face to the craft. 

Wendy Ward was the speaker and she did a talk telling us all about how she got started and how she has ended up running her own business MIY Workshop. 

The talk was very friendly and informal, and not too long! It was also positive, making the process of going from crafter to business owner sound challenging but not unachievable. Wendy detailed the journey she has been through to get to the point she is now, talking about the low points and tough decisions along the way. 

I think the talk was particularly interesting if you shared Wendy's passion for her craft as she is clearly very talented at what she does, not only teaching but also designing and creating her own patterns. However I think the message and ethos she talked of is beneficial to any one trying to make the leap from doing something as a hobby to doing it as a real grown-up job and all that that entails. 

Photo from Wendy's website of Patten Cutting

It was a great experience and excellent for those of us who are a bit nosy (myself included)! It was interesting to hear about someone's craft, experiences and journey. It was a lovely, informal night out, nothing like the dreadful talks you used to get in school, also I'm pretty sure you were never allowed an Amaretto and coke during a talk at school.  

If I lived in Brighton I'd definitely be up for going  to the next one as it was mentioned the next talker could be someone who makes big things out of little things, which left me confused but interested! I'm sure Karli will update us all of what that talk entails. 

Amelia

(designosaur model/ Karli's Sister)