Autumnal Awesomeness: Dates for the Diary

It's September already, and before we can even do a double blink and a triple wink, it will be Christmas. YIKES!  

August is usually my quietest month of the year, but this year, just as I was preparing for a restful time sitting in the sunshine and eating ice creams, you all went completely bananas and kept me super busy with mucho orders for cherry shoes...

...And dapper chap slugs:

I must just mention, that in between orders galore, I've started on some rather marvellous Christmas-y delights already, which some of my wonderful customers in le shoppe have already had a sneaky peek at. The rest of you, are just gonna have to wait, until the golden harps arrive to finish off the slug de la resistance!

Anyway enough Christmouse talk for now, here are some dates for the diary over the next couple of months...

First off, this Friday (6th Sept) and Friday 20th September, I will be teaching a bunch of lovely peeps how to make these...

  

This Friday's workshop is now all booked up, but there are still a few spaces for the 20th, so book your place now, before they all sell out: Tea and Biscuits Workshop

Then, on Sunday the 6th October, I will be heading up to London to sell my wares at The Crafty Fox Market. I haven't been at any London events to trade for aaaaaaages, so I am looking forward to catching up with all my creative buddies there, and seeing all my fabulous London customers again.

October's workshop will be Halloween themed, so we'll be making leather Mexican skull brooches/keyrings. As October is looking to be pretty busy, we'll just be holding one ghoulish workshop on Friday 18th October... You'll be able to book online later this month- keep your eyeballs peeled (not literally, that would be disgusting) on the website.

At the end of October, I'll be heading back up to London, with my extremely talented and amazingly wonderful sister, Rachel.  We'll be sharing a space, and selling our creations at Made London, One Marylebone, from the 25th to the 27th October.

Here's a peek at what my sister does: 

and her website: http://www.rachellarkins.com/

You can find all the info on Made London here: http://www.madelondon.org/

Soooo, I think that's plenty of lovely dates to pop in the diary for now. I feel exhausted just thinking about it all- I think I need a little sleep!

Busy Bee Lovings 

xx

A Not Very Brief History of Love From Hetty & Dave: Part 1

Soooo, the other day I was perusing all my sales on Etsy from waaaaaaaay back, and was reminded how it all began, and as I re-count this story at least 3 times a day to customers in the shop, I thought I'd tell you lot about it too, so here goes....

In 2001, I just about scraped a third in my Silver and Goldsmithing degree at Rochester. In all honesty, I chose the wrong course- I should have done fashion or textiles, but was too lazy at the time to change it!  

Anyway, having collaborated with my best friend for her fashion collection, and making the handbags and accessories for her final show, I discovered how delicious it was, working with leather. I never worked with metal again, which was a massive relief as I was rubbish at soldering!

Shortly after graduating, we're talking a matter of hours, I disappeared out of Medway and back to my hometown of Bournemouth, where I spent the summer (and maybe a little bit longer) labelling video tapes. Pretty glamourous stuff. 

I did, in fact, get to the point where I could stick the spine label on one handed. I considered entering the Guinness Book of Records for my speedy labelling, but alas, I soon started to get the shakes from drinking copious amounts of instant coffee. 

I was soon promoted to printing vinyl CCTV signs, apparently labelling videos wasn't mentally stimulating enough for me, although I believe it was more to do with placing me in a work area far, far away from the coffee machine, thus saving the company a considerable amount of money on hot beverages.

Every evening, after my tape labelling day job, I'd go home and play around, experimenting with leather (NOT in the kinky sense), until I came up with a simple handbag design, with a folky, South American inspired design:

Front...

and back...

Then I did start experimenting in the kinky sense, and made these rude little ladies...

Here's a photo of me looking super young, demonstrating how to pass out on a friend's floor, and spill the contents of your handbag...







I called my brand 'Love From Hetty & Dave', after an old photo I got in a junk shop while I was living in Rochester. On the back, written in felt tip pen: 'To Mary and Bill, Love From Hetty & Dave'

No idea who this adorable couple is, but I presume they are Mary and Bill- Hetty & Dave probably took the photo, and sent it to them.

Aaaaaanyway, in 2005, I realised that the old folk of Bournemouth were never really going to appreciate my kinky handstitched works of art, and I made the move to London, where I worked as a customer services manager for an online fashion retailer. 

How I got this job, I will never know, as I could barely send an email, let alone do anything else that involved the internet. Luckily, I'm a fast learner, and managed to get by, despite phoning my dad, crying my eyes out, on the second day! 

I moved into a teeny, tiny bedsit off of Portobello Road, and worked my fingers to the bone every minute I wasn't at work, stitching my appliqued leather handbag creations to sell on Portobello Market every Saturday.

As it turned out, nobody was prepared to spend the money (which really wasn't very much) on a handmade leather bag, by a new, unknown designer. Looking around what people were selling on the market, I quickly sussed out that jewellery was what sold, and soon I had scaled my designs down into brooches and necklaces.

Bearing in mind, that craft seller websites like Etsy didn't exist at this point in time, or if they did, nobody really knew about them, the only way of selling my product was through markets, and after listening to the advice of the other stall holders, I moved over to Spitalfields Market, where things really started to take off. But that's a story for another day...

 

For now, I'll leave you with pictures of my Leather Tattoo Swallow handbag design:

And the Leather Tattoo Swallow Man-bag I made for Marc Almond of 'Soft Cell', in 2005...

 

 

Next time, whenever that will be, all about what happened when I started trading at Spitalfields...

Market trader lovings

xx

London Calling

Recently I came to the conclusion that I work waaaaay too hard, and actually, I do deserve a little break from time to time, so last weekend, I shut up shop, and headed off to London for a couple of days, to catch up with old chums, and have a bit of a mooch about.

Here's a picture of me mooching, and looking a bit cross:

 

This is what I did...

* Bumped into a customer on the bus, who was sporting a ladybird brooch on her bag

* Hung out in an old man's pub, and watched a pool competition, while simultaneously admiring the amazingly high gloss ceiling!

* Went to Soho to stock up on chains and findings, then popped over to Spitalfields to grab some blue leather for a Union Jack heart brooch order.

* Ate some delicious Turkish food.

* Popped into Lazy Oaf where I had a quick catch up with lovely Gemma, and tried on this AMAZING pineapple dress, then couldn't decide whether to buy it or not, so left it... for now!! I have a funny feeling that as soon as the sun shines, I'll be getting my purse out!

* But most exciting of all, finally made it to George Moore Menswear shop in Bowes Park, which I'd been wanting to go to for years...

No ordinary menswear shop, this place closed down about 13 years ago, but the owner who retired, and now lives above the shop never cleared out the window display. 

I love old, abandoned buildings, and when they still have all the  stuff in, even better! Just wish I could have had a peek inside the door, to see if all the stock was still on the shop floor.

Check out these delightfully mouldy underpants!

I'd like to think that the shop comes to life in the dead of night with ghosties and ghouls, shopping for faded ski gloves and mildewed undercrackers...

I hung about George's for a while, wondering how the local residents feel about this peculiar museum piece of a shop and gazing at the windows above, it's tattered grey nets fluttering in the breeze, I hoped to catch a glimpse of the gent that owns the shop. No such luck, so I headed off to my next eery destination...

Next stop was Postman's Park, a Memorial of Heroic Self Sacrifice, close to St Paul's.

The wall is lined with tiles, telling the heroic tales of all kinds of people...

Just lovely, and poignant.

If you are ever in the vicinity, you must, must, must go and have a look. 

Sooooooooo, that was my lovely, if somewhat weird and creepy weekend!

If you're fond of an eerie tale, check out this blog- one of my faves for peculiar stories: http://www.messynessychic.com/

That's all for today! Back in the shop this weekend!

Creepy Lovings

xx 

Shoe Story

I might have already told some of you this freaky story before, but I've just entered it for the Selfridges Shoe Story doo-da, to win many lovely shoes, and thought I'd pop it on the blog for your creepy pleasure...

This is a true story, and is a might be a bit diluted as it happened a while back now.

One hot summer's evening a few years ago, after a couple of glasses of wine, I was ambling to my bus stop on Oxford Street, when I was approached by a rather sweaty man, wearing very short shorts and steamed up specs.

He said he'd noticed my shoes, and I looked like I enjoyed shopping. He then went on to tell me he was doing some research into people's shopping habits for a book he was writing, and would I be interested in being a case study? Every shop he observed me in, he would pay me £10.


Let me tell you now, I was skint (I'd recently spent all my money on a pair of Miu Miu tapestry wedge sandals), naive (I hadn't been living in London for long) and did I tell you I'd had a couple of glasses of wine that evening?! Anyway, as I stood at the top of Oxford Street, I thought to myself, £10 per shop could make me A LOT of money, so I agreed, and he suggested we went into Clarkes where I should try some shoes on...

There were conditions though. We had to rush through this, as there were many shops to go to, and we didn't want to attract the staff's attention to slow us down. AND he had to put the shoe on my foot. I thought this all sounded reasonable in my slightly sozzled state, so in we went and as I stood there looking at groovy granny sandals, it suddenly clicked. This man wasn't interested in watching me shop, he was interested in putting shoes on my feet! I had attracted a foot fetishist!!!

Mr Foot Fetish obviously saw the look on my face, as my brain switched on, and he swiftly escorted me out of the shop, and asked whether everything was ok. I told him I felt a little uncomfortable, and had to catch my bus. He kindly offered me his phone number, in case I wanted to re-consider, but I sweetly declined, and fled as quickly as possible.

I haven't worn these shoes for a long time now, but whenever I re-discover them in the dusty depths of my wardrobe, I can't help but laugh... in a creepy sort of way!


Anyway, I will blog properly tomorrow.

I am too tired to do so now!

Shoe Lovings

xx

Turning Japanese...

Wowzers. Last night, I finally finished stitching this season's Japanese order.

Here's a peek of what my hands have been busy doing over the last few weeks...


Many, many sheriff badges.


I will be a very happy lady, if I never have to stitch a sheriff badge EVER again!

Some heart shaped London Underground key rings, for those Japanese London lovers...


And for those who just love...


A mere fraction of the Soldiers I stitched...


And amongst many other goodies, which tomorrow will be Japan-bound, I am ready for some...


RSI Lovings

xx