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

Strawberries and Pimms Workshop

Last Friday, I closed the shop early to panic over how I'd fit 8 people into the shop that evening, around a table, to teach them how to make a leather strawberry brooch/hairslide, while simultaneously drinking Pimms and eating crisps. 

So I dismantled a really heavy table by myself, and narrowly avoided dropping it on my sandal-clad toes. Dashed home to pick up another really heavy table (a different shape this time), rushed back to the shop, praying that it was the same height as another not-so-heavy table, and hope that the table cloth would cover both. It did. The tables matched in height. I'd scavenged enough chairs, and the Pimms was all mixed and ready to guzzle by the time 8 lovely ladies arrived at 7pm, raring to go!

 

And here are those 8 lovely ladies, all in action, stitching their very own 3D leather strawberries, to make into brooches and hairslides... 

 Check out Suzie's incredible strawberry dress on the right- she wore strawberry earrings, hairslide, and even shoes, and also came with a gift of strawberry sweeties for me. Talk about embracing the strawberry theme!!

Here's Ianthe, concentrating on her stitching technique...

 

By 9.30pm (I knew we'd over-run a little!) everyone had finished their very own fruity accessory, and here they are modelling them:

Here's Kate with her finished brooch, looking very pleased with her handiwork!!

Jennie's brooch is almost camouflaged with her amazing Cath Kidston train dress!

Emma and Charlotte looking super doops in their strawberry creations:

Emma and Alex pleased as (Pimms) punch with their magnificent stitchery...

And last, but by no means least, Ianthe looking jubilant that she's wearing her fruity creation!

Sadly Suzie skipped off home, before I got a chance to snap her with her finished brooch, and her amazing outfit.

Anyway, all in all, a fab evening, and everyone did amazingly well- I was so impressed with everyone's finished brooches and hairslides!

Here's what they had to say about it...

"Had a fabulous evening, love my hair slide!! Looking forward to another one soon!! Thank you!" 

- Emma B

"Thank you so much for a fabulous craft & Pimm's filled evening! Can't wait to show off my strawberry brooch today. Looking forward to attending other workshops soon xxXxx"

- Ianthe

"Thanks for a lovely unique evening , I love my strawberrys... Ps that last pimms packed a punch= sore head this morning xxxxx"

- Jennie

"Had a great time & love my brooch, thank you xx"

- Kate

"Such a fun evening, thank you! I'm wearing my brooch with pride."  

- Emma L

"Very pleased with my hair slide. Looks great and was fun to make too! I recommend one of these fab workshops!"

- Charlotte

If you'd like to join us for the next Strawberry & Pimms workshop, you can book online here: http://lovefromhettyanddave.bigcartel.com/product/strawberries-and-pimms-workshop

You will learn how to make a pair of 3D leather strawberries, and turn them into a pair of cute earrings or if you are feeling a bit more adventurous, an adorable brooch/hairslide.

Friday the 26th of July from 7pm - 9pm

Suitable for beginners, £20 per person.

8 places available

This workshop includes all materials, Pimms and lemonade, ginger beer and nibbles served vintage style, on delightful mismatched crockery.

Hope to see you there.

Strawberry Flavoured Lovings

xx

 

Amazing Animal Shoe Workshop!

Due to the mega popularity of the animal shoes, we've decided to show you how it's done at our Animal Shoe Workshop...

Join us on Sunday the 19th of May, at our Bournemouth shop/studio and customise your shoes, with creator behind the Love From Hetty & Dave brand, Zoe Larkins.

You will learn how to re-invent your shoes with leather details as well as stitching techniques that can be used to customise all the other shoes in your wardrobe!

Sunday the 19th of May from 11am - 3pm 

at

Love From Hetty & Dave

864 Christchurch Road

Bournemouth

BH7 6DQ

Suitable for beginners, £40 per person

Advance bookings only
8 places available

You will need to bring a pair of plain ballet pump style shoes or heels in your size to customise.

Examples of what you could do:
White shoes - Pandas, Mice or Bunnies
Brown shoes - Foxes or bears
Black shoes - Cats 

You get the idea... or contact us if you have any problems!

This workshop includes all materials except the shoes, sandwiches, tea and cake served vintage style, on delightful mismatched crockery.

Book your place here: 

http://lovefromhettyanddave.bigcartel.com/product/customised-animal-shoes-workshop-19th-may

Looking forward to helping you pimp your pumps!!

Tippy Toe 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

How Many Scissors are too Many Scissors?

After going slightly overboard, and buying 18 pairs of scissors this week in preparation for Sunday's workshop, it looks like I might have a bit of a 'thing' for scissors... and these are just the ones that were hanging about close to hand!

I'm thinking about dedicating a whole wall to my scissors, a bit like this amazing scissor shop we visited in Bern last year, while we holidayed in Switzerland...

 

Now that is some serious snippage!

They literally sell a pair of scissors for every kind of cutting need that you could possibly have!

 

They even sell a his and hers, first pair of scissors for children... Cute and a little bit creepy!

So, on that note, I'm off to cut some stuff up.

If you would like to come and experience the scissor craziness at the Valentine's Heart Brooch workshop this Sunday, you can get your place here: http://lovefromhettyanddave.bigcartel.com/product/valentines-brooch-workshop

Snippy snip snip lovings 

xx

Mollie Makes Festival Issue

Hoorah! We're in our fave crafting mag, Mollie Makes.... AGAIN! Double whoopla!

In this issue, I'm chatting about designs I have made for musicians, and the lovely Gabby Young... but it's probs best you just go and buy a copy, rather than get your magnifying glass out to read it on here:

You can subscribe to Mollie Makes through this link: 

http://www.myfavouritemagazines.co.uk/stitch-craft/mollie-makes-magazine-subscription/ 

 

And download the iPad version here: http://goo.gl/qzprk

 

If you don't want to miss out on the latest news from Mollie Makes, you best sign up to their newsletter at the top of the page, here: http://molliemakes.themakingspot.com/

 

Crafty lovings

 

xx

Reign/Rain in Battersea Park

For a good few weeks, we'd been super excited about setting up a stall with Etsy at the party in Battersea Park, for the Jubilee.  What with the totally glorious weather we've had, we were so sure it would be a beaut of sun filled day.  Alas no..

After a 4am start, a delightful coach ride, and quite a long walk to Battersea in the drizzle we arrived at the Park wondering what we'd let ourselves in for... but by the time all the other lovely Etsy traders had arrived and we'd set up our stalls, the rain had lessened.

Here's my stall, looking just the right amount of damp and windswept:

It was so great to see so many people had made the effort to dress up, with many in red, white and blue, waving their flags for Liz...

I was busy selling when the flotilla started, but darling Gazmatron managed to get some snaps...

He was lucky enough to see the Queen go by- she's the speck of white on the boat in this photo.

While Gary saw Liz float past, I saw my first real life Pearly King & Queen... Totally brilliant.

Makes me want to cover EVERYTHING in my entire wardrobe in buttons.

I caught up with my fab friend Tina at Tobyboo, who kindly gave me this rat-licious sticky tape...

Go get some NOW- it is truely ACE. Click here for the link.

Bought two hilarious and kinda creepy finger brooches, one for me, one for my sister from the cute www.miwary.com

 You can buy your own extra finger here.

It was a truly bonkers-ly (yes, that is a word) busy day, where at points, the stall was 4 deep in customers. 

Here's a picture of me finding something quite hilarious, whilst serving 8 different customers all at once on the stall...

So at the end of the day, with my pockets full of hard earned cash, I treated myself to this gorrrrrrrrrgeous cowboy cushion from the super Sally Nencini

Take a look at Sally's knitted delights here- I'd like one of each please.

 

And to thank my dearest Gazmatron for helping me out on a rainy day, treated him to some much hankered after vintage saddle shoes...

What a lucky boy!

Anyway, off to continue enjoying this lovely long Jubilee weekend

Royal lovings

xx

Shop Shenanigans

Lummy cripes I'm tired.

It's been a busy day, in fact, it's been a busy fortnight.

With only a couple of days left til the grand opening of Love From Hetty & Dave HQ, I thought I would give you a sneaky peak of how it's all looking...


Rather fabby I think, although more than one family member has exclaimed it looks as though my brain has exploded in the shop. I'm pretty sure this is exactly what it looks like inside my head!


Mega thanks goes out to my amazing sister who stepped in, just at the right point this evening, to merchandise, before I collapsed with exhaustion. And wowzers, did she do a good job!?!

So, unfortunately due to shop duties, I won't make it to the We Make 'Meet the Makers' evening on Thursday, which I am rather gutted about, but just can't fit in a trip to London. Nevertheless, a pair of severed hands and LOVE/HATE rings are on their way up, to go in my show case.


If you happen to be in the Farringdon area on Thursday night, you must pop in to meet some lovely creative people:


And for all you gorgeous Bournemouth based people, I look forward to seeing you on this Friday between 6-9pm for the opening!


Whooooopla!

Super excited lovings

xx

We Make London Summer Spectacular

Wow woweee, it's aready the 1st of June! Where is this year going?

Well, here's a June event I'm quite excited about... the We Make London summer fair at Chelsea Town Hall, Kings Road, London on Saturday 26th June.


You can read all about it here.

There are so many ace exhibitors, so get saving.

Here are some of my faves:

Cecily Vessey- I bought the lovely Battersea Power Station print for the boy's Christmas present, and now I have my eye on some of the gorge new crockery she's doing:


And I am completely in love with Nancy & Betty, who like me, studied at KIAD. A Caravan card is totally on the shopping list, what with our recent caravan obsessions:


And lummy cripes, I LOVE this hat by Jardin De Fleur


I could go on and on, as every single exhibitor has something I want! Go and have a look at the list here, and come and check them out in the flesh on the 26th June.

Here are the details...

Date:	Saturday, 26 June 2010
Time:	11:00 - 17:00
Location:	Chelsea Town Hall
Street:	Kings Road
Town/City:	London, United Kingdom
	View map

Shop shop shopping lovings

xx