May Update

I will be at Pitcairngreen Village Hall Spring Fair this Saturday the 21st May

New this week are these vibrant sea green textile and glass jewellery pieces.

I also have my 2017 Calendar out. I had it made in time for Open Studios which is why it's out so early.

Open Studios was a great success with over 300 visitors and lots of work sold. I enjoyed sharing some felt making techniques and doing some short demonstrations as well. 

I can honestly say that the run up to Open Studios was pretty hectic. I feel like I have been making non stop since January. Well I have really! No time to take a complete break but at least I have less deadlines and can enjoy playing around with new ideas.

Also new are these A5 notebooks.

The original artwork for the notebook is still available.

..

Gardener's Cottage

£245

I have all these new things available in my Etsy shop along with quite a few of my Textile Trinket Boxes.

Two new Seascapes are also available.

Foaming Waves

£230

Spring Tide

£95

I will have all this and more with me at Pitcairngreen on Saturday and available online here 

Aileen Clarke Crafts at The Loft, Ardross Farm Shop 28/29 November 2015

November has been a very dark month this year but I was delighted to see a bright morning yesterday with these beautiful cloud formations above the sunrise.

I'm nearly ready to settle in for the Winter with just one event left to take part in this weekend. 

I have really enjoyed taking my work out to lots of events during October and November and this weekend you can find me at 

The Loft at Ardross Farm Shop 

near Elie 

 Fife. 

KY9 1EU

9 - 5.30 Saturday 28th and 9 - 4 Sunday 29th

I have some new makes made especially for the event.

Tweed and Felt Trinket Boxes from £28 - £45

I particularly like the one above. The pinks and greens in the lid go really nicely with the purple Harris Tweed.

Seascape Moon Pendants 

£24

Layers of shimmering fabrics become mini seascapes lit by a full moon.

Lots of new Felt Brooches £12

Tartan Bird Brooches also £12

I have a limited stock left of all my printed Gift items.

Zipped Pouches £7.95

I recently joined Twitter and have been trying to educate myself on how to make that work for business. The first thing I did was reconnect with Hilary at Craft Blog UK and bought her book. I've been up and running with lots of Hilary's suggestions for some time now but although I'm only a few pages into the book, I have been helped to understand a few things better. I can recommend this book to anyone trying to sell their work online. It can be purchased on Amazon here

You can find me on Twitter as @FifeFibreArist. They wouldn't let me use AileenClarkeCrafts as it's too long! Pft! 

 In order to keep making you wee sheepies and to enjoy reading by the fire, I have had to get myself some specs! I decided if I had to wear glasses at all then they needed to be colour coordinated with my work.

I have also found the Just A Card Campaign on Twitter. 

This is to encourage people to make even just a small purchase from Artists/Makers as it all goes toward helping us to make a living, even if all you buy is just a card.

I can honestly say that I am so delighted with the support I get for my work. Online, in person at events and through the shops selling my work. Your purchases all mean so much to me and I'd like to say a huge THANK YOU!  ❤

Lastly for this blog update, I thought I'd share this local street sign with you! Seeing as I never have a needle out of my hand during my working day, I should really live on this street! Maybe I should get a sign made for my work space and call it Needle Corner.

June Update

The weeks following Open Studios back at the start of May have been a flurry of fulfilling wholesale shop orders, working on commission pieces and building stock for last weekend's fair.

This Textile Box below was a special commission for a retirement gift. I have to say that it has been my favourite make this year! I was asked to make a moon gazing hare with purple and mauve shades in the background. I have heard back from my customer and from the recipient and they both loved it! 

The Craft Fair on Saturday at Falkland was a great success again. This was my third time exhibiting at this event. I really enjoy taking part in local events and it was great to meet lots of customers from near and far who made it along to the fair to see everything 'in person'. 

We had some visitors round from the palace for a cuppy!

With Falkland village being such an attractive place for tourists to visit, we get a lot of international visitors to the fair as well which I really enjoy.

I also delivered an order of Jewellery and Brooches to The Rowan Tree Gift Shop on the High Street in Falkland. This lovely little shop is right opposite Falkland Palace and specialises in all things girly, gifty and glam. These new Plaid Birdie Brooches will be winging their way there soon as well as some Felt Pendants and Wrist Cuff Bracelets.

Birdie Brooches £12 each

I'm trying to keep my Etsy shop as fully stocked as possible but have nearly run out of Sheep Jewellery. I do have these little necklaces at £12 each but have no earrings or larger pendants at the moment. I'll probably get more made next week.

I do have some of my new Bracelets in stock though. They are made with stitched fabrics set behind glass into silver plated findings. They close with a toggle clasp and feel really light on the wrist.

These two are 20cm long and fit loosely round an average wrist.

This Bracelet below is slightly larger at 22cm and would fit a wider wrist

Bracelets and Earrings are all £18 each. 

So that's a quick update of what's new from me this month. I have SO much to do before our schools break up for the summer holidays in two weeks time. When I realised that the end of term was looming I had a sudden thought that my Printed Mugs, Notebooks and Mouse Mats would make good end of term gifts for teachers.

All of these can be found in my Etsy shop here

Makers Market at The Steeple and The Handmade Show

My events marathon continues with the Makers Market at The Steeple in Newburgh this Saturday and The Handmade Show at Perth Concert Hall this Sunday!

 

Perth Concert Hall, Mill Street, Perth (behind M&S)

Sunday 4th November, 10-4pm

FREE ENTRY

 

 

I am working flat out this week to keep a full range of everyone's favourite

Aileen Clarke Crafts makes, enough for both events so apologies for the short blog post.

 

Lots of photos and tales from the fairs coming soon!

I will also be listing some new things in both my Etsy and Folksy shops next week.

 

Hope to see some of you at these events.

Welcome to A Winter Wonderland.

Welcome to the Winter Wonderland of Fife this snowy November!

Here's our wee cottage hunkering down against the wild east wind that has been bombarding us with snow and sleet for the past two or three days.

The sun is trying it's best to break through today but those clouds look like they may have more to offer!

Our garden birds are very busy at the feeders with the blue tits coming over to the window ledges looking for insects.

Thankfully we got the Craft Fair at Cupar out of the way before the worst set in. A big thank you to Laura for organising it. 

Thank you to everyone who came along. It was really nice to meet so many lovely people! 

I have these two mounted pieces available in my Etsy Shop right now. No snowy hillsides depicted yet but I may be tempted to have a go at a felted wintry scene.

This piece below was a commission for a lovley couple I met at the St Andrews fair in September. They had bought a few pieces from my stall at Crail Arts Festival and ordered some more from me at St Andrews. They loved the felt landscapes so much that they commissioned me to make them this piece with the stream and bridge.

I have incorporated some hand dyed roving from the Orkney island of North Ronaldsay into the background hills and a little bit of free machine embroidery adds texture and movement to the water.

My next job is to make more felt landscape bookmarks as they have been very popular. I've also had a run on brooches recently so I better get some new ones made for the next Open Studio Day. That will be on 

Saturday 11th December 10-4pm

The Green Door Craft Studio

64 Commercial Road

Ladybank

Fife

KY15 7JS

(On the corner of the main street that runs through Ladybank and Church Street)

This will be the last chance to buy directly from me this year. All my framed pieces, brooches, cuffs, necklaces, earrings and cards will then go off to all my stockists around the country.

Oh my goodness, there's the snow back on! Better get some more fuel on the log burner and stick some extra layers of clothing on the children!

Lovely June

I'd just like to say hello and welcome to any new visitors to my site.

Please feel free to leave comments if you like. You can also contact me at aileenclarkecrafts@tiscali.co.uk for any further information.
My weekly blog updates are on hold for a few weeks as I am busy preparing for
Crail Arts Festival.
The art exhibition is open daily from 21st until 31st July from 10.00 am until 5.00 pm in Crail Town Hall. I won't be there myself but a variety of my work will be on display including framed textile art pictures, handmade cards and textile jewellery.

I've been doing plenty of this this week.

Hopefully the weather will hold for a while yet and we can all enjoy this marvellous June some more.