Candyfloss Summer Craft Fair

Cute Little Raku Bottles from Zandra Ceramics

Goodness! What a week! What with a busy time at work, having a whale of a time with friends making sock monsters on Thursday and planning some new embroidery designs, this is the first chance I've had to tell you about the lovely craft fair I went to a week ago, run by old friends Craft Candy.

There were so many gorgeous stalls, but I only took pictures of a few (you can see the pictures on my Flickr pages here) and here's my favourites of my favourites!

Zandra of Zandra Ceramics specialises in raku and wood-fired sculptural pieces and vessels. In one of the wood-fired vases Zandra had pressed a safety-pin and because the temperature in the wood kiln gets so high, the pin had completely melted and left an interesting metal residue.  I liked the tiny raku-glazed bottles (pictured above) so much that I bought three!

Sian of Siansburys' stall looked as bright and fun as always, with her cute and so beautifully-made sock monkeys. Sian has been making her sock monkeys for a few years now, and each one is a unique work of art.

One of Siansburys' Cute and Colourful Sock Monkeys

Kirsten of Quernus Crafts makes wonderfully colourful and patterned millefiore polymer clay critters, the like of which I don't think I've ever seen before! Kirsten makes her own intricately-patterned millefiore canes and then creates cute little creatures like snails, moles, cats... and even a tiger!  They will really brighten up your day!

Little Snaily with a Beautiful Shell from Quernus Crafts

And lastly, we come to possibly the star of the show! Gemma Nemer (who runs The Button Tin craft workshop in Rotherham) won the prize for the best-dressed stall, and just look at these pictures for a bit of eye candy! I think you'll agree that Gemma's stall was super-sweet!  This is it:

Gemma Nemer's beautifully-dressed stall

Look! She even made the signs all vintage-y and cute with retro fabrics and lots of lace, with hand-stamped text.

Gemma specialises in textile accessories made from vintage fabrics and upcycled embroidered linens. She also teaches classes in her studio at Rotherham, the Button Tin and there's all sorts lovely things you can learn to make!

I can't remember whether these were brooches or hairgrips... they're lovely anyway!

Gemma made a necklace just for her Blue Bunny!

Now I'm looking forward to Craft Candy's next fair, the Christmas one on Saturday 27 November 2010. Applications are being accepted right now until the end of August, so go to their site if you'd like to be considered for a stall.

Best wishes

Joey xx