The Create Place to Be

Wow! I'm so chuffed to be featured on The Create Place website! And honoured to be welcomed into this collective of talented artists and craftsters! If you're London based and haven't been to this cool pop-up-shop-come-workspace then you need to head down to Bethnal Green now!
These guys are a community charity and non profit organisation and they offer so many beautifully handmade gifts and inspiring workshops it's hard to choose because you want to buy and do everything!

As a crochet enthusiast some of my in-shop fave items for sale are the seriously intricate crocheted mini-heart brooches made by Marie at Knit Stitch & Hook, who also runs a friendly Wednesday morning crochet drop-in workshop, not to mention a cool-looking hoop embroidery workshop too.

This week my sister booked us a place on the Shrink Plastic Workshop run by the lovely and talented Sarah of Violet Iris Thrift Creations. We were each given sheets of special plastic on which to draw our illustrations/designs, as well as some silver and gold (plated!) chains and brooch backs to mount our masterpieces on. It was like a grown-up colouring-in class, which is loads of fun in itself, but then came the really fun bit - blasting them with a hairdryer-thingie to make the plastic sheets shrink down to a seventh of the size! It was a really nerve-racking to observe your picture shrivel and curl up to the brink of complete ruination but then in the last second it flattens out and you can breath again. Next you grab a hefty tome and plonk that on top to make sure it's really flat and voila! Shrink plastic pendant...

 

It was tons of fun and was made even better by a mountain of chocolate chip cookies, jammy dodgers and kit kats in the middle of the table plus the most ginormous pot of tea I've ever seen. There were lots of laughs and squeals of delight and ooh-ing and ahh-ing over each others creations. The big question is which workshop to do next...