Some Amazing Northern Talent

So, the fair in Manchester on Saturday was a mixed bag. It was a surprisingly quiet day, when lots of us had expected it to be packed, which was disappointing. However, on the up side I did meet lots of lovely new faces and some old ones too (or finally putting faces to well-known Folksy names!) - including Lyndsey of Purple Shmurple and Dave of Waldo fame from No Such Disco! We had a good chat whilst scoffing some rather yummy cupcakes made by Kelly, the stall holder next to me (we somehow managed to hold out 'til the afternoon!), and it meant I could go on a wander around the other floors too which is quite nice for once instead of being stuck to a stall!

On my wanders I found some stunning work, and took a few pics to put on here and show you lovely peeps.

Hazel Reilly creates hand whittled twig and branch sculptures - I love the little twig men with their miniature accessories!

If you look closely the papers are actual papers, with the Metro and Evening Standard in there!

I was also drawn to the amazing papercutting skills of Kate Bufton. She transforms old books into art work, and has created some amazing shapes in the process.

Lastly, these beautiful Lilies caught my attention. They're actually Jewellery although they look very realistic, and also as if they could be Wedding cake pieces. Lisa, the creator behind LWSilver, said that she's had children asking if they can eat them!

So all in all it was a fun day out and a great chance to meet new people and spread the word about Folksy too. Just a pity the sales didn't really reflect that, especially as it was the first Fair I've done in Manchester. It hasn't put me off though - I'm already on the hunt for my next Manchester Art Fair!

Folksy Friday - Birthday Fun

This weekend is my lovely man's Birthday, so today is appropriately themed around Birthday fun - cake, presents and fun galore!






We're off to Manchester tomorrow for a fair raising money for Sue Ryder Care - come and find us if you fancy a nice day out! Details are here.
Have a good weekend peeps!

Come find me in Manchester this Saturday

Quite Contrary will be setting up shop in Manchester this Saturday, at the Artisan Craft & Gift Fair held in aid of Sue Ryder Care.

It's being held in the Manchester Cathedral visitor centre, where there'll be many lovely stalls over 3 floors - plenty of browsing to be had! More details can be found on their website here. Come and say hello, I'll be on the First floor :)

New Cards

After a week away, I've been itching to get back to my cutting board and create all the new ideas for Quite Contrary which have been swimming around my head!

The first collection are ones I made a few months ago for my fairs, but have been quite popular so I thought I'd better list them on here for you lovely bunch! These number cards are perfect for any age, from 1 to 101, and come in a variety of bright colours - they seem especially popular for gifts for the little folk of 1-5.

One of my lovely fair buyers also asked if I could do a 'romantic' version for a First Anniversary of their friends, and here's what I came up with - again you could have it for a 42nd Anniversary or a 2nd, anything goes!

My Number cards have been picked for this lovely 'Numbers of Etsy' treasury, thank you Flapper Fashions! Go show it some love please :)

I'm back!

After 10 days away visiting friends and relatives down South, and a lovely trip to France, I'm back at Quite Contrary HQ - full card cutting services can now resume. Thanks to all my lovely customers who've been happy to wait for their orders upon my return, they're now winging their way over to you.

So here's a few of my 'holiday' snaps for you. Firstly, we spied this awesome taxi creation when we were mosying through the back streets of Greenwich - how cool is this! It's royal transport for the Pearly King & Queen.

And then it was on to France! An early present for my lovely man, we went to see the famous beaches of the 6th June 1944 landings (admittedly with a lot of cheese noshing inbetween!) Although we were only there overnight, we managed to fit in all 5 beaches including the very famous Utah and Omaha beaches, and had a picnic stocked from the shelves of the nearby Carrefour (including a very yummy Cider cheese!) under the somewhat grey clouds on Ohmaha.

It's overloooking Omaha beach where the American memorial is for all their fallen soldiers. The French actually gave this land to the Americans. It was vast, and quite affecting too with the very precise rows of white crosses (and stars for Jewish soldiers) which never seemed to end.

There were suprisingly few Unknown Soldier graves, but they were very touching if you found one.

This is the view from our hotel window, which overlooked Cherbourg harbour

And, when in France...this year's 'What??' find in the Supermarket is Pigs brains, yum yum... (yuck)

And now we're back home - typically it was brilliant sunshine on my first day back! I've got lots of new ideas for cards and Papercuts that I can now put into action though, so keep your eye peeled soon! :)

Folksy Friday - a hint of Pink

Last weekend I was a Bridesmaid at Dan's sisters' wedding - a gorgeous Pink affair! Admittedly I didn't jump at the colour choice (pink and Gingery hair don't really go!) but I was quite surprised - seems baby pink isn't too bad after all! We were wearing Ivory and pale pink dresses, and the Bride was in a stunning 'Princes style' baby pink dress, with delicate pearl details. So, I've chosen today's theme to go along with that - here's a nice selection of pink goodies!

Unveiling my hidden Art side...

As promised last week, I've been very busy over the last few months creating 2 pieces for the Sotheby's Staff Exhibition, 'Objets D'art', which is currently on at Sotheby's London for this final week.

My first piece was a delicate Papercut, as I wanted to tie it in with my card business and fit in some more hours on the cutting board! (Pictures are in my earlier post)

So now for my second piece. This is something I've kept quiet for a while; it first started when I decided to create something special and unique for my Brother when he turned 21, and as he'd collected beer mats from an early age, it lead me to this... my custom Beer Mat Canvases.

Specially for this London-based Exhibition, I chose to do a London-themed canvas again (last year I also sold one).

It was created from only UK Beer Mats (sourced from hours & hours spent on Ebay!), and includes 19 hand painted customised Beer Mats along with various special London-themed ones. Can you spot them all? Each painted mat took 2-3 hours to create, and the assembly of the whole piece on to the canvas took 2 1/2 days. Quite time consuming but well worth the effort!

I finished the canvas off with a single black line mimicking the London Skyline - I really think this brings the piece together, and creates a nice central feature.

My favourite beer mat for this piece has to be my little Tetley's Bitter Man morphed into Beefeater, hehe!

I've got so many favourites - here's a couple of my other ones I was quite chuffed with how they turned out.

I've just found out today that it sold at the end of last week too, so I am absolutely over the moon!

I'd really like to start selling these properly - I think it would have to be done separately to my Paper goods though, as it's like chalk and cheese really!