The Handmade Fair 2015

Craft days don’t get much better than visiting The Handmade Fair at Hampton Court, meeting craft queen Kirstie Allsopp and spending seven hours making and buying awesome things.

Meeting the lovely Kirstie!

Yesterday was a whirlwind of flowers, paper pom poms, fabric, thread, netting, and wool, and it was amazing.

To the crafting!

After going to the first Handmade Fair last year and having an amazing day with some of my best friends, I was so excited when I got an email telling me I’d won a pair of tickets after entering a competition on the Handmade Fair website.

But my lucky streak didn’t stop there. A few days later I saw a competition the Handmade Fair was running on Twitter where you had to tweet a photo of something you’d made with the hashtag #lovehandmade to be in with a chance of meeting Kirstie at the fair. I tweeted a collage of my corsage, the guinea pig, and my tea dress and practically squealed with excitement when I got a message saying I’d been shortlisted and would be meeting Kirstie to show her my make.

Fast forward to Saturday morning when Cat and I arrived at the press and bloggers lounge to meet the three other competition winners. (You can check all their amazing makes out on Twitter at @onemancrochet @AnnaIntnational and @HoppsyD).

The competition winners

Kirstie arrived in a golf buggy decorated with bunting (love it!), and we all had a chat about our different makes. I think we were all a little in awe of One Man Crochet who made the amazing outfit above. It took two months to create, which is pretty impressive craft dedication. One Man Crochet was named the very worthy winner but we all had our tickets upgraded to VIP as a runner’s up prize which was such a wonderful surprise!

Woop!

After the meet and greet Cat and I went to check out the VIP lounge. Our VIP tickets got us a goody bag, access to the lounge and a glass of bubbles which was such a treat.

These were the bits in my goody bag. I can’t wait to try making the felt robbin!

There was complimentary tea and coffee in the lounge so we grabbed a cuppa to calm down after all the excitement!

Inside the lounge, which was a huge marquee with tables and a champagne bar

While we were in there we noticed some tables were being laid out with craft materials so being nosy we went over to ask what was happening and were told it was going to be an embroidery session and anyone in the tent could join in. So naturally we took a seat and got ready to craft!

My hoop and material ready for the embroidery session

The workshop was being led by the lovely ladies from the Crafternoon Cabaret Club who run events in London pairing up craft sessions with performances by cabaret and comedy performers. It sounds like the perfect afternoon and I will definitely be checking it out at some point in the near future.

While we worked on our embroidery hoop designs we listened to the musical comedy genius of Tricity Vogue who was hilarious and fun and sang a song about cats. (What more could you want from a cabaret act eh?). Cat also won a free download of Tricity’s album after guessing correctly that she was playing music from Star Wars.

We both really enjoyed the session and were pretty darn pleased with our finished designs!

I went for a twee little teacup design

Cat went for a ‘6’ to hang in her classroom at work

Then it was time for our pre-booked wedding fascinator session. I’d had a brilliant fascinator workshop for a hen do earlier this year and Cat fancied giving it a go after hearing about that one.

Materials for our fascinators

It was a little bit rushed as we only had an hour to try and get through everything. Our tutor tried her best but she seemed a little frantic as she was trying to explain things really quickly. We had a good go at the birdcage netting, and actually the finished results look okay in the photos!

Cat’s birdcage veil

An expression which says ‘I’m not entirely sure what I’m doing right now!’

There wasn’t any time for adding decorations but we did have ribbon and buttons on the table and were invited to take them home to finish off. Cat and I are planning to get together some time to turn them into more impressive creations!

After that it was food time, and there are loads of awesome street food trucks around with everything from wood fired pizza to churros. We went for some French inspired goodness with raclette and poutine (so good!)

Skiing anyone?

Epic poutine

Next up was shopping! The Handmade Fair has two shopping villages packed with all sorts of wonderful stalls, plus an Artisan Market Place, an Annie Sloan tent, a Mollie Makes tent (the fair is held in association with Mollie Makes), a Janome sewing masterclass area and a Hobbycraft tent (they sponsor the fair).

Lovely little felt decorations!

A cake at the Fiona Cairns stall

The awesome paint tin wall at Annie Sloan

An afternoon tea tent

One of the things I bought was a tote bag from Reloved magazine which had two issues and some craft accessories in, all for £5. I’m looking forward to having a look at the mag this evening.

My Reloved goodies

We also both bought a lucky dip bag from another stall for £2 which had some fab ribbon in. I’ve got all the trimmings now, I just need a project to put them on!

I think the black ribbon would be great on a denim dress

After wandering and shopping we headed to our final workshop of the day, epic garlands with paper makers Peach Blossom.

This was only a 25 minute session so it was a real whistle stop tour, where we turned pieces of crepe paper and ribbon into four different garlands.

From this…

To this!

Although the designs were quite simple it gave me lots of ideas to take away. On a bigger scale, and with the right colour scheme, these could make lovely decorations for hen parties or weddings.

Finishing the day in a whirl of crepe paper we went to the Hobbycraft tent to buy pom pom makers (they are the most genius contraption!), and then headed home, very, very happy, after an absolutely wonderful day.

And the first thing I did when I got home? Took out the knitting needles and started a new project of course.