2012 – Scotland’s Year of Creativity? Where’s the engagement with the creatives?
With apologies to any of you who have already read my post over on our facebook page about his video. I think it deserves a wider audience.
So, 2012 is the designated year for us to celebrate Scotland’s creativity according to Visit Scotland. An idea I’m ecstatic to get behind, make no mistake about it but I can’t help thinking that in celebrating the embarrassment of riches that our land is blessed with in terms of creative talent there would have been THOUSANDS of better examples that Visit Scotland could have used.
Our country has produced one of the top names in fashion design. We have internationally-renowned acting talent (I’m claiming Emma Thompson as a Glaswegian, okay?) galore. The most famous (and best) 007 of all delivered milk to the whole of Scotland – if you believe your granny. For such a cold & wet country, we have some outstanding comedy talent and musicians who can break your heart. We have an enormous, thriving independant business scene driven by creatives who we aspire to emulate.
At this point I haven’t even touched on the artists, the indie designers, the authors – but I hope that I have clearly demonstrated the depth of creative talent immediately on hand in our beautiful country.
Which is why this advert has broken my heart.
Now don’t get me wrong, I am a massive fan of the Aurora Borealis and I don’t know anyone who gets as excited as I do at fireworks. But when showcasing the creativity of a nation don’t these things seem rather out of place?
I hope that my tone is not bitter, because my emotions are not. I’m extremely sad that this ostentatious opportunity to advertise the cream of the crop – the very best that Scotland has to offer creatively – has been bodged and I hope that anyone reading this blog post will take a moment to explore the talents of some of the people I have linked to, and many of the people I have missed because we are truly blessed in this country to have the talent that we have.
Strike contingency plans for 30th November 2011
With six school-age children between us, we completely understand the nightmare of a midweek day off school! With Glasgow schools & nurseries all off tomorrow, we’ve put in place a number of extra workshops and drop-in crafts to try and lift the burden of keeping the kids occupied. We also have a couple of cosy couches if you need to get some work done at the same time.
We will have our Loopy Lunches available tomorrow featuring the return of our much-loved ‘decorate your own gingerbread man’. We’ll also have soup, cake & hot drinks on tap all day.
11am – Messy Play (18m-5y) – £3.80 (half-price sibling discount)
Messy play is great fun! Auntie Steph will read a story (last week was Chocolate Mousse for Greedy Goose) and then guide you in a creative project aligned to the story. Our little friends can play with playdough, paint, glue, glitter and all sorts of sticky messy fun stuff, before we get cleaned up and have a drink & biscuit.
1.30-2.30pm – Clay play (2y+) – £4
Working with clay is amazing fun – why not join us and see for yourself? Working with earthenware clay, you can play about and use our tools to make pretty much anything you like! We’ll leave it to dry and fire it for you, ready for you to paint. We can talk you through pinch pots, coil pots and more techniques to get the most out of your clay.
3-4pm – Friendship bracelets (6y+) – £6
Do you remember learning how to make friendship bracelets as a kid? We remember making dozens of them, pinned to our school skirt during French class! This little workshop is suitable for 6y+ (although younger children may need a bit of assistance from a grown-up helper). Class price includes materials for during the class and three embroidery threads of your choice to take home & practice with.
In addition, all of our pottery will have 20% off usual prices. We have a range of blanks from little animals to mugs and plates with prices starting from just £5.49 – and, we’ve also just received in some blank Christmas baubles, perfect timing really!
We’ve got Christmas colouring sheets, blank letters to Santa, paper cut-out crafts and lots more – available free to anyone buying from our café. We’re ready when you are – see you tomorrow!
Christmastime! Mistletoe and wine!
Six weeks! Oh my. Six weeks to cram in all the making that our little hands can manage, and we’re not afraid to admit that we’re panicking somewhat!
Now that we’re settled in our brand-new location in De Courcy’s Arcade, it’s time for us to look ahead to the festive season. As always, we have lots of classes to give you inspiration and knowledge for any handmade gifts that you may like to bestow upon your loved ones – you can also buy a place on a class to give as a gift!
This year we were deluged with requests for hand & footprint plates at Father’s Day. We’re already getting busy with these plates and so if you’re looking to have these done for the special people in your child’s life please come in soon!
LAST but not least – we LOVE the handmade & homemade ethic. Indeed, our whole BUSINESS is based around it! We’d love to be in the position where we can deck the shop Christmas tree with handmade beauties and this is where we’re calling upon our friends to help.
On Saturday 3rd December we’re going to put our Christmas tree up. Any of our friends who give us a handmade decoration for the tree will be entered into a competition, the decoration which gets most votes over on our facebook page will win a £50 voucher to use in the shop. Any decorations will be accepted and our only criteria is that they must have been made by you. Entries must be received by 12noon on Saturday 3rd December 2011. Judges decision is final.
It’s going to be a great one!
The Dress
Skipping past the embarrassing fact that it has been nearly FIVE MONTHS since our last update (sorry!), we’ve got so much exciting and inspiring stuff on the go right now that I thought it was time to dust off the ole blog and tell you about some of it!
Some of you may be aware that on Friday there was a small wedding in London between a young couple… Well, our Jenny was challenged to recreate The Dress on the day. She assured me it would be fine. She assured me she’d finish it on time and in the days running up to the big day she suddenly became nervous! Could she do it?
We decided to create an event around the event of the event – if that makes sense! – and invited some of The Life Craft’s favourite makers to display their wares at a handmade wedding fayre, to encourage any would-be brides to think about the handmade alternatives. We had ideas for favours & placesettings, jewellery, millinery, invites & cards, photo albums & guestbooks and much more! All we needed was The Dress.
We crowded round the computer in the shop and watched as the world got their first glimpse at the dress, collectively sighed with relief at the lack of intricate beading & embroidery (which would have added days to the dressmaking process) and cooed at what we believed to be the perfect choice: classy and elegant without being overstated, appropriate for the grandeur of Westminster Abbey but reflective of the austere times the nation is experiencing, and befitting a future Queen. As we watched Kate exit the car, everyone present agreed that she looked absolutely gorgeous. I was on the phone to Mandors so they could select & cut the fabric we’d need and then! THE INTERNET CONNECTION DIED!
We frantically scrabbled to get the connection back up but it took 15 valuable minutes, precluding us from a proper view of the back of the dress. Jenny was already working on the toile and Jenny G had disappeared off to Mandors for the fabric whilst I phoned our internet provider in a blind panic. Eventually we were reconnected and managed to get a good view of the dress.
Jenny and our glamorous model, Avryl Henry
So the details, fact fans. The wedding started at 11am which was when we had our first full view of the dress. Jenny finished just after 6pm. We used six metres of Duchess Satin bought from Mandors (thank you!) and the dress is currently in the shop window for all to see.
We’d love to thank everyone for their support, but particular thanks must go to:
Jenny Griffiths, for general all-round awesome behaviour and good ideas
Mandors Glasgow for being so supportive of our venture
Avryl Henry for being a fabulous model
Little Botanica for providing the gorgeous flowers Avryl is holding
Lucy Jackson designs who made gorgeous wedding-themed handbound books & photo albums
AbraCraftDabra and their gorgeous handmade cards
Roslyn Mitchell Designs who had all manner of lovely personalised place-settings and suchlike
Delphi Burling who sadly couldn’t be there on the day but who let us borrow stunning place-setting & favour candles to show you.
Lesley B. jewellery with gorgeous one-of-a-kind handmade sterling silver jewellery
Uniquenes designs with lovely mixed-media jewellery, handmade by Doreen.
Lady Savage and her fabulous fascinators.
But of course the greatest applause & thanks must go to our very own Jenny McCreary. Well done!
New stock instore!
Just a quick one this morning, friends!
Last week we took a delivery of new yarns including Noro, Rowan, Debbie Bliss, Mirasol, Louisa Harding and Sirdar. It’s now all been stocked & shelved and is ON SALE with fantastic prices for these gorgeous products. Why not pop in and see what you can find?
