Here's the winner of MsBittyKnacks Blog 8th Artist Feature:
Laura of:
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| Felt Owl Brooch |
This wonderful artist is based in Stockport, England. Laura holds a degree in textiles and surface pattern design and works as a graphic designer for a toy company. On her spare time she creates adorable felt and fabric gifts, she says: "I love to create and make, I find it a relaxing and enjoyable hobby that hopefully others will enjoy as much as I do."
Last Christmas as she created decorations for hers and her friends home she kept getting the advise to sell her designs. With that nudge and the very supportive other half "Mr. Beer", who was her inspiration to start her shop GingerBeer Designs. Laura says: "I create and make everything myself in my own home and can usually be found buried under a pile of felt and thread." Her first shop was opened at Folksy, which she found via Internet and magazines. She then continued selling on Facebook and later Etsy. However, if you are in her area you can also find her art at craft fairs and farmers markets; she also is "looking at doing GingerBeer Parties in my home."  |
| Elephant Magnet |
In her shops you can find key rings, brooches, magnets, personalised buntings and hanging decorations, Christmas decorations and egg cosies. P.S. All the money she makes from her sales goes into her wedding fund :-)
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| VW Campervan Handmade Gift Personalized Pink/Blue/Orange Felt & Fabric |
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| Personalised Nursery Decoration |
GingerBeer Designs hot seller items are the VW campervans as well as the owls, the personalized buntings and the tea pots. When asked which was her favorite she said: "ooooh my favorite item, I think are my vintage inspired Tea Party items, I love teapots and fine bone china teacups and cupcakes."
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| Teapot Personalised Handmade Felt and Fabric Brooch |
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| Teacup and Saucer Handmade Brooch Felt and Fabric |
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| Cupcake Magnet Handmade Felt & Fabric |
When asked what inspired her, Laura said: "Inspiration comes from everywhere really; magazines, life, fashion, interiors, blogs. I read hundreds of magazines and use them as a source of
information and to inspire me." However, "If I am stuck for inspiration I will leave it for a while then come back too the project, most of the time though a customer will ask me to make something which then leads me into new areas of creating anyway."
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| Rabbit Keyring Handmade Felt |
She shares that her best marketing strategy has been in promoting herself on Twitter and Facebook, directing people to her Folksy and Etsy shops. And her advise to all new handmade sellers out there is: "just promote yourself as much as you can, have a fb page dedicated to your craft, as well as twitter. Also try new things, craft fairs, farmers markets as sometimes I am the only one selling handmade felt and fabric gifts at the farmers market that I do."
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| Egg Cosie Handmade Felt and Fabric |
Of course What does HANDMADE mean to you?
"I love handmade, anything that someone has created themselves and put a little bit
of there personality into it. You can always tell who's work is original."
of there personality into it. You can always tell who's work is original."
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| Personalised Hanging Decoration Hearts and Stars Felt and Fabric |
Laura's Favorites:
Holiday: "when I go to cornwall every year, so inspiring they take me back to childhood."
Material: "felt, this canvas or cotton, fabrics, threads, ribbons and buttons."
Color: "PINK pink and pink, i love bright fun colours but then I do love vintage colours too, that's the problem when your a designer its impossible to pick a favourite."
Technique: "I love needlecraft and applique, building up layers of interesting materials and embellishments."
Folksy Shop: pants and paper
Etsy Shop: lollipopworkshop
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| Toadstool Brooch Needlefelted Handmade Red |
Laura's goals are "to hopefully soon have a website that I can sell directly through, to keep crafting and hopefully one day when I have a family I can work my craft full time around that. If I were dreaming even bigger I would love a little gift/tea shop of my own where people can come for tea and cake and to pick up a little gift."
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| Christmas Decoration Felt Handmade Christmas Pudding |
You can catch up with this wonderful seller at:
5 comments:
Great feature, thanks for sharing! Laura's pieces are all adorable!
Followed you from the Etsy Blog Team. Thanks for featuring other artists. You can see all the love and care in these felt and fabric gifts!
thank you, hope too see you over at my shops sometime soon xxxx
thank you peeps :-) hope too see you in my shop sometime soon xxxxx
Those are gorgeous. I love the detail and the cottage-y nature of the pieces. They give me warm, fuzzy, childhood feelings.
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