Pretty Little Love Objects

Pretty Little Love Objects is a great jewellery shop run by Jodie, a 23 year old British girl with a BA in history who is currently working her way through a marketing qualification while crafting, writing and working a full time job.

Jodie says "I was an indie kid back in the nineties and all the girls wore hundreds of beaded stretch bracelets. Buying my own glow in the dark beads and stringing materials pretty much began my beading obsession. I love searching through fairs and finding new quality suppliers and make original, individual pieces from whatever is in my massive stash at the moment. All my items are designed to be objects of desire, something you’ll love and keep on gazing at for years. My pieces are very textual, made for touching as well as for making your friend jealous. Buy someone else a little love object or gift yourself a jewel and become the object of your own affections."
‘Bottle Treasure’ necklace is an eclectic collection of beads and glass pearls, that complement the small treasure bottle pendant, filled with semi-precious gem chips. Red, patterned glass hearts are combined with smaller glass hearts, featuring flower detail, in red, pink and white. Grey Czech glass pearls, long red glass cylinders and hanging bronze glass bee nest beads (also featuring small flower detail) are allowed to stand out by being surrounded by simple red seed beads. The necklace is fastened with a medium sized, smooth black button clasp. The necklace’s rich colour scheme ensures that the whole piece is as attractive as the stunning and unusual necklace.

And guess what, if you’re looking for advice on love from a very demanding romantic, check out Jodie's weekly spot on the front page of Beautiful and Fabulous http://boutiqueflair.ning.com/

So, after all that, I better tell you where you can get all these 'bottle treasures' and much more from! Visit http://www.blinkingmouse.etsy.com where you can buy internationally.

Zouzou Designs

Zouzou Designs is home to these amazing Russian and Japanese lavender dolls. A couple of years ago Caroline decided to combine her love of sewing with her love of Russian dolls and Kokeshi dolls. She thought it would be a great idea to fill them with lavender too, for its relaxing and stress relieving properties.

The dolls are all handmade from original designs and patterns using good quality new and recycled materials. Choose between lavender or polyester filling. Due to import/export regulations, lavender cannot be sent from the UK to destinations outside Europe. However, dolls with polyester filling love to travel and can be shipped anywhere in the world!

You can buy these little dolls at - http://zouzoudesign.etsy.com/

Crafterstation

Catherine Hayward runs Scatterbox Originals, an Etsy shop with a range of items based around the idea of troubled animals.

Scatterbox Originals is based in beautiful Cornwall, by the sea, where Catherine

has lived since moving there for art college. Catherine gained a degree in Illustration and after graduating in 2005, gradually moved away from art and more towards crafts, she says

" I'm mainly self taught. I started out with abstract designs, far removed from the Illustration work I had done - I found it easier to teach myself working with simple shapes. My first creations were cushion covers, simple bags and notebooks.As my skills have improved, my designs have become more and more complex and suddenly I find myself creating things heavily based around Illustration - the very discipline I'd backed away from"

Catherine has plans for some new paper goods based around her drawings, coming later this year, but right now you can buy, purses, children's scarves, cushions (and hopefully soon bags) with characters sewn on in 2D form. They're made with wool-viscose blend felt, sewn onto beautifully soft brushed cotton. In addition to Scatterbox Originals Catherine runs a second etsy shop that houses her range of jewellery and accessories - http://www.treacletoffee.etsy.com/.

All of these great accessories are available to purchase internationally too!

Half an Acre

Anna Hull loves to paint and to get messy painting! Although she studied photography she has always enjoyed making things, orininally she liked to make funky things for her house or birthdays when she couldn't find anything she liked in shops. Then Half and Acre was born.
Our favourites are the hagstone wreaths and the geckos but you can find many more funky things at Half an Acre's etsy shop, Dawanda, Folksy or their own website - http://www.halfanacre.co.uk
Anna keeps a blog that features lots of "fabulous things for funky people"!http://www.halfanacreblog.blogspot.com. Anna is also involved with the new Ukhandmade website which will launch later this year. You can check out the blog here which will run alongside it.

Big Blue Bed

Alix Smithers runs Big Blue Bed and has always made things or had handmade things around her, guided by her mother and older sisters who wore handknits by her grandmother.

After having her daughter, Alix realised that she loved seeing children make things and be involved in creating. With a bit of time on her hands and with Christmas approaching she decided to make things as presents.

Alix says "I have recently opened an etsy shop specifically for my knitwear. I design and knit these myself. I love feeling yarn and letting it work itself into my creative mind, almost deciding for itself what it wants to be. One of the items I love and will be making more of is the 'Mine all Mine' scarf which incorporates these words into its pattern. I loved doing the chart for this even though it did not do my eyesight much good!"




As well as knitwear you can find a range of fun accessories including, coin pouches and wallets, hair clips and cuffs.

You can buy all of Big Blue Bed items from a great new UK based site called folksy - http://www.bigbluebed.folksy.com/; and also on etsy - http://bigbluebed.etsy.com/. For my knitwear visit - http://www.bigblueknits2tog.etsy.com/

Beautiful spinning fibres for you...

Jooles discovered and fell in love with knitting a few years ago, after trying out several crafts, and says that


"Knitting and all the related crafts has so much going for it the possibilites are endless. I became obsessed with bags, then socks and then lace. It wasnt long before I bought a spinning wheel and began to spin my own yarn. The next step was dyeing my own fibre to spin. The UK has some great fibre artists but not nearly as many as the USA. Often shipping and custom charges mean that hand painted fibre can become very expensive and obviously its not great for the enviroment to be importing everything from over seas. "

Jooles loves the magic of painting fibres. Each one is unique and the magic carries on through the spinning and knitting. It is never certain how the finished product will look, ensuring excitement until the very end! As a spinner myself I know it is as much about the process as the finished product, therefore I hope my fibres excite the senses with the colours and textures to make crafting as joyful as possible.

In amongst all this love for fibres, Spindlefrog was born, and offers unique beautifully crafted fibres for spinners. There is a vast aray of fibres to use, each with their own charactistics. Sometimes you need a fibre that will stand up to years of hard work other times soft and squishy is called for. Whatever you need there is a fibre out there.

So if your a spinner then get yourself over to Spidlefrog and grab some of these beautiful fibres. http://www.spindlefrog.etsy.com/ http://www.spindlefrog.live.com/

Covetables

Michelle Aaron has been making stuff ever since she was a little girl and used to make dresses for Barbies. Now Michelle has a little girl and is still making dresses and dolls! Being a mum to her five year old daughter has really stirred up a passion in her for making things for kids. She believes that playthings are central in a child's life and they ought to be things that are special and treasurable.

Michelle now runs Covetables making among other things, cloth dolls. She adores working with natural materials; wool, silk, bamboo fibre, organic cotton and felt. It's not only best for the earth to use natural and eco friendly products but they feel great, look beautiful and even smell gorgeous. Each doll is one of a kind and happens in an unplanned way, taking shape as she makes them. They are all sturdy enough to play with, the clothes can be removed and their hair can be styled as well. Some even come with sets of special things.

Michelle says "Nothing satisfies as much as making something with my own hands and see it turn out before me. Actually rethinking that, it's even more satisfying to see someone fall in love with something that you have made for them!"
If you would like one of these unique dolls, you can buy yours on Covetables' Etsy shop - http://www.covetables.etsy.com. These dolls are happy to be shipped internationally too!

Craft for a Cause

The first ever feature of Partners in Crime goes to Kerry Wilkinson of PennyDog Jewellery - and what a fab first feature it is! Not only does Kerry create gorgeous jewellery she donates £1 for every item sold to the Retired Greyhound Trust - view more about this here http://pressroom.prlog.org/pennydog/

Kerry makes beautifully crafted resin jewellery, there are currently 5 collections to choose from in her online shop - Retro, Treasure, Sweetheart, Shore and Nature. There is something for everyone here. You can shop in £'s at http://www.penny-dog.co.uk/ and in US Dollars on Etsy http://www.pennydogaccessories.etsy.com/

But Kerry isn't stopping there, she is now venturing into felt, acrylic and aluminium work, you will be able to see these new creations later in the year.

Kerry also features the work of others on her blog - http://www.pennydog.wordpress.com/

I recommend you head over to her website now, there's lots to see and buy!