Vegan Friendly Soapaholic!

Sharon runs Morgan Street Soap, making luxurious soap that leaves skin feeling velvety soft.

There is something quite special about this soap, especially the Palin Jayne range. Sharon adds silks fibres to the soap mix, this unique blend will leave your skin feeling soft, silky and rich. To cater for everyone, Morgan Street Soap have even developed a special vegan soap that is just as luxurious, featuring bamboo fibres. Not only are they derived from plants which makes them Vegan friendly, but they make a wonderfully soft and silky feeling bar of soap too. What more could you ask for?
As well as all these beautiful soaps you can find lotions, scrubs, bath and body oils, bath bombs, and our favourite is that patisserie rnage of soaps, they look good enough to eat! The bad news is that you will be spoilt for choice!
The good news is that you can buy Morgan Street Soap items wherever you are in the world, on Etsy http://morganstreet.etsy.com

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.

Artist Bears in Leather & Suede

Chloe' Livingstone runs Little Green Shoot, making beautiful artist bears from leather and suede, in a tiny village hugged by the hills of the Derbyshire countryside.

Chloe is 17 and has been crafting all her short life (she told me she is pretty sure that she was born armed with a sewing needle!) Having started studying textiles in college, Chloe found that she was craving the freedom to 'do her own thing'. In January 2008 Tobias, the first Artist Bear was born, after Chloe had rescued a huge amount of leather and suede from a dismal fate. She says " I couldn't stand such beautiful material going to waste, and the challenge of giving it a new life really appealed to me"

Artist Bears and Friends are Teddies entirely handmade (not a machine stitch in sight!) and are especially made for collectors - they are not toys. Bear Artists work in everything from mohair & felt to wool & plush fabric, The smooth richness of the leather and the tactile nature of the suede makes for an altogether irresistable combination. Little Green Shoot specialise in making traditional bears in earthy browns, golden caramels, charcoals and even pinks! The newest additions to the shop are Mini Moo Artist Friends, with many more on the way.

You can get your hands on one of these sumptious looking bears from Little Green Shoot's Etsy shop, and they can be purchased from the UK and internationally. Look out for the Little Green Shoot website - coming soon!

http://www.littlegreenshoot.blogspot.com/ http://www.littlegreenshoot.etsy.com/

We have a WINNER!!

CONGRATULATIONS 'Crystal' - You are the lucky winner of the lovely ring in September's give away.

If you didnt win this month, then come back very soon to see what you can win in October's give away!

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/

September give away

The first of the 'Partners in Crime' monthly give aways begins now!

Want to bag yourself one of these funky rings? Then all you need to do is check out the Claire Laraine website and leave a comment on this post about what you love the most! We will announce the winner on this site on the 30th September, if you are the lucky winner you must email us to let us know your details and we will send your prize to you!

This ring has been lovingly handmade using a colourful piece of 'found' fabric, trapped behind a glass pebble. The best bit is this sliver plated ring base is adjustable, so you can be sure it will fit you! This ring is truely unique and special.

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/