Sponsor Spotlight: Foxes

Clever Fox tote

My name is Jessica Whiting, and I am the lady behind Foxes.co.nz and I also co-run the Auckland Art & Craft Fair with Kylie. Foxes isn't just a super online shop, it's also a way that I can still make and design things myself for all the lovely Foxes Folks. I also have previously had my own craft label, Bam Bam Creative; while I don't make a whole lot of new stuff for Bam Bam anymore, I can appreciate both sides of the maker/shop story! Being a Graphic Designer by trade, Foxes is a great way for me to get my own work out there.

Bam Bam Creative sweatshirt

What can people expect to see from you on the day? Aside from many of the awesome stuff that I stock from other talented designers, I will have Foxes graphic tea towels, tote bags, hand-painted cups and prints. 

Wash The Dishes tea towel

Do you have any future plans for your work, could you describe them? I'm exploring into perhaps making some Foxes jewellery and expanding on the clothing that I've already made in time for next Winter. 

Be Great A4 print

Where are your favourite places on-line? I can't get enough of Pinterest. It's like a personal online image storage space where you can catalogue your own personal style and see how it develops. I follow A LOT of amazing blogs with some of my favourites being Fancy! Design Blog, Pretty Zoo, Daydream Lily and Here Comes The Sun. I alos love Keiko Lynn for style inspiration and So Much To Tell You — all well worth a look.

What do you enjoy doing when you aren't busy making your wares? I'm usually running the store! Or talking on twitter, blogging, pinning things on Pinterest, hanging out with my amazing little girl who is now 6 and our pets, Ollie our 1year old dog or Leo our cat. I really value and enjoy spending time with my friends and family too, they make all this hard work worthwhile.

Artist Interview: Tiny Happy

Kia ora, I'm Melissa of Tiny Happy. I'm love making things and mostly work with textiles. I especially love to take old things that are unloved, and turn them into something new and beautiful. Tiny Happy has been going for about five years now, and I've been keeping an almost-daily blog since the beginning which I use as my inspiration journal and connect with other makers.

What can people expect to see from you on the day? I'm currently working on some wool embroidery, and I hope to have a small collection of crewel-work purses for sale. I'll have some things for babies and kids- my signature reversible baby shoes as well as some rabbits made from antique velveteen fabric. Some of my watercolour paintings will be made into sets of cards with envelopes and I'll have some hand-painted ceramics and hand-printed fabric pieces too.

Do you have any future plans for your work, could you describe them? I hope to keep on making things and writing about them.

Where are your favourite places on-line? I love pinterest at the moment- actually, I'm a bit addicted. Etsy and Felt are my favourite places to explore and look for presents, and I've always loved browsing on Flickr.

What do you enjoy doing when you aren't busy making your wares? Hanging out with my children (8 and 6 years old) and my partner. Baking cakes and scones. Obsessing over music. Meeting friends for coffee. Going out at night to see films.

Artist Interview: Reignbow

 

Why, hello there! My name is Kylie Richardson. You may better know me as one half of the organisers of this Fair or the owner of New Zealand Beading Supplies. Or you may just know me as Kylie, either way ;) Reignbow is a revamp and re-brand of my previous label, Skipapple. Life has been rather busy the last couple of years (just the way I like it) and my style and taste had changed along the way, so a label overhaul was in order. I tend to personally wear a lot of black or neutral clothing so find myself most comfortable adding a pop of colour by means of accessories. My large cocktail style rings are by far my favourite pieces - see below. They really add that extra something to an outfit :)

What can people expect to see from you on the day? Reignbow is officially launching for the very first time at the Dec 2011 Fair with a collection of pretty jewellery and accessory items inspired by feminine tones and antique bronze finishings. The current collection has a lovely vintage feel with a combination of chain, flower cabochon's, pendants and charms.

Do you have any future plans for your work, could you describe them? I always have lots of plans for future work, in everything I do. I would really like to expand and offer few different "ranges" of jewellery and more accessory items. If time permits, I'd also love to design a range of clothing. I've loved sewing ever since my grandmother taught me when I was about 5 or 6 years old, so I'm sure there will be something along those lines in the future.

Where are your favourite places on-line? Lately I've been well and truly hooked on Pinterest. It's probably my favourite website in a long time. (You can follow my boards here) Of course I also love to peruse Etsy and Foxes.co.nz for my weekly dose of handmade and designer goodness. I hang out on Facebook and Twitter for day to day happenings of friends and twitter peeps, and some of my favourite blogs are Frankie, Auckland Street Style, Here Comes the Sun, Fancy and Made by Girl. There are loads more but I can't think of them all off the top of my head!

What do you enjoy doing when you aren't busy making your wares? I'm not very good at relaxing for too long, so always have an array of things on the go at any one time. When I'm not making my wares I can be found either keeping myself busy co-organising the Fair with Jess, packaging up bead orders for the bead business, pinning away on Pinterest, deciding on which study I am going to partake in next (which happens to be a Diploma in Interior Design), coming up with new ideas for business ventures or writing to-do lists. I am particularly fond of to-do lists and like to keep mine pages long. It feels so rewarding crossing things off, but I am constantly adding to it so it's a never ending project. However in saying all of that, when I do manage to talk myself into some down time I enjoy reading non-fiction books, catching up with friends for a coffee or wine and listening to music.

Artist Interview: memeGO

It all started out with 2 huge Russian shoulder scarfs my mom owned. One in black and the other in white printed with the most colourful vibrant flowers. I remember spending hours in front of the mirror, wrapping and draping one or both of them around me. The love for colours, dazzling, cheerful, riotous, vibrant stuck with me as did my love for and understanding of the need to accessorize oneself. My starting point is a beautiful 100% Wool felt, made in New Zealand from which I create accessories like for example makeup bags and earrings.

My label is still young, many ideas yet to be formulated but what I have was born out of a strong desire to create something more personal then a high street shop item and it's formulated colour and design. That's also a reason for me to offer brooch DIY kits. Because it's fun and extremely satisfying to wear something of your own making.

What can people expect to see from you on the day? Everything I will present will be fresh of the press.

Do you have any future plans for your work, could you describe them? At the moment I very much tied up with getting my label off the ground. But in the future I would like to introduce other materials into my work. I particularly like felt combined with leather. My ultimate goal is to combine my whimsical side with the more practical to truly create good design which not only pleases the eye but also makes daily life a bit easier.

Where are your favourite places on-line? www.myvibemylife.com

www.missmoss.co.za

www.kristinaklarin.blogspot.com

www.trendtablet.com

www.thingsbecomethings.blogspot.com

www.dict.leo.org

What do you enjoy doing when you aren't busy making your wares? creating collective sounds - I drum with Tamashii, an Auckland based Taiko group., travelling imaginary worlds while reading, attempting to get foot/hand coordination sorted - I learn to dance flamenco and many many more things. The most important though, collecting inspiration, just happens along the way.

Artist Interview: Hue

Hi, I'm Nicola Walker and Hue is my crafty little inspiration where my passion for colour, fabrics and  bags combines - giving me blissful, creative, child-free moments late into the night! I love the challenge of up cycling scarfs, tea towels, table cloths and clothes of yesteryear and combining them with textiles of today. Actually my most favorite thing is hunting, finding and matching the material! Most weekends you will find me at the beach with the kids or at a craft market - sometimes with the kids!

What can people expect to see from you on the day? This season, satchels have dominated my range. These have been sized to carry laptops. notebooks, and netbooks plus they have been utilised as baby bags, overnight bags and uni satchels. To compliment the technology carrying theme, I have recently released the 'Hue-tech clutch'- a gorgeous clutch-like padded protection for netbooks and ipads. As I dislike any wastage, I always have popular little coin purses made from the remnants and sweetened up with highlights of beads.

Do you have any future plans for your work, could you describe them? Hue's future revolves around the love of creating, colour and craft markets. Continuing with the popular satchels  and being inspired to design and make new bags - when the fancy takes me and the time allows!

What do you enjoy doing when you aren't busy making your wares? Outside of Hue, I have 3 gorgeous children that keep me on my toes, make me laugh and share my love of being outside and building sandcastles!

Artist Interview: S4SH4

Hi, My name is Sasha Maya. I'm very excited to be joining the Auckland Art & Craft Fair for the first time this December. I am a Graphic Designer and artist / crafter. I grew up around the world and rediscovered home at the place of my birth, Aotearoa. Like most artists, I suspect, my background and experience do influence and inform my work. This includes my current medium of choice: wool, which I was introduced to, via an apprenticeship of sorts, by a group of Steiner women. It's tactile and versatile... I love that most people want to touch my work - not just look at it.

What can people expect to see from you on the day? This year I will primarily bring cushions and blankets ... many of them featuring New Zealand flora and fauna. I know a lot of people have seen 'upcycled wool cushions'... but I hope that most of what I'm bringing is quite unique. I create what is exciting and inspiring to me at the moment, and move on. So you will rarely see two items of mine that are anywhere close to identical, though you may see recurring themes until I've moved past them... which keeps it interesting for me, and hopefully my clients.
I've also started delving into smaller works in wool, but I'm not sure how many of those I'll have available on the day (depends how much I get made between now and then.)

Do you have any future plans for your work, could you describe them? I'm finding myself exploring, personally, the line between hand crafts and art. As often seems to be the case for me, I start exploring things personally - in works with no commercial intention - and then as they culminate they cross over in to work I sell. So depending on where the journey takes me ... I may end up selling artwork featuring some handcraft techniques I currently use.
I have also begun making some accessories, such as cuff bracelets, featuring 3 dimensional flowers I've created out of wool. These have been being requested by friends, which often heralds the transition of things I'm making for myself into my 'for sale' category of creative pursuits.

Where are your favourite places on-line? I struggled with this question because I don't really have favorites... I do enjoy trawling Etsy, Felt and TradeMe. I regularly visit Facebook which has brought back into my life many friends from a childhood spent overseas (but I don't like to list it as a favorite becuase I have a love / hate thing going with it - it's no substitute for a cup coffee with a friend).

I enjoy the access to learning - I've (re)learned to crochet flowers for a project using YouTube. I use it to research all manner of things. I love peaking into other people's creative worlds - Lorenzo Duran doing exquisite leaf cutting work, and his artisan journey of letting his client determine the value of his work (http://naturayarte.blogspot.com/). Map quilts: got to love an original (and beautiful) idea: http://www.hapticlab.com/pages/custom.

What do you enjoy doing when you aren't busy making your wares? I keep busy in my boutique Graphic Design company www.lilbirdcreative.co.nz.. I'm trying my hand at my first vegetable garden this year, and we're enjoying free range eggs from our own chicken. I built her a coop from materials bought at a demolition yard! I've just finished recovering, and almost completed refinishing, a retro AirRest arm chair bought of TradeMe.
Farmers markets, weekend festivals, and A&P shows are things I love doing with my daughter (whom I adore), when we're not playing frisbee with our dog, cleaning up feathers the cat decorated the lounge with, or having a BBQ with friends. And October 30th we carved jack-o-lanterns with one of my daughters friends... which means Christmas (with all its projects, baking, and fun) is just around the corner!

Artist Interview: The Art Room

Hi everyone. My name is Hayley and for the past few years I've been building up a range of limited edition screenprints for kids rooms under the name The Art Room. It started with an ambitious project - a large lion print for my daughters room - I didn't stop at one and I printed 35 of them! I followed that with a Seal and Giraffe print. They went so well I've carried on and my new range is all about Storybook characters. So far there is the Owl & Pussycat and just launched is Little Red Riding Hood & the Wolf. In between big print runs I've started doing little gift cards and cute stamp sets too... there is always a new project on the go.

What can people expect to see from you on the day? At the Fair I'll be bringing my original prints, some teatowels, gift cards and stamp sets. I've had a digital range printed (in smaller sizes - A4 and A3) of the original limited edition prints and I'll have those available too. My friend Ingrid is a fantastic sewer - we've collaborated and she has made Red Riding Hood and Wolf toys. You'll be able to get the matching set - toys and print! I'm working on a set of Christmas gift cards so if all goes well they'll be launched at the Fair.

Do you have any future plans for your work, could you describe them? Future plans include adding to the Storybook Series, finishing a range of Christmas cards and trying my hand at fabric printing. Fabric printing has been in the pipeline for a while so I'm looking forward to giving it a go. I think it will be a simple pattern to start with and maybe for adults this time... I'd like to be able to sew up some cushions, pillowcases and try getting a light shade made.

Where are your favourite places on-line? Favourite sites include designsponge http://www.designsponge.com/, print and pattern, http://printpattern.blogspot.com/ and Melissa's blog from tinyhappy. http://www.tinyhappy.typepad.com/

I'm always check the New Zealand printmakers site too for any new ideas. http://nzprintmakers.blogspot.com/

What do you enjoy doing when you aren't busy making your wares? I'm a Mum first and that takes up most of my time :). I also work two days a week for a magazine company as a graphic designer so I just try and fit in printmaking around that.  I love heading out on the water whenever I can and spending weekends out of Auckland - somewhere quiet...