Artist Interview: A Little Vintage

Jennie Walker is the lady behind A Little Vintage — creator of the most exquisite dolls with intricately hand painted faces. She is a regular at some of the monthly Auckland markets and is really excited about showing her next level of dolls to the public with luxurious fabrics and finishes.


How long have you been doing your craft? I've been making the dolls for about a year and a half now. But it feels like I've only just started!

How did you get started? The children's favourite toys were falling apart and slumping from loads of hugs. After I had fixed the old toys — I had so much stuffing left that I had to make something with it!

Second round succesful applications announced...

As you are all aware, we opened up a second round of applications for a further week, we did this to give those that had just found out about the Fair a chance to apply.... We have spent a long time going over each application and are pleased to share with you the remaining successful applicants.

Second Round July Vendors:
Lily's Make Believe (AKL)
Claudia Jaffe Art (AKL)
River Bed (AKL)
Topography (AKL)
Chouette (AKL)
Ethel & Harriet (AKL)


We'll be adding their links to the Vendors section in the right hand column and their artist interviews will be on the blog soon!

Artist Interviews: Cut Collective

We are really happy to be having the Cut Collective join us for the first Auckland Fair — we love their work. You may have seen it yourself out and about around Auckland — either on the back of a bus, down the side of a building or creeping around a doorway on K-Rd. We're sure you'll like them as much as we do...

How long have you been doing your craft? The Cut Collective has been going strong for around five years now, but it was only in December 08 that we decided to take it to the next level and form a company and find a premises. Individually we have all been painters and designers for well over 10 years. Since forming the biz and finding a space, we have really excelled and become known as a group.

Continue reading after the jump...

Artist Interview: Miss Ellie May

Miss Ellie May or just Ellie to those that know her — is a regular around the Auckland craft scene. She has the sweetest label making gifts and stationery that anyone would love to receive. We love her illustrations — and who can say no to cute stationery!

How long have you been doing your craft? I have been selling things for about 2 1/2 years, but I have been making them for a lot longer, for myself and for gifts.

How did you get started? It has been a gradual thing I guess, since I did a screen-printing night class about 7 years ago. But I really got into gear after going along to Craftwerk in St Kevin's Arcade and seeing all the amazing & varied crafts on offer. It was a big step for me to feel confident enough to sit behind a table selling things I had made, and a huge thrill to find people actually wanted to buy what I had made!

Read more after the jump...

Artist Interview: Kute Kiwi

Kim Whalen is the knitting artist behind Kute Kiwi, she makes a range of items that are super snuggly, cute and we just love them — Kylie especially! A relatively new Artist on the Auckland craft scene, Kim is proving to be very popular at local markets and will definitely be around to stay!

How long have you been doing your craft? I have been crafting and creating for as long as I can remember. It has always been a passion of mine and six months ago decided to try to make a business out of it.

Describe what you create? Knits such as hats and scarves and cute accessories such as necklaces, broaches, hair clips and bows.

Read more after the jump...

Artist Interview: Sensitive Boyfriend

Sensitive Boyfriend (Drus Dryden) is a clever lad, making all kinds of insightful curiosities ranging from wash and dry dishes sets, winter condoms, homewares. His finishes are beautiful and nearly everything on his website we have on our wish-lists...


How long have you been doing your craft? Sensitive boyfriend has been cooking you breakfast and writing you poetry since 2008.

How did you get started? I had a flight booked for San Francisco and had set myself the task of writing a book. I ended up writing a book about missed connections, a website phenomenon in San Francisco in which people write about hot people they've seen around town.

Read more after the jump...

Artist Interview: Ruby In The Dust

Heleen Webb is the creator of Ruby In The Dust and maker of these gorgeous art dolls. They are all made by hand and each one is unique. Definitely something that can be enjoyed by grown ups!

How long have you been doing your craft? I've been making dolls for the last 2 years.

How did you get started? I've always been very crafty, but the dolls started when I found a book at the library for a friend. She wanted to learn how to make puppets — I had a look at other dolls in the book and thought I could try making my own. I loved the way doll-making combined so many skills I enjoy, like painting, embroidery, sewing, putting together random elements to create something beautiful.

Read more after the jump...

Artists Interviews....

Because we all like to get to know our vendors, especially as some of them will be coming to Auckland as a vendor for the first time, or even to a venue to sell their goods for the first time — we thought that you may like to get to know our talented vendors a little better.

Beginning tomorrow(ish) we will be putting up an artist interview, complete with photo's of their work every couple of days in the lead up to the Fair.

It will be a great way to see what everyone does and maybe start saving the pennies for those things that you really, really want...

First Round Applications Announced!

We are very pleased to announce the first round of vendors selected to be at the very first Auckland Art & Craft Fair, July 2010. Links have been added to the right hand menu so make sure you check them out, they are all incredibly talented people.

Applications for the second round are still open, if you would like to apply for the limited places that we have left then please download the form and send it in as soon as you can. Applications close on Tuesday 25th May 2010 at 4pm.

July vendors so far....
A Little Vintage (AK), Birdspoke (AK), Blendy (AK), Boxx (HAM), Chasing Rabbit (AK), Cheek Pinchy (AK), Cut Collective (AK), Danielle Mathieson (AK), Dear Colleen (WGTN), Debra Fallowfield (CHCH), Devon Smith (WGTN), Emma Walsh Design (BOP), Evie Kemp Design (AK), Exter Creative (AK), Ferrit (AK), Flossys Fancy (AK), Grizzly Peasants (AK), Honey Design (AK), Jelly Bones (AK), Kute Kiwi (AK), Millicent Crow (AK), Miss Ellie May (AK), My Pretty One (AK), Nuzilla (AK), Plastic Fairy (WGTN), Pure Extracts (AK), Ran With Scissors (AK), Rose Among Thorns (CHCH), Ruby In The Dust (AK), Sarah McNeil (WGTN), Sensitive Boyfriend (AK), The Binding Studio (AK), Tiny Happy (NSN), Trixie Delicious (AK), Victoria'n'Bird (AK), Zippity Doo Dah (AK)

Second round applications will be announced Wednesday 26th May 2010.... In the meantime, here is some eye-candy from a few of our vendors...

Top Row L to R: Dear Colleen, Boxx, Cut Collective, Evie Kemp Design

Middle Row L to R: Sensitive Boyfriend, Plastic Fairy, Victoria'n'Bird, Nuzilla

Bottom Row L to R: Ferrit, Devon Smith, Trixie Delicious, Chasing Rabbit

An Encore Performance....

In-case you missed me chatting with Charlotte on Morning Glory, her 95bfm show — here it is! Complete with my yummy Lemon Macaroon recipe which will hopefully be included in her charity cook-book... You can listen here.

Charlotte Ryan and Myself having a chat about the Fair

We did have another little chat about Frankie and the Auckland Craft Collective after the song finished, but unfortunately we don't have that, still, makes for excellent listening!

Morning Glory....

Tomorrow I'll be heading up to visit the lovely Charlotte on 'Morning Glory with Charlotte Ryan' up at 95bfm to chat about the Auckland Craft Collective, the Auckland Art & Craft Fair and a spot of.... baking! That's right, Charlotte is putting together a wee bfm charity cookbook and has asked me to bring along some of my best bake sale recipes. Not only am I going to take along my recipes (yep, two of them because that's how I roll and because one uses an egg white and the other a yolks, no wastage around here!) I am even taking along some of the baked goods for her and the team to try. Minus a few that I have, erm.... taste tested myself.

 Ms. Charlotte

Be sure to listen in either on the FM dial or on-line — but if you miss it we'll be adding it to the blog, hopefully later in the day.

Our Friend Frankie...

... and our lovely sponsor was nice enough to do a little taster post about us over on their website. The images are from our Auckland Craft Collective showcase on our homepage.

On another note, both Kylie and I have spent the entire afternoon going through applications and have only made a small dent *sigh* however, tomorrow is another day and it is actually rather lovely going over all these gorgeous product photo's — everyone is just so talented!

Applications...

Applications have officially closed! But.... because we have literally had applications and questions flooding in over the last 24 hours, we have decided that we will be opening a second round of applications next week. With being such a new event, it has taken a little while to get the word out there in just 3 weeks and we thought that this would be the best way to ensure our first Fair is a success for our vendors, sponsors and of course, customers.

To be fair, everyone that has applied so far will find out if they have been successful or not on or before Tuesday 18th of May and we will be announcing those lucky people on the blog shortly after.

The second round of applications for the remaining spaces will open on Tuesday 18th of May and run for a further 1 week only, closing on Tuesday 25th May at 4pm.

We hope that this will make it fair to everyone and give those that only just found out about us enough time to organise their applications and hopefully nab one of the remaining few spots.

In the meantime, back to processing all these applications....

A Clear Conscience (and floors too)

We've been lucky enough to be given some special goodies from Ecostore — An amazing New Zealand owned and manufacturer of 'green' products, that are not only good for your conscience but good for the environment and smell great too!

They have given us one of these amazing Ecostore Healthy Home Starter Kits, which we will giveaway to one lucky person that enters on the day of the Fair.

They have also hooked us up with some treats for the vendor packs too.... but that will be a surprise!

Thanks Ecostore!

Just incase you missed it....

Just incase you missed the interview with me on Base FM this morning (seeing as it was at 9.15AM and you were probably busy working, or even busy still sleeping) you can have a listen anyway! The lovely Holly, Producer of the Breakfast Show arranged to give me a recording of the interview — thanks Holly!

It was great to talk about the Fair and get the word out there to even more people,for me it was a lot of fun to see what it's like on the other side of the radio — I'm usually listening to Base in the car or at home good to put faces to names, or voices in this case!

It ended up being in two parts, so you can listen to both if you fancy.

Part One:



Part Two:

Radio Debut...

If you have some time (or can sneak a listen to the radio while you're at work, maybe) tomorrow morning you may like to pop 9.15AM in the diary for a little chat, or rather, a little listen to....... me!

I'll be joining the lovely Base FM Breakfast crew for a chat about the Fair and other happenings, should be fun! You can listen on-line or through Freeview channel 71 if you're up with the play and have Freeview. Even though they are lovely people and I listen to them every morning, so it feels like I know them, I'm still a little nervous....

We'll nab some photo's and try and get a recording up on the blog in-case you miss the sound of my voice rattling across the airwaves.

The Base Breakfast bunch (Dylan C, Chip Matthews, Tyra Hammond and the lovely Holly who is about to leave to go overseas)

Tweet, tweet...

We're on Twitter! If you'd like to keep up to date with day-to-day happenings you can find us here

Have you met my friend, Frankie?

We would like to introduce you to Frankie, Frankie Magazine that is. Frankie is a cute, quirky, inspirational, friendly and refreshing magazine. If Frankie were a person, they would be my best bud — and probably yours too.

So, for that reason, we are so (so) proud to announce that Frankie Magazine has come on board as the last of our major sponsors! Exciting times that really do deserve squeals of excitement.

When I asked Frankie to be part of the first Auckland Art & Craft Fair, I asked them because they are so supportive of our creative industry that it just wouldn't have been right to have anyone else behind us. Frankie started up in 2004 by founders Editor Louise Bannister and Creative Director Lara Burke, when Louise couldn't ignore the travel itch any more, she packed her bags and the lovely Jo Walker came on board as Editor. Louise is back and works on the super special projects every now and then as Assistant Publisher, aren't we lucky?

They're a place to find emerging talent, cute crafts, the best fashion, music you will like, interesting photography and articles that make you think. Published every 2 months, it can sometimes be really hard to wait for that next issue.

Thanks Frankie! We're proud as punch...

One more week to go....

Applications will close in one week! That's not much time so do make sure that you get your application in as soon as possible — especially if you are posting it in to us. The application form is available for download in the left bar or by clicking here.

Here are a sneaky photo of the amazing space that we have for the big day, it really is amazing inside with those enormous windows and high stud ceiling.... You can see the amazing work from the Cut Collective is still covering the walls from their Public Access exhibition a few months ago.

Of course if you have any questions about the Fair or the application form, flick us an e-mail and we'll get back to you quickly.

Every idea starts from a BASE...

We are really proud to announce the first of our major sponsors for the Auckland Art & Craft Fair — the amazing team at BASE FM!

I approached BASE because they are New Zealands largest, totally independent radio station giving their DJ's free reign to play 100% DJ choice, they're about supporting the large and the local at the same time — and we liked that, a lot.

 They started up back in 2004 and had a little home inside the GeorgeFM studio, just across the hall and recently broke out into their own space on Rose Rd in Ponsonby. BASE are behind the annual Shake'and'Bake event that combines live art and music with a positive atmosphere in Ponsonby and has been running for the last 6 years.

We'll be taking a trip to the studio soon to have some chats and will hopefully manage to coax along some of our talented artists to come share some of the limelight closer to the big day and discuss what they do. Plus, we'll be having some of their lovely DJ's helping us fill the gallery with some good sounds on the day, so make sure you come along and check it out.

BASE is broadcast on 107.3FM in Auckland, on digital radio in Auckland and Wellington, streaming live at www.basefm.co.nz and broadcast nationwide on Freeview Channel 71 all day, every day — clever buggers, aren't they..?

Vendor treats...

We've been on the hunt for some lovely businesses to donate some goodies for the vendor packs that we're creating for the day of the Fair. We've been busy gathering treats to keep our vendors happy and well fed! We're anticipating that the Fair will be really busy and we're sure our vendors will appreciate a yummy juice and snack to get them through the day.

Of course, if you perhaps run a business that would like to provide our hard working vendors with a delicious reward for being rather talented, and would like to be involved too — get in touch and send us an e-mail...

In the meantime, the hunt is on!