All the fun at the Handmade Fair
Last Friday I was delighted to spend the day at the first ever Handmade Fair hosted by the fabulous Kirstie Allsopp. Lucky for me I went along with crafting whizz Kate from DaphneRosa who makes incredible fabric flowers into bridal bouquets, head pieces and decorations, so we got to geek out together, check out her beautiful work here. I remember being surprised to find it was being held at Hampton Court Palace, a favourite place of mine, and, as it turned out, a wonderful venue for the day. We had ‘full experience’ tickets which cost £29 and included a craft session, a ‘grand make’ and a ‘super theatre’ talk, find out how we got on below.
On arriving we dived straight into the Lush tents as they were holding mini crafting classes and spa treatments. They gave us both a wonderful hand and arm massage using their Wiccy Magic Muscles bar that smelled of peppermint and cinnamon. It was such a treat and I kept catching the cinnamon aroma throughout the day. They also told us all about their spas which I intend to find out more about, spa treatments that involve rum or Jammy Dodgers sounds good to me! But for now we came to craft…
After a quick churros breakfast, shhh I know it’s naughty, I scouted the shopping tents while Kate attended a talk by Etsy. The Etsy tent had some fab stalls and I was thrilled to find Chamby and Cor there, I mentioned them a while back in my Neon Pink and Vintage round up post so it was a real treat to browse and I obviously couldn’t resist buying some sparkling washi tape and a beautiful gold and deep plum twine, perfect for Christmas!
Our first crafting session was a crochet class. I don’t think they had expected quite so many beginners in the class but there were a number of people on hand to help everyone out and we all got our flower projects started. I’m loving crochet as a craft, you only need yarn and a hook to get started and there are so many things you can make but having taught myself mostly using YouTube I would recommend finding a class or someone who can teach you in person, its much more fun that way. The hour flew by but we got to take our projects home to finish, here’s mine.
We had a short break to visit one of the shopping tents before our World Pomination class. I found the tents a refreshing change from the usual conference/event style. It was like stumbling across one of those hidden treasure shops but was in fact a tent full of them. From crafting products and materials to stunning works of art and beautiful handmade items.
After some, perhaps less than subtle, admiration of Kirstie Allsopp from afar, not stalking, yes, we really should have just said hi, we made our way to the World Pomination tent. This was a real highlight for me having never made a pom pom before and the quite simply stunning Rosy Nicholas was a fab instructor making it even more fun than I expected. Kirstie and Rosy were working on a Guiness World Record for the longest line of pom poms, needless to say they smashed the record and supported the charity Sense at the same time, if you didn’t get to donate a pom pom you can donate £3 by texting POMPOM to 70111.
Our final activity for the day was held in the Super Theatre, a cute big top style tent adorned in bunting, where we saw Kirstie Allsopp in conversation with Cath Kidston. It felt so cosy and friendly you almost forgot you were in a tent and it felt like sitting in someone’s front room with friends. I learned that Cath and Kirstie are actually cousins and both came across as genuinely lovely and passionate women.
We had time for some more shopping before getting the train home. It was a great day out and if you have even a passing interest in crafting and making I would recommend getting tickets next year. Did you go this year or is there a craft you’ve been dying to try out? I’d love to know.
