UK Handmade Interview & a Day at Pre-School

I forgot to mention a couple of weeks ago that I had been interviewed by the lovely and ever-so patient Kirsten Miller of UK Handmade for their Road Less Traveled series. I was a little bit nervous as it's the first proper interview I've done since starting Grace's Favours but it wasn't scary and the end result is something I'm really really pleased with and as soon as I can work out how to I'll be adding a "Press" section to the website!

to see the rest of the pics (and read the words!) click here

The other thing I wanted to share this week was the session I did at my daughter, Seren's, Pre-School class. Her teacher (who knows what I do for a living) asked if I would be interested in going into the nursery for a day to teach the Pre-School children how to sew! I was delighted to be asked and decided that I would get them doing a basic sampler like this:

Flower sampler

So I cut out a square of material for each child and machine stitched round the edges so it didn't fray once they started sewing. Then I drew the flower in 4 different colours (green stalk & leaves, orange centre, red for one set of petals and purple for the other set of petals)

I'd ordered a batch of large plastic needles and some embroidery threads in different colours and armed with all of this I set off for nursery on Tuesday morning.

Seren was beside herself with excitement and all her friends (actually, thankfully only 6 of them and 2 staff members!) were really enthusiastic about their "lesson"

Here are some pics from the day:

Great concentration from the boys - surprisingly!

Seren (in the heart dress) very keen to get every stitch right!

Mary: Are you sure I'm showing him right???

Sue: I'm sure I can do this!

One of the best results!

Stopped for lunch and a play, great progress!

They all worked SO hard, I was really proud of all the children! We didn't quite finish our projects in the day (interspersed with playing, running round outside and many pit stops for food and drinks!) so I'm going back in a fortnight's time to help them finish off.

I really really enjoyed my day with the kids, but my god, was I exhausted at the end of it!! I have a newfound respect for Nursery Staff!

Now pootling over to Handmade Monday now for a mooch round to see what everyone else has been up to this week!

The Big Etsy Seller Card Table

Sorry for a double post today, but I came across this event today and wanted to get the word out to as many Etsy sellers as possible and it needed to be done today as the deadline is looming.

Keep Calm Events is holding it's first UK Etsy Seller Craft Fair in Seaham, Co Durham on May 5th 2012 and there will be a fundraising table which will hold business cards from as many Etsy UK sellers (and also UK Handmade members) as possible. Visitors to the fair will then be able to take away the business cards from this table, so they can have a look at other artists/sellers who could not attend the fair itself.

The event organisers are asking for a minimum of £2 donation (you can of course give more if you'd like to!) to be sent in with between 10 and 100 business cards by the end of April. There will be media representation there on the day and I'm sure the table will get a good bit of publicity and there is also the added incentive of getting some new free (yup free!) MOO cards in return for sending in some for the event.

If you've not come across MOO cards before, check them out, they are fantastic - the quality of the cards is brilliant, the service is great, delivery is fast and the packaging is fun too!

To contact the lovely people at Keep Calm Events & for more details either have a look at their blog or email them at keepcalmevents@gmail.com