Archive for August, 2009
Featured Seller – FruteJuce
Posted by onHappy Bank Holiday Monday! This week my Featured Seller is Alison from FruteJuce, who creates fantastic appliqué, hand sewn and free machine embroidery work! Where nature and power tools meet in perfect harmony (quite often on the front of a baby bodysuit!) Take it away…
FruteJuce
Introduce yourself…
Hi, I am Alison of FruteJuce. Everything I make is driven by my interest. If I love making something I will make more, if not it is a one off. I have to enjoy what I do. I have three kids and three grandchildren and love to make them things to wear. I only wear black clothes myself but my favourite fabrics are bright and cheerful. My day job is working as an adult education tutor teaching Photoshop and HTML for a small local charity, which I really enjoy but is sporadic and there is never enough of it, so I spend quite a large amount of time successfully self-unemployed!
How did it all start?
I have always made things. It is something that I learned from my Mum and Dad as they always made and adapted items, now known as up-cycled, they were way ahead of their time. I spent a few years being embarrassed of wearing home made dresses to school but eventually realised how cool it was. This came in particularly handy during the Punk era, I had the best home made bondage trousers around!
My Mum taught me to Knit and sew when I was very young and my Dad always had me helping out in the shed when he was making things out of wood and metal so I got a good rounded education as far as ‘making’ went.
I remember melting down my Dads solder in a tobacco tin lid and using some of my Mums ornaments as moulds, she was not best pleased!
Featured Seller – Three Red Apples
Posted by onMy Featured Seller this week is Annabelle, a self confessed ‘fabric-holic’, creating a perfect mix of ‘English country cottage and French heritage’, working in a ‘lot of love, some originality, a little humor and a good dose of a good old vintage with a modern twist.’ Phew! That explains that then! Take it away…
Three Red Apples
Introduce yourself…I am French and have been living in South Devon for over a decade with my lovely partner and our dog, Jack.
How did it all start?
I spent my childhood summer holidays busy in Dad’s workshop, hammer and saw in hand (health and safety wasn’t big in those days in rural Brittany!), and on Mum’s kitchen table, drawing and painting.
I had been working as a web designer since leaving Uni. I enjoyed it very much, especially since I worked from home, which really suits me. However in the last couple of years, the need for something new was niggling at me. I just couldn’t decide what. I knew I wanted to go back to hands on creative work and be my own boss. I always thought it would have something to do with working with wood, which is very close to my heart and very much in my family’s.
Featured Seller – Frugal Cool
Posted by onThis week Coriandr’s Featured Seller is something a little different. A creative collective of friends and neighbours from Scotland, manned here on Coriandr by Nicky. I really like this eclectic and vibrant shop full of all kinds of sustainable goodies!
Frugal Cool
Introduce yourself…
I’m Nicky Orr, I live in Musselburgh, just outside Edinburgh. I promote sustainable design and eco craft through projects and events. I support people who aspire to save the planet through their business. Frugal Cool is one of my projects. It’s new, it’s hectic and very exciting.
How did it all start?
For a few years, I’ve been watching my neighbours and friends create wonderful craft. I want to support their talent and we all share a commitment to make our world healthy and safe. So it’s a craft business with a green twist.
I make things myself too, I love textiles particularly. Crochet is my latest addiction.
Have you always sold online?
Yes, my professional head thinks online. I’m a shopkeeper’s daughter though, so craft markets are easy. I do two or three each month, all within 35 miles of Musselburgh. It’s definitely a learning curve, and I’m getting to know which ones to avoid!
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Featured Seller – CeeGee Jewellery
Posted by onHello, it’s Monday again! A new week and a new Featured Seller. My Coriandr seller this week, makes beautiful sterling silver jewellery and loves to use unique artisan produced lampwork beads in her pieces…take it away…
CeeGee Jewellery
Introduce yourself…
I’m Carolyn and I run CeeGee Jewellery Design from my home near Knutsford in Cheshire. I make sterling silver jewellery mainly using semi-precious gemstones, Murano and lampwork glass.
How did it all start?
After over a decade working in investment banking in London my husband and I moved up to Cheshire (not far from where I grew up). Whilst job hunting I made some jewellery for my sister’s wedding in an effort to save some money. That was all it took for me to get the jewellery bug and pursue a completely different career path!
Have you always sold online?
Yes. My first few items were sold on eBay, which was useful for testing the water, getting feedback and checking my jewellery was good enough to sell to the public. Not long after that though I set up my own website and now sell online through that and three other sites including Coriandr.
Featured Seller – Nutmegclick
Posted by onHello!
This week my featured seller is all the way from India with her eclectic kitsch pop bazaar! Assorted curios, ephemera, supplies and restored vintage abound in this wonderful and vibrant Coriandr shop. Take it away…
Nutmegclick
Introduce yourself…
I am the mute daughter of a wanderer who was born in the alps and ran away with a clan of clever gypsies to join the circus in Moscow where I fell in love with a communist who left me in Prague, swept away by a mob.
At least I find that very likely.
Actually, I’m just a gal named Nutmeg who travels the world with her mad pipe-organist husband, wee daughter, and way too many trunks of vintage ephemera! I’m wild about German philosophy and French films, like to take things apart and put them back together in curious ways, and am forever on a quest for aesthetically chipping paint and perfect lighting. Presently we live in a great large traditional house in India where we collect old pulp novels, chase our various muses, and try to have conversations which shift between three or four languages at once!
How did it all start?
Nearly everything I make is comprised of vintage items which I have collected over the years. I’ve loved vintage ever since I was a wee lass pawing through the many trunks of dusty whatnots in my grandmum’s attic. I grew up in a small town, and it was hard for me to find clothing that expressed my style – so I started dressing in lovelies that I found at estate sales, and my first flat was decorated entirely with thrift-store finds, since I loved to make up stories about the other people who had owned them (and it was kind to my starving-artist pocketbook!) Later I became keen on the ‘freegan’ revolution, which is basically using old things instead of buying them new whenever you can. Now I’ve expanded that to the global scale, and love to spend an afternoon poking through the sundry whatnots at a second-hand bazaar or haunting defunct publishing houses.
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