live blogging from today's leeds event: leeds corn exchange

(cakey times with marvellous tea dance co)

(old baubles - new life - pilfered are here today)

(pin your cards up in style with e-creations)

(lovely prints by alexia claire)

reetsweet returns to leeds for the final time this year - this weekend!

Hello reetsweeters, it's been a busy year of craft with us - and this weekend is your final chance to grab a unique piece of handmade for your christmas list! Returning reetsweeter Debbie Greenaway - 'The imagination of lady snail' is back to tempt you into her world of fun characters, and lots of print based awesomeness with a modern twist:

'I am an illustrator and printmaker. Currently living in my hometown of Huddersfield. I have recently returned to full-time self-employment (illustration) but I am still holding on to the strings of my part-time job. My work starts out in my sketchbook and through constant doodling and story sentence writing, I try to develop characters from various things I may have seen or heard. I often take my camera and sketchbook out and about with me and draw from outside observation, overheard conversations or from my imagination.

Screen-printing is my favourite way of working and put my designs on to paper or fabric or anything else I can find, to create an assortment of items including limited edition prints, purses, stitched illustrations, badges, cards and bags. At the moment I am working on drawing people, characters with musical instruments, in the hope of creating a fictional band, some colourful images of a narrative nature and a illustrated book of sorts.'

Debbie's work has recently been showcased by Folksy! But we've known about her amazing talents for ages ;-)

reetsweet's christmas at sheffield: previews

Here at reetsweet we try to always find new and exciting makers for our events, we are particularly excited to have this young lady next fair - Katrine Brosnan - an illustrator and printmaker based in Nottingham, Katrine studied fine art and since then has explored her love of simple line drawings and illustrations, she turns these into screen prints and lino cuts.

'I love printmaking, the smell, the presses, the plates, the thickness of the ink and all the beautiful ephemera that goes with it. I find it really satisfies my urge to make! The inspiration for my illustrations come from everyday life, visiting new towns and cities or letting my mind wander when doing the washing up. I like to draw people I see who look full of character, whether these are familiar icons or perfect strangers. I sometimes collect surreptitiously drawn or snapped images of strangers to edit into print designs later on. I have started to categorise these, for instance I have a collection of strangers I’ve seen sleeping, men on public transport with their dogs and a series of images of people at airports (airport-raits.)

I have recently finished a commission for a menswear store called LiFE in Manchester. I’ve also just completed making my own range of shiny new wooden brooches and ceramic mugs. I’m a member of Leicester Print Workshop and am often spotted showing my crafty wares at fairs and markets across the East Midlands and beyond....'

Catch her at the reetsweet in sheffield on sunday 27th nov (that's next sunday folks!). For more info see www.reetsweet.com/events.

something for nothing! (and awesome too!)

We at reetsweet like to give our fans a little thank you whenever we can! If you bob along to leeds university union on tuesday you will find us in the riley smith hall and we have these very fine little badges to give away on the welcome desk, designed by the very awesome matt saunders aka rabbit portal...reet sweet!

LIVE BLOGGING SUNDAY: Today's fair

More handmade than you can shake a stick at! Shelley Warne's lovely upcycled accessories:




Amazing knitting alert! Laura Shelton's Folky Boutique bring you knitted hair bands with bows on - c'est super geek chic!

Bonjour miss o'mara!

Kayleigh O'Mara introduces her homely illustrations and gifts...

'I have a strong, and simple illustration style which is mostly hand drawn outlines and digital colouring. I enjoy making greetings cards, button badges, magnets, children's books, and zines.




I am currently selling my crafts to fund a course in screen printing to take my images and put them on anything and everything . I am hoping to print on to notebooks tote bags and t-shirts.

But for now i am creating new badges and magnets, cards and zines. '

Kayleigh has attended a few reetsweet's now, and her stall is always popular so please get down early to pick up some of her top treats!

jonathan lives here...

Jonathan Wilkinson aka We Live Here celebrates in his work the buildings and scenes from the places we see everyday. All of his illustrations are orginal, created from scratch. He studied fine art at the Psalter Lane Campus Sheffield Hallam where he developed his style and established We Live Here in 2007.

"Above all I get a kick out of reimagining these unconventionally beautiful buildings in my own style. For me it gives the buildings a greater sense of importance and hopefully makes us think a little differently about them too."

Jonathan has lived and worked in Sheffield for the last 11 years. While he was born in Leeds and grew up in Nottingham, Sheffield is his home. This will be his second appearance at reetsweet, he first visited us in Nov for our premier show!

reetsweet mentioned in leeds guardian blog!

Fancy a nosey into my past and my inspiration behind reetsweet? Check out my little guest blog on the guardian leeds blog at http://www.guardian.co.uk/leeds/2011/jan/07/reetsweet-leeds-independent-handmade-craft-talent . If you live locally I definitely recommend following John Baron's excellent posts to see what's going on in and around Leeds.

New to reetsweet? What should you expect?

We have quite a few new followers on the blog, and on the facebook page - so to welcome you all - happy new year! What is reetsweet and why should you come down and see our events?

Reetsweet began as a little blog I used to write about things I loved, mostly handmade beauties or expensive trinkets I could not afford, and then, like many bloggers I lost interest - but then I realised what I was passionate about - not just shopping, handmade shopping! Who wants to buy some mass produced rubbish made halfway around the world where the person working in the factory was paid tuppence to work too fast, with poor materials!? No, we want beautiful homewares, jewellery and oddities made here in the Uk, handmade, no mass produced rubbish - just quality one offs that are different - fun! And inject humour into the world.

And so last autumn we began reetsweet's craft fairs - here's some pictures of what to expect at the Corn Exchange on feb 6th...see you there x

Did you miss us??!

Hello!

Wishing all reetsweeters a bright and prosperous new year! Hope you had a wonderful 2010 and this year is looking even better!

Spring will be upon us soon, and with that we will clean our homes, brighten up our bedrooms, spruce up our hairdos and have some romance! On feb 6th we return to the corn exchange for our next craft fair from 11am to 4.30pm...Reetsweet's Valentine's Craft Fair!

I am very excited by the selection of new talents we are bringing to you - be sure to bob down and see us - it's free entry as always and I will give you a run down of who and what to expect to see on the day on the blog.

Happy new year

x