A day at The Handmade Fair

Today my sister and I spent a day at The Handmade Fair at Hampton Court. We had been looking forward to it for ages as it was a strictly *mums only* event, the children were left at home with daddy for the day.

The sun shone and we headed to Hampton Court for our day of crafting and shopping. Our tickets included a Grand Make, Skills Workshop and a Super Theater session.

Our first event was a Grand Make and we had chose Tibetan Poetry Bunting. We were given a ready made prayer flag and craft supplies to embellish it. Everyone had a line of the poem The Owl and The Pussycat, the idea was that each flag was tied together to make a Grand masterpiece. It was fun and we enjoyed making something and chatting to the people around us.

This was a quick make and before we knew it we were back out in the sunshine again. Our Skills Workshop was Papercut Horoscopes with Poppy Chancellor. I met Poppy Chancellor last year and tried my hand at paper cutting before and loved it so knew this would be a fun workshop. I loved the designs of the horoscopes and was happy to sit and cut paper.

There was plenty of time to look around the tents which included a Shopping Village, Artisan Marketplace and Food and Drink. There was so much to do we couldn’t see everything. As the sun was shining we enjoyed a couple of drinks at the Airstream 1920s bar and took a photo in the photo booth with 1920s props.

I loved the Mollie Makes cafe, even if they did run out of tea cups, and took out a few subscriptions to some new-to-me magazines. There was a fun craft table with grown up colouring sheets and craft kits to make too.

Our Super Theatre session was Annie Sloan talking to Kirstie Allsopp and a painting demo which I loved. We have a great collection of Annie Sloan paint and it was really interesting to hear her talk.

I picked up lots of ideas from the Q&A too. We were lucky enough to meet Annie Sloan at her pop up shop and she is a lovely lady. I bought one of her stencils and I can’t wait to use it.

We chatted to the people in the Hobbycraft tent and enjoyed walking around all the stalls, sampling the products, entering competitions and seeing so many new items, fabrics and books.

We had a great day at the Handmade Fair. The location was lovely, if a little tricky to get to, and we definitely got our moneys’ worth from our tickets. It was fun trying new crafts and meeting people. The weather was gorgeous which gave the whole day a festival feel. I really hope they run it again next year as I will be super early booking our tickets so can pick our favourite workshops!