In the last of our blog posts about our Make Your Own Christmas party this Sunday, we speak to two of our makers who will be helping you get into the season spirit.

Elena Blanco, artist and illustrator

Why did you get involved with the Christmas party and what activity are you doing?
I love the Makerhood Christmas Party. This party really brings out what Makerhood is about: sharing, learning new skills, having a good time and of course making! All these elements are really important to us and having a good time is too, so we always have amazing performances and a real party feeling. It is also an opportunity to meet new people in our community, to network and to catch up with old friends.

What are you looking forward to on the day?
To everything really, but mainly to meeting people and catching up with old friends. It’s such a lovely, relaxed atmosphere. At the event I will be making cards, mainly using recycled materials so it is really the opposite to the consumeristic Christmas idea. I hope I will be able to inspire people into creating amazing things!

Fiona Douglas, seamstress, teacher and founder, Oh Sew Brixton

Why did you get involved with the Christmas party and what activity are you doing?
I have lots of scraps of beautiful fabrics leftover from my sewing classes and this a great chance to get people to use their creativity and recycle them into cards.  I will have machines for a bit of machine embroidery, needles and thread for hand embroidery (but no glue because that’s cheating…)

What are you looking forward to on the day
I’ve been to one of the Makerhood Christmas dos before and the improvised panto was hilarious! Hopefully being in charge of a workshop means I get out of actually participating…

If you’d like to join us for a few hours of making, live music and improv on Sunday, please register on Eventbrite: http://makeyourchristmas.eventbrite.co.uk/ 

Below: some of our team making decorations earlier this week to make the Dogstar pretty on Sunday

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You may remember that we run a survey a few weeks ago. It came with a prize draw… and we’re very happy to announce the lucky winner! It is Zoë Chan – a graphic designer from Clapham. Zoë won a hamper full of delicious locally-made food from Brixton Cornercopia, worth £50! We caught up with Zoë at Brixton Cornercopia, where she received the hamper from Anne Fairbrother, the local food venture’s co-founder. 

What do you make?

“I’m actually a graphic designer that specialises in vintage design (www.uberbabygraphic.co.uk), but right now I’m in the planning stages of side-stepping into creating designs for the gift market, typically artwork for prints, cards, and other items upon which I can display my work. Again it’ll typically incorporate vintage typography and lettering. I hope it all works out!”

How did you first hear about Makerhood?
“I was looking for info and advice in moving into the designer-maker area and stumbled across Makerhood through Twitter! And I’m very glad I did, it’s such a lovely group with lots of valuable and interesting talks and support.”

What’s your favourite bit of the hamper you won?
“I have a special penchant for the Brixton beer 😉 – but also love the Brixton Market Chutney and the Bad Boys Bakery yummies equally! Thanks Cornercopia!”

Here’s a picture of the hamper with many tasty things, including three types of Brixton-made beer, Lucy’s lemon zest dressing made in Clapham, Ossie’s ginger beer, coffee roasted by a man called Jack in Camberwell, Brixton Market Chutney (made from plantains bought at the market), orange cumin pepper jelly made in Streatham, cakes from the Bad Boys Bakery in Brixton Prizon and more!

If you’d like your own local food hamper for Christmas, you can order it in Cornercopia’s online shop. These make lovely presents, too!

As with all our events, the spirit of this year’s Make Your Own Christmas Party will be all about the people who participate and share their skills. We talk to two of our makers about why they’re involved, what they’ll be doing on the day and what they’re most looking forward to.

Rachel Stanners runs the letterpress company Prickle Press that makes beautiful, unique cards and prints.

Why did you get involved with the Christmas party and what activity are you doing?

I got involved because I wanted to help run a community event that celebrated making and creating your own Christmas rather than the commercial “buy your own Christmas” idea. I’m bringing along my letterpress and offering the chance for people to hand print a motif or festive saying on their handmade cards.

What are you looking forward to on the day?

The atmosphere – Makerhood events are always filled with such a variety of people and there’s always lots of laughter, chatter and enjoyment. I love being in a creative, sharing environment like this.

Kaylene Alder is a brilliant Brixton illustrator and artist whose work is often inspired by the local area.

Why did you get involved with the Christmas party and what activity are you doing?

I got involved with the Makerhood Christmas party because I had such a great day at the Making Uncovered event in April. It was a brilliant event and I made some great connections. I’ll be making paper snowflakes with anyone who fancies a bit of chilling!

What are you looking forward to on the day?

I’m looking forward to crafting up a storm and making a mountain of flakes with fellow south Londoners!

To join the party, please register below.

To be continued…

 

The snowflakes image is by miheco, and the card is one of Prickle Press’ Christmas cards.

Hello lovely people! Many of you enjoyed our last year’s Christmas Card making event, and hopefully even more of you will this year! It’s on 1 December, 3-7pm, more info coming soon – watch this space.

If you have 1-2 hours on 1 December and want to help, we’d really love it. We need help welcoming people on the door and with set-up and clear-up (you’d just be doing one of those things for 1-2 hours max). We’re all volunteering to put the event on.

Please let us know if you can help via the contact form or by emailing hello@makerhood.com. Thank you!

Here is a short video from last year that shows what it’s all about 🙂

Thanks!

The Makerhood Team.

Makerhood has a wonderful new partner – a local printing and design company Essential Local, founded by Richard Chumbley to serve small businesses in South London. It operates a co-operative system of freelancers to provide printing, web and graphic design services. We started working with Essential Local to print Makerhood flyers three years ago.  We found a great service quality and competitive prices, along with quick turnaround and great customer service. So we asked Richard to partner with us, and he was delighted to accept. Brilliant!

Makers’ Club members will get a 10% discount off the already very competitive prices that Essential Local offers for its printing, design and advertising services.

Makers’ Club works with other local businesses providing discounts and benefits to makers, from picture framing to packaging to car sharing to art supplies. Membership is open to makers who live or work in Brixton, Herne Hill, Stockwell and Clapham, and will soon extend to makers anywhere in Lambeth.

If you’re a maker in Lambeth and not yet a Makers’ Club member, come to one of our introductory meetings in October.

Are you a maker living or working in Lambeth? Are you interested in selling your work locally, running workshops and learning more about setting up or developing your business?

Makerhood is rolling out its Makers’ Club across Lambeth, and it’s a great chance to get involved! We’re holding four meetings for Makers who’re interested in finding out more. Join one of these meetings to:

• Find out about our Makers’ Club and how it can support your work
• Share your thoughts on makers’ needs and opportunities in your local area
• Meet other makers living or working nearby, to share information and create new connections.

As well as makers, we welcome local businesses, project organisers and venues who’d like to work closer with makers.

To get an idea of what we’ve done in Brixton and Norwood check out this video of our Making Uncovered event that took place earlier this year.

Please do book on Eventbrite as numbers for each meeting are limited. Thank you!

Tuesday 8 October, 7-8.30pm – Teahouse Theatre, Vauxhall (BOOK)

Tuesday 15 October, 7-8.30pm – Morley College, Lambeth North (BOOK)

Friday 18 October, 2-3.30pm – Royal Festival Hall, Waterloo (BOOK)

Tuesday 29 October, 7-8.30pm – Ovalhouse Theatre, Oval (BOOK)

We look forward to seeing you there!

If you live in Brixton, Herne Hill, Stockwell or Clapham you can already join the Brixton Makers’ Club. If you’re based in Norwood, Streatham or Crystal Palace, you can join Makerhood Norwood. If you have any questions, just drop us a line.

Thanks!

The Makerhood team.

 

Update: we are full for Brixton, Vauxhall, Tulse Hill & Streatham SG members. Now looking for 1-2 members from Norwood/Crystal Palace area and Waterloo/North Lambeth/Kennington area.

If you follow this blog you probably know that we’re working to extend Makerhood to other parts of Lambeth. We’d love to see makers thrive everywhere in our borough and more locally-made goods available –  it’s great for our community, our local economy and our environment.

As you can probably imagine, this project involves asking many questions, from “What does local mean to different people?” to “Who should we talk to in this area to make things happen?” We’ve learned a lot during the past two years in Brixton and Norwood, but there’s plenty more to learn as we’re moving into new territory!

So we’d like to ask for your help. We’re bringing together a steering group of around 10 people to help shape, direct and support the Makerhood Lambeth project. We’re looking for representation from different parts of Lambeth and a mix of skills – so whatever your location and profession, if you’d like to help us, please apply!

What being a steering group member involves:

• 1-3 hours a week voluntary time commitment during late October-early December 2013 (you’re welcome to stay involved after but we don’t want to overburden people!)
• Taking part in steering group meetings to shape and direct the project every 2 or 3 weeks
• Being an ambassador for Makerhood – telling people about it and helping make local connections

What’s in it for you, you ask?

• Meet other wonderful local people, makers and businesses – all interested in creativity, making and sustainability.
• Help make something great happen in your neighbourhood!
• Have fun. No, really – we have lots of fun at our meetings and events. We’re a friendly bunch 🙂
• Learn new skills like event management or social media (or whatever you like, there’s always plenty to do!).

If you’d like to join the steering group, please email us to hello@makerhood.com with a few sentences about yourself including where you’re based.

We look forward to hearing from you!

 

As you may know, having run projects in Brixton and Norwood, we’re working to expand Makerhood’s work to other parts of Lambeth. Key to how we do this is a definition of “local” – since Makerhood is all about promoting local makers and building local connections. We have our views on local, and we’re very interested in yours! So please tell us, and help us shape the project – whether you’re in Lambeth or elsewhere, we’re keen to understand what “local” means to you.

We’d be really grateful for a few minutes of your time to do our quick online survey. By doing this you’ll help support local creativity and skills – and get a chance to win a hamper from the wonderful Brixton Cornercopia full of delicious local foods! It’s worth £50.

Link to the survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/makerhood

Thank you very much!

The image is by Andy Broomfield, and shows Ray Stanbrook and Kerry Eggleton collaborating at their stall at Making Uncovered, organised by Makerhood.

Many of you who came to Making Uncovered in April said it was a special day – a community gathering to celebrate creativity and talent, full of laughter, beauty, and good cheer. It certainly felt like one of a kind – an event that would be hard to capture on film.

Yet Ray McFarlane and his team managed to do just that. Volunteering their time generously in the run up, during, and after the event, the made a beautiful 5 minute short that relays the day’s events and Makerhood’s spirit perfectly. We’re immensely grateful for this gift to the project. Have a look – it makes us smile every time.

Ray McFarlane, the producer and director of the short film, is a Brixton-based film maker who trained at the Royal College of Art. His work ranges from short films to feature length documentaries. If you are interested in speaking with Ray about working together, you can contact him via his VMEO page or email raymcfarlane@googlemail.com

Thank you, once again, to everyone who made the event possible, including Andrew Clarke, Andry Anastasiou, Aneta Srodon, Anish Mohammed, Anita Thorpe, Anne-Marie Glover, Bay Dodd, Ben Vickers, Ben Willis, Andy Luckett, Bobby Stearns, Camila Cabral, Chloe Masson, Chloe Morais, Elena Blanco, Fiona Douglas, Francesa Ponzini, Gaia Marcus,Hannah Lewis, Huma Farooqui, Imogen Paton, James Hayward, Jane Ruby, Jayne Rutland, Jo Buchanan, Jo Chevalier, John Gordon, Karen Martin, Kaylene Alder, Kelly Angood, Kerry Eggleton, Kieron Kirkland, Kim Winter, Jay Springett, Lucy Hodge, Lydia Musima, Maggie Winall, Maya Kar, Mehul Damani, Pam Williams, Paul Cronk, Preethi Sundaram, Rachel Stanners, Ray Stanbrook, Rupert Gowar-Cliffe, Sarah Lovett, Seke Chimutengwende, Silja Haddal Mork, Simon Demissie, Stuart Horwood, Susannah Walden, Tim Sutton, Tom Grimsey, Bethia Beadman, and everyone at Librarians Wanted and The Pop-Up Choir!