Craft and Design Market

We invite you to join us :)

Facebook - a business builder!

If you would like to know more about how to build your business using facebook you may like to go to the New Zealand Handmade website. I did a guest post on there this morning. There are lots of handy hints about growing your business through the use of facebook :)

And here is a photo of Kazzalblue Baby and Childrens Boutique at the Havelock North Village Arts and Crafts Market last weekend. We'll be there again on June 11th. And you can read more about us here

Joy

Market in a Suitcase

A few weeks ago I attended a fundraiser market - Craftjam for Christchurch. It had a civil defence theme and we all sold out of suitcases. It was a great evening! The hardest part was setting up the suitcase!

Joy

Come and Visit

This weekend Kazzalblue will be at the Porangahau Spring Fair. This is an annual event held at Chapelwick Estate 482 Hunter Road, RD 4, Porangahau, Waipukurau.



The fair is on Sunday 26 September 10:00 am - 4:00 pm

Hope to see you there!
Joy

Christmas Surprises

I received a lovely parcel in the post yesterday. It was my Christmas swap decoration from Jeannet in Holland. I was waiting expectantly for it ever since she said she had posted it and was very happy to have it arrive. Jeannet - from Quilting Jeannet - does the most beautiful patchwork. The pics from her blog look like she spends a lot of time creating wonderful pieces.

My parcel was in a yellow envelope, which I managed to photograph before I ripped it open.





Inside was the cutest, most lovely patchwork heart christmas decoration, with my initial on it
J for Joy.





And a pretty christmas card! There was also a nice little bar of soap (but unfortunately the journey must have been a bit rough and it got broken)





Thanks Jeannet. I love it. Now I need to get my Christmas tree up so I can hang the decoration on it.

Here is a pic of the packages I have been sending out. Jeannet's swap gift is also in the bundle.





And now that Jeannet has had her package delivered I can show you what I sent.

A blue and gold christmas bauble





Some little Father Christmas gift tags





And a card which I hand painted onto acetate to give it a stained glass window effect.





Then I wrapped the whole lot up in a fat quarter of this beautiful 'Liberty Roses' fabric that I thought Jeannet could use in her patchwork. (Wrapping presents in fabric is a Japanese tradition which I love)





I think this swap has been great for my first. I look forward to many more. If you know of any happening near you I would love to hear about it.

And I hope everyone in the Mitcham area went down and said hi to Karen. I hear the weather was not great but it is the Carols by Candlelight tonight and KAZZALBLUE has a stall at the Christmas Market in Nunawading.


Merry Christmas
Joy

Christmas Ornament Swap

This is just the busiest time for sewing and I have been going great guns trying to prep for markets, stock shops and make my Christmas Ornament for my Swap partner - Jeannet - who lives in Holland. I thought it was great to be able to swap with Jeannet and so I hope she likes the traditional deco I made. Funny how these things take lots of thinking time and not as much making time. It took me ages to come up with an idea - but I like the finished product. It is in the box, along with other things to post, but I won't put a pic up until Jeannet has had a chance to unwrap her gift (probably in about a week according to the post office). I can't wait for mine. I am very excited!

Anyway here are some of the things I have been making that have kept me soooo busy!

Here are some drawstring bags - which are great for kids for their swimming togs and towels as well as messy soccer boots or keeping library books dry!








And here are more finger puppets. I have lost count of how many of these I have made in the last month!





Here are the singlets our Dad has been busy knitting. Remember he is 80 years old so not doing too badly!





And the plastic bag holders. If you want to be eco-friendly then you can use them for rags instead. The ones with NZ pics on them are popular at the moment for Christmas pressies cos they are easy to post.





I also made a couple of toy elephants but they ran away before I could get a photo. So you see I haven't really been too slack about blogging - just occupied elsewhere. Karen will hopefully put up some pics of the markets we have had as well.

Happy blogging everyone.

Bay View Christmas Market Day & Northside Makers Market This Saturday

This Saturday is going to be a busy one. Kazzalblue has 2 markets at the same time! Here's me (Joy) at the one we did in Nunawading a few weeks ago. Karen was conveniently taking the photo!





This time Karen will be at the Northside Makers Market in Northcote, VIC, Australia while I run a market in Bayview, Napier, New Zealand.



No chance of getting together for these ones when they are in different countries.



I am looking forward to it with a little apprehension as I will be on my own there but then so will Karen. Please pop down and say hi. We'd love to meet you all. Here is a better pic of me and my son when I went to visit him in Melbourne.


So see you on Saturday!

Charity Walk for Child Cancer

I totally advise against ever walking 15km without training first. I heard about a great charity event called the Mega Walk and thought hey - A nice stroll on Sunday morning will be good for me. A group of us ventured out together but I could not keep up. Ended up with me on my own most of the time chasing the figures in the distance and suffering as silently as possible - HOWEVER!! I did finish and eventually caught up with my friend after jogging a bit and it is only now that I have stopped that my hips have completely seized into one position and I feel like the tin man from Wizard of OZ!

That's me on the right, and my obliging friend on the left!

Quite an accomplishment tho! Unfortunately my once nice, lovely, helpful husband thinks it is very funny and won't help me at all!

Yesterday before I put myself into this position I was very busy working on lots of things for the markets. I have a Christmas shop I am a part of with my sister, Karen, and drop of was yesterday so all the tagging and labelling had to be done and for the first time ever I got it all done on the first day!

Next weekend I will be at the Bayview Christmas Market so I hope to see lots of you there!

I have also been trying to get actual school work done. I am in the middle of writing end of year school reports - well nearly in the middle of it anyway! And I am rather proud of myself because I took this pic on my phone and I have actually managed to get it onto the computer!

Craft Market This Saturday

Greenmeadows Handcraft Market - Saturday, September 26 Time: 10:00am - 2:00pm Location: Greenmeadows Community Centre Street: Tait Drive City/Town: Napier, New Zealand. See you there.

Lovelythings by Kazzalblue @ Taradale Craft Market

Wow. Am I duh or what! Here I am with a perfectly good blog and I haven't even thought - until now that is - of telling you that 'Lovelythings by Kazzalblue' is taking part in a Craft Market next weekend. It will be held at the Greenmeadows Hall on Tait Drive, Taradale, NZ. Now that is a little hard to find but google maps will help.


View Larger Map

This is a chance for crafters from Felt and Etsy to come together and sell their things while socialising at the same time.

I will be there from 9-2ish with a lot of the items we sell on Etsy and Felt with me, including crayon rolls, toddler slippers / boots, bags and finger puppets. Unfortunately Karen can't just fly over from Oz to help out so I will be flying solo at this one. Maybe one day when we make enough money we will be able to fly back and forth to do markets together. That is definitely a goal for us!

Anyway I hope to see you there. Please mention the blog if you have seen us on here. It is great to get feedback from people like that and makes it all worthwhile.