Last Weekend to come down to Hove for Artists Open House

Halinka's Tree Top Fairies

We are approaching the last weekend to visit our Artists Open House in Hove. So why not make a day out and visit us at: 52 Carlisle Road, Hove, BN3 4FS. A warm welcome awaits you. We are displaying the products on our website: www.cherrypickedforyou.co.uk and many more new products that haven't been loaded on yet. We fling open our doors from 11am until 5pm this coming weekend. We have masses of handmade christmas decorations, handmade gifts and handmade christmas cards. We are also selling our new range of cards published by cherrypickedforyou.

Betty Bib's Organza Fairies £12 for four

Holly Berry's beautiful woven cushions

These images are a very small sample of the beautiful handmade gift ideas and christmas goodies you will be able to browse and buy this weekend.

Cherry Picked For You - Christmas Artists Open House in Hove

We are getting ready for our Open House as part of the Christmas Festival in Brighton and Hove. This is the chance to see all the lovely goodies on our website where they are available to buy. So..save the postage and packing costs and come along where a warm welcome will await you. 

We have wonderful gift ideas, handmade christmas decorations and cards.

 

 We fling open our doors at 11am until 5 pm. Why not make it a day out as there are lots of other venues taking part. The brochures are available all around Brighton and Hove which lists the venues and dates and times each house is open. We are on page three, and our house is listed as number 4 in the official brochure.

We look forward to seeing you.

Best wishes
Nina
only 42 days to go to Christmas!!

New Artist to join our website this week is Syke Meredith- Plant Dyed Handmade Dolls

Skye Meredith comes from a very creative family. Skye's mum uses plants to dye her Wensleydale wool and Skye delves into these abundant wool baskets, overflowing with gorgeous natural coloured wool and makes unique handmade dolls.

Green Doll £27.50

Green doll above has been made using a felting needle around a pipe cleaner frame. She has been plant dyed using chamomile, indigo and madder and her hair is naturally curly Wensleydale fleece dyed with onion skins.

Yellow Fairy Doll £27.50

Yellow Fairy Doll's dress is plant dyed chamomile and indigo and her hair is naturally curly Wensleydale fleece dyed with woad.

Rainbow Doll £27.50

Rainbow Doll's dress is dyed with cochineal, madder, chamomile and indigo.  Her hair is naturally curly Wensleydale fleece and has been dyed with onion skins.

Each doll is unique, handmade with love. Click on Textiles and then Dolls to see the whole range of Dolls that Skye is offering. Each one would make a wonderful gift for someone special or as a treat for yourself and your home.

Cherry Picked For You Goes To The Ladder Club in Southend-on-Sea

At the end of last week I attended the first day of the ladder club which is a brilliant seminar organised by Lynn Tait of Lynn Tait Gallery in Leigh on Sea and her trusty helpers, Trudi and Pauline. The first day is for budding greeting card publishers (like me!). Everyone is so friendly and generous with their help and advice.

Wednesday 19th October I travelled to Southend-on-Sea  to meet up with some of the delegates on the seminar and all the speakers.  We gathered in the Westcliffe Hotel for a three course meal where there was a speaker on each table and we all spent a lovely evening getting to know new people.

Thursday 20th October was the first day of the seminar. After a welcoming cup of coffee and a photo we kicked off with Lynn giving us a potted history of how The Ladder Club started and its aims. Basically, it is to help budding greeting card publishers climb the ladder to success in this inspiring and friendly industry.

Jackie Brown, the Editor of Progressive Greetings and Founder of the Henries Awards (the equivalent of the Oscars in the Greeting Card world) came next. She explained how her magazine is a useful tool for us to get our work known and find out all the current trends in greeting cards. I have read the last three issues and it is packed full of useful information and news.

Next up was Sharon Little, the Chief Executive of the Greeting Card Association. The GCA is a brilliant organisation run on a non-profitable basis for greeting card publishers. Their website is a mine of useful information and Sharon is at the end of the phone to help with any problems and answer any questions. Sharon's talk outlined how the GCA can help new publishers.

Claire and Karen of Paper Salad, who set up their company 6 years ago and have just won a Henries Award spoke of the pitfalls that can occur as you grow your company. They gave a very realistic slant on what it is like to take this exciting journey and some of the mistakes they made.

All this was before our first coffee break.

After coffee, Jeremy Corner owner of an award winning greeting card company, Blue Eyed Sun gave a talk on the nuts and bolts of the industry. Jeremy is known as the guru to new publishers, helping them out with advice and insider knowledge. He certainly did that. Jeremy explained about the many different hats a greeting card publisher has to wear from doing the accounts, boxing up and dispatching cards, creating and designing and what to prioritise.  He also gave some excellent advice on marketing and selling, trade shows, agents and cash flow planning. Phew!

After a delicious lunch we listened to presentations from Bob Short of The Imaging Centre who runs a very successful company specialising in digital printing. Digital is the way to go when you start out as you can do short runs and test out your designs.  However, when you get more successful and established and you need to do bigger print runs of your designs then Litho Printing is a good option. Steve from The Sherwood Press explained all about Litho Printing.

Next we had a very informative talk by paper manufacturers G F Smith. Debbie Wigglesworth and Mark Jessett shared their love of paper and how it is an integral part of the design of greeting cards. Most people work out their designs and then think about what board they will use. Debbie feels it should be the other way round with paper taking the centre stage and working the design round it. It certainly makes sense as paper behaves differently when printed and so can become an integral part of the design process.

What a day! Thank you to everyone for all your help and advice. I am now on my way!!

Nina Green, Director Cherry Picked For You




































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Jan Constantine - Hand Finished Love Cards with Swarovski Crystals

With a design background in fashion, interiors and styling, Jan Constantine has created a unique collection of original, hand-embroidered designs on exquisite textiles and home accessories. Her range of cards depict these images. We are really pleased to be able to offer Jan's famous "Love" Banner card Hand Finished with real Swarovski Crystals.

Perfect Card to send to the one you love.

Her equally famous "Love" Tatoo card, again Hand Finished with real Swarovski Crystals:

And her "Romany Heart" card embellished with real Swarovski Crystals:

And finally, Jan's famous "Leopard Jack Print" card, again Hand Finished with real Swarovski Crystals:

A perfect card to send to the one you love on their birthday.

All these cards can be purchased from us for the very reasonable price of £3.99 with free delivery.

Anniversary and Love Cards by Nina Green

Individually handmade and lovingly put together these original cards by Nina Green are very special. The Love and Anniversary Cards feature a handmade porcelain heart on wire with a bead.

Love Anniversary Card with Porcelain Heart on wire with bead

These cards can be made even more special by adding the date you want to celebrate on a heart on the inside front cover.

simply email the date you would like to celebrate

The Love Cards can be sent at any time but would obviously make wonderful valentine cards.

New Artist to join our website this week is Claire Vine of Elsy & Vine

Claire Vine, of Elsy & Vine, makes beautiful handmade cushions, brooches and lavender bags in top quality lambswool. Each individual handmade piece has been cleverly created to allow layering and  mix matching in response to individual mood or character. So..escape in the pleasure of creating your own colourful world.  Elsy & Vine are ardent supporters of British craft and industry and wherever possible source materials and expertise from as close to home as possible.

Happy Days Cushion in blue/green lambswool

The Happy Days cushion is inspired by family holidays and depicts a large caravan repeat on one side and knitted spots on the reverse. It sports a complementary zipper at the base of the cushion and a 'forgarty' hollowfibre machine washable cushion pad.

The reverse of the Happy Days cushion in blue/green lambswool

Knitted lambswool and marino wool lavender bags, stuffed with locally sourced lavender are handmade using the best quality lambswool.

Cloud Lavender Bags in three designs

 

Adorable caravan brooches.

New Artists to join our website this week is Lara Aldridge Glass

Lara Aldridge Glass is a design partnership of Lara and Jon Oakley. Starting business in 1994 after finishing their studies, they are now located in a new larger studio space in central Brighton. Lara Aldridge Glass specialise in kilnformed glass and metal, their work is instantly recognizable due to the processes involved to produce every piece.

Beautiful wall panel 

Each piece is handmade by themselves, using a combination of metals in the form of sheet, rod, wire and powder which is assembled onto a single piece of glass creating a metal collage, having been originally inspired by Gustv Klimt whose work is also produced using the collaging process.  This process can take a number of days to assemble the finished designs. The final step is for another piece of glass to be added on top of the collage and the whole assembly being fired in the kiln. The kiln fires up to 1000 degrees centrigrade, and dependant on the scale of the piece being fired can be in the kiln for 7 days.

Another beautiful wall panel

These beautiful wall hanging are only some of the products produced by Lara Aldridge Glass.  On our website: www.cherrypickedforyou.co.uk you will find sets of glass coasters and beautiful bowls and dishes. So relax with a nice cup of tea and browse their collection.

Beautiful Glass Bowl

New Ceramic Artist this week is Annette Bugansky

Annette Bugansky is a British Ceramic Designer who graduated from Central Saint Martin's in London in 2005 with an MA in Ceramic Design. In 2009 Annette won Best Contribution to the Show at Origin, awarded by Crafts Magazine. 

We are really excited to have Annette on board as we just love her handmade porcelain cups that can also double up as a vase. Freesias or other small flowers look lovely in them. They are available in five patterns, Aran, Cable, Chain, Rope and Twist and they are fired to 1280 degrees centrigrade which makes them totally watertight.

Aran Patterned Cup/Vase by Annette Bugansky

Annette also makes the most gorgeous Porcelain Tea Lights. When lit the Tea Light emits a warm amber glow that highlights the rich surface of the knit textured pattern. Available in two patterns: diamond and rib. The natural matt finish of the porcelain is complimented with a glossy glaze inside.

Diamond Patterned Porcelain Tea Light 

Finally, Annette produces these gorgeous set of three Heart Decorations which make a lovely gift for someone special or as a treat for yourself and your home. Each heart features a slightly different texture pattern and is embellished with a heart shaped jewel making them special and unique.  Made of the finest porelain and glazed on the front they hang on a 3mm red satin ribbon.

Use them to decorate your home all year round. I have my set on some twigs in the kitchen. Especially lovely for Valentine's Day or equally gorgeous hangng from the Christmas Tree.

New Ceramic Artist this week is Kathy Laird

I have been trying to get Kathy to join my illustrious group of artists for ages. In fact, I set up www.cherrypickedforyou.co.uk with her in mind! I have been buying her beautiful garden pots and ceramic pictures for a few years and when I had the idea of opening an online showcase for designer led handmade products she was one of the first people I thought of. I didn't realise at the time how difficult it would be to get her to be part of my website. To be fair, Kathy is a very busy person. She is not only a ceramicist but also a landscape garden designer - which is very apparent in her work! Now she happily manages to find the time for both her garden work and the ceramic studio she works out of in Brighton. You can see from her ceramic landscapes the gardening influence.

We now have a lovely range of Landscape pictures by Kathy which would make a great gift for someone special in your life or as a treat for yourself and your home. Simply click under Artists and scroll down the Ceramic Artists to get to Kathy Laird to see the full range of landscape pictures we are able to offer.

Kathy also makes gorgeous pots that are frost free which means they can be left out in the garden, or attached to a garden wall (there are very useful holes in the back to place them on a wall) all year round even when it is icy cold and snowing! She also makes adorable jugs. Both the jugs and the pots are hopefully coming soon. So watch this space....

 

New Jewellery Artist this week is Michele Rosaus

Michele Rosaus works from her Brighton based studio, Lostwerks, where she specialises in hand made, limited or one-off necklaces, earrings and bracelets in gemstones and sterling silver.

Turquoise Button Necklace £58

This beautiful turquoise button necklace is created from natural green/blue turquoise overlapping beads and is finished off with a sterling silver toggle. A beautiful and flattering colour against the skin and a great choice for the summer.

Blue-Lace Agate & Leaf Charm Bracelet £45

Inspired by the summer skies, this sterling silver and bead bracelet is made from 16mm faceted Blue Lace Agate stones and cream and pewter coloured Swarovski crystal pearls. It is finished with a large Sterling Silver Leaf, cluster and ring charm.

Michele's beautiful handcrafted jewellery is created from unusual and often uniquely cut semi-precious stones, which are chosen for their very flattering colours and hues and for the way they catch and reflect light. This often means that each piece is individual to the wearer. Michele's jewellery is influenced by long lost skills, vintage traditions and imagery. However, Michele imbues each piece with its own contemporary flair and a modern and often sculptural twist. All Michele's jewellery is carefully designed in length and shape to be very wearable and complimentary to the human form.

To view all Michele's work, click Artists, Jewellery and then on her name. Or use the media bar and look under earrings, necklaces and bracelets.

New Jewellery Artist ths week is Kirstin Moore

We are excited to have Jewellery Artist Kirstin Moore join us. Kirstin makes the most exquisite Freshwater Pearl Necklaces, Earrings and Bracelets. She then adds garnets and black onyx to make really striking pieces of jewellery that you will want to wear or give as a present for the special person in your life.

Freshwater Pearl and Garnet Necklace £39.95

 

 

Each of Kirstin's pieces of jewellery on  www.cherrypickedforyou.co.uk are from The Regency Collection. This collection is inspired by the jewellery of the regency period using beautiful freshwater pearls, which were fashionable at the time, and complimenting them with semi-precious stones to add an extra dimension. Each piece is hand strung onto sterling silver wire adding a modern twist to the pieces.

Freshwater Pearl and Garnet Bracelet £24.95

This classy 8 inch bracelet is made of 6mm Grade AA freshwater pearls and 4mm round garnet beads. The silver wire setting on this bracelet accentuates the depth of colour of the garnet beads and beautifully reflects the warmth of the freshwater pearls.  A cluster drop emphasised by a stunning single coin pearl enhances the piece perfectly.

Freshwater Pearl and Garnet Earrings £17.95

These gorgeous cluster drop earrings combining beautiful 6mm Grade AA creamy white Freshwater Pearls with rich 4mm red garnets strung on silver wire match the bracelet and necklace and make a wonderful set of jewellery. Each piece can be worn separately but together they make a stunning collection.

Artists' Open Houses in Brighton and Hove and Fairy Sales Have Gone Through the Roof!

It is Monday afternoon as I write this and still I am feeling exhilarated. We have just completed our third weekend where we opened our house to the public as part of the May Festival. Most of the beautiful products on our website were displayed and the feedback from the people who came through our door was just brilliant. Running a website can be a little isolating as I'm not sure how our customers view the collection but hearing them praise it's coherence and tell us how inspiring it all is, coupled with the comments people left in our Visitor's Book is just overwhelming.

Every one loved the fairies, both Betty Bib's and Halinka's. Remember Halinka has designed us our very own fairies with cherry berets with green stalks,befitting to our name: www.cherrypickedforyou.co.uk

Our very own Cherry Orchard Fairy Couple

The Male Fairy has a choice of Lady in different attire - lucky!

 

 

 

Halinka is also well known for her rabbits and, of course, she had to design us the most adorable rabbits with cherry red jackets.

Betty Bib has also designed us our very own fairies. Betty Bib (aka Lesley Buckingham) is a renowned Fairy Artist, having written three best selling books on fairies which she not only wrote but illustrated too. These Sparkly Fairies can only be purchased from us:

Betty Bib's Boxed Fairies - each with her own special name in a scroll in the lid

Fairy sales during the Artists' Open House weekends have been very high. The biggest seller being the Betty Bib Fairy in a box that has her own secret name in a scroll in the lid which can only be discovered when she becomes yours! With so many fairies to choose from their was a frenzy of purchases but not before much deliberation as each fairy is unique.

We have one more weekend, which starts next Saturday, 28th May and goes through to Sunday 29th May. So come and visit us at 52 Carlisle Road, Hove, East Sussex between 11 am to  5 pm on either day and you will be guaranteed to see a fabulous collection of textiles, ceramics, wood, glass, jewellery,  and felt.

New Artist on Cherry Picked For You This Week is Jools Yasities

We are very excited to have Jools Yasities join our illustrious group of artists this week. Jools makes exquisite handmade books with gorgeous textile or leather covers. These books take several hours to make, and sometimes even days, as so much love and devotion goes into making each one.

Tall Leather Hand Bound Book £23.99

This is an elegant, tactile book incorporating 10 signatures of 16 pages each, making 160 pages in total, in plain white, unlined paper of 90gsm. A feature seam decorates the front cover, oversewn with black thread on this butter soft leather. Coptic stitching adds to that extra special handmade charm, and ensures the pages lay comfortably flat when working. The inner cover sports a complimentary multi-striped heavyweight paper. This book is the perfect size and weight to travel with and write or draw in style. It would make a wonderful present for the special person in your life or a daily treat for yourself as it makes a great diary.

Large Abstract Flower Hand Bound Journal £18.50

This Journal cover is inspired by umbel flower forms in nature, the covers are unbleached cotton, the back being plain and the front a riot of gorgeous grey, washy watercolour effect flower shapes. Consisting of 12 hand stitched signatures of 16 plain, unlined pages, 192 pages in total. The paper is 90gsm, which is sutiable for ink and dry media.

Small Leather Hand Bound Book £20

This is a very soft and supple grained leather.  Four eyelets on each cover are threaded with thick suede thonging that can be wrapped round the book or tied to keep it closed securely. Coptic stitching ensures that the pages will lay flat when open.  Consisting of 10 signatures of 12 plain, unlined pages, 120 pages in total. The paper is 90gsm and suitable for ink or dry media.

New Textile Artist on Cherry Picked For You This Week is Charlotte Macey

We are so excited that Charlotte Macey's beautiful linen homewares are now available on our website:
www.cherrypickedforyou.co.uk

Charlotte makes gorgeous tea cosies:

beautiful coffee cosies

and darling egg cosies

and lets not forget the cushions

All lovingly handmade in her Cotswold studio.

Watch out for our next blog as we will be posting details of our Open House. We are going to be on the West Hove Trail in the Brighton Festival and our house will be open to the public between 11am - 5 pm on each weekend starting 7th May and throughout the month where you will be able to see all the gorgeous products from Cherry Picked For You!

Best wishes, Nina

New Textile Artist this week - Tracy Evans

We are so delighted that Tracy Evans has joined our illustrious group of artists. Tracy is a textile designer and maker who uses traditional hand weaving techniques to create high quality hand crafted products from a mix of natural fibres such as lambswool, silk and cotton. The purse below is hand woven using a honeycomb structure which gives the small squares a three dimensional appearance. It has a zip fastening and is lined with plain navy blue silk.

This beautiful handwoven purse is a bargain for £12 with free postage!

Each piece is individually crafted and made in limited numbers appealing to a contemporary market looking for something a little different to what you can buy on the high street. Tracy is inspired by her seaside surroundings. The sand rippled stripes in the cushion below are caused by shrinkage of the wool during the laundering process which creates a felting effect.

Weave structures combined with a clever use of yarn proportioning and finishing processes create pieces which are tactile with a three dimensional quality. The corsage on the cushion is removable and can be worn on an outfit.

Tracy also makes beautiful hand woven journal and notebook covers that are easily removable so when the book is used a new one can be slipped in to its place.

Finally, in her spare time, Tracy likes to do a bit of ceramic work. She makes these attractive porcelain buttons. Each one is hand cut, hand glazed and fired.

There are many more to choose from on cherrypickedforyou  as Tracy's buttons come in sets of three and individual designs.

Have a great weekend.

Two New Artists Join Our Website This Week! Ken Eardley and Cath Ball.

Ken Eardley's range of fun but functional Jugs

Two Ceramic Artists have joined our illustrious group of artists this week. Coincidently, both of them worked with textiles before coming to ceramics. 

Ken Eardley now creates a fun and graphic range of functional ceramics for kitchens and interiors.  His pieces are handmade glazed earthenware which are fired three times and are made using press moulds. Leaves, Birds, Flowers, Fruit are his trademark designs which are distinctly recognisable. Because Ken's work is so popular, customers have to wait one to two months for an order. But here at Cherry Picked For You, we are going to stock some of Ken's gorgeous products so we will be able to dispatch them immediately. Although, there will be some items that you will have to wait for as we cannot stock everything as Ken's range is very extensive and every design is made in nine different colours, namely: aqua, baby blue, chococlate brown, green, lime green, orange, pink, red, turquoise, white and yellow.

Cath Ball is a young British designer-maker. She graduated from Cumbria Institute of Arts with a BA Hons in Contemporary Applied Arts and now works from her own studio at home.  Each of Cath's pieces is handcrafted using fine white Porcelain clay which is fired to 1260 degrees. She draws inspiration from the texture of fabrics such as lace and combines this with simple forms and colours. The main colours she uses are inspired by the sand and the sea.

Cath Ball's Porcelain Mug with textured lace design

We are so excited to have both these Ceramicists on CPFY. We now have a total of TEN Ceramic Artists on our website. So this is definitely the place to shop if you are looking for that  unique gift for the special person in your life or as a treat for yourself and your home.

Have a great weekend. The sun is shinning and it looks set to be a good one. Living a couple of hundred yards from the sea we shall spend Sunday watching the runners in the Brighton Marathon run along the seafront.

Best wishes, Nina

New Artist this week - Halinka Fraser

We are so excited about our New Artist who joined us this week. Halinka Fraser is well known as Halinka's Fairies. She designs and makes the most eye-catching couples imaginable. She has many fairies and little characters in her collection and now she has designed and made us our own exclusive fairy couples. All Halinka's fairies and characters are sold as couples. The Cherry Orchard couple have berets in red with a green stalk emerging from the top just like cherries. What could be more appropriate for Cherry Picked For You!

The male of this couple is a lucky man. He has the choice of two attractive ladies, wearing different attire.

So you can choose to buy Cherry Orchard couple 1 or Cherry Orchard couple 2. Halinka didn't stop there. She then went on to design and make us our own Cherry Blossom Fairy Couple. Their attire of lime green and white is fresh and Spring like, just like cherry blossoms, waiting to be plucked and sent to you.

And finally, Halinka is known for her rabbit collection. These are sold individually and Halinka has designed and made us three rabbits, a white, brown or green rabbit.  All three rabbits are wearing a cherry red jacket.

Aren't they just adorable! We are delighted with these designs and any of you discerning people who already collect Halinka's fairies and rabbits will want to add these to your collection. And the good news is one of these rabbits can be bought for a mere £15. All that work and care and attention to detail, all individually handmade and lovingly sent to you for such a small sum of money. They would make great Easter bunnies which could hang from twigs or put on a wall somewhere in your home. They make great gifts too.

Have a great weekend.