Meet the Seller - Marianne from Gretel's Gingerbread

If you have been coming to the Devonport Craft Market for a while you will have come across Marianne from Gretel's Gingerbread. Marianne has been making and selling her amazing Swiss German style gingerbread specialities and other European style goodies (with a Kiwi Twist) at the market for over a year.

Marianne grew up on a Heidi style farm in Switzerland which turned her into a person who wanted to make stuff!

Inspired, Marianne decided to do an apprenticeship as a pastry chef and completed it with success after 3 years.  One qualified, Marianne worked as a pastry chef in the French speaking and in the Italian speaking part of Switzerland and then decided that she needed to learn English which brought her to the U.S.A as a nanny. Marianne's time as nanny inspired her to further her career by going back to school.  After completing a business degree, she worked in the travel industry for 8 years where she was able to use her language skills.

Being a challenge driven person, Marianne decided to expand her horizon's and make a big move to  New Zealand  where she worked in sales and marketing before setting up Gretel's Gingerbread 4 years ago. Running Gretel's Gingerbread gives Marianne the  opportunity to use her cooking skills together with her business and people skills to make her customers happy with her delectable treats.

 

Meet the Seller - Sarah McLeod from Songbird Designs

Meet Sarah from Songbird Designs. 

Sarah has been selling at the Devonport Craft Market since August 2009. Part of the Craft Market organising partnership, Sarah and Songbird Designs are now a part of the furniture! Read more about Sarah's inspirations and where it all began.

Who are you and what do you do?

I'm Sarah and I am and I make a range of things from hair accessories to  jewellery to paper goods and stationary.  All of my bits and pieces come with a vintage, floral, romantic feel.

How long have you been crafting and what is your first crafting memory or experience?

In some way or other I have been crafting since I was small however I have concentrated on craft and been selling it since 2005 or so with the activity and selling ramping up in 2008-2009.

My first memory of crafting was making cards (hand-drawn -no less!) to sell at my Mother’s 40^th Birthday party. I marched in to the party and demanded people come to my ‘stall’ which I had set up in the hall of our house. From memory I charged 2c a card – not many people left the hall without a card under their arm!

 

What inspires you?

So many things inspire me. Fabric colours and designs. Blogs. Art. Nature.  You name it, I can draw inspiration from it! I am drawn to things with a retro, vintage, romantic look and feel.

What is your favourite blog  / book and food?

I read heaps of blogs – Creature Comforts is a favourite as is Design Sponge, Decor 8,  Daydream Lily… I could spend hours and hours looking at them. 

Why buy handmade?

Because you know where its comes from, because you can often meet the person who made it, because it likely to be unique and special.

When you are not at The Devonport Craft Market where can people buy your things?

You can find me on Felt and I also sell via email for people who have seen what they want! 

I also sell to a number of Retail shops around the country. See my blog for details.

A little something you can do to help the people of CHC

The craft world is big on community. Last year after the September 4th Quake Feltaid raised funds by selling donated handmade goods through a donated online store on Felt.  

This time, the earthquake was larger and so has been the response from the Craft community.  Check out the press release we received today from Handmade for Christchurch for a way that you can contribute to the situation in CHC, you will also snag yourself something handmade. A number of Devonport Craft Market Sellers have contributed to this auction.

You may also want to check out L'il Magoolie (a number of Devonport Craft Market sellers have donated here) and Foxes Shop who are also running auctions with the proceeds going to CHC Oriented charities.

Crafty WAHM's supporting Christchurch

A group of craft loving friends have joined together in an effort to help the people of Christchurch following the devastating earthquake.

After a group of 20 women, many of them work at home mums, discussed a way that they could help raise money for Cantabrians in need, they came up with the idea of getting fellow WAHMs and craft loving people to donate quality, handmade goods to auction off on Trademe, where all funds would be donated to the Christchurch Woman's Refuge and The Salvation Army - the result was Handmade for Christchurch.

"A couple of our friends are from the Canterbury area and we sat there for hours waiting to hear if they were safe. We also really wanted to help out with the clean up, but as we can't leave our families, we thought this was a great idea" says Debs.

In less than 4 days, their Facebook page already has over 1000 likers and have had 200+ items, international and local donated to the cause.

"As time goes on, the donations are increasing and we would love to be able to raise as much as we can" says Kahlia.

Lydia says "We are all so overwhelmed and encouraged to see so many people wanting to join the cause, some items have come from as far as Ireland, Finland, Canada and the USA, and we have received donations ranging from RRP$4.99 - RRP$1999!".

"Trademe has been really supportive of the cause, agreeing to waive all auction fees and promote the auctions as much as possible" Nic says.

Handmade for Christchurch is asking anyone from around the globe who is creative or owns a business which hand-makes items, to visit their Facebook page: http://fb.me/handmadeforchristchurch to learn more about donating a handmade item.

To view and bid on the handmade items on Trademe, visit this link: http://tinyurl.com/handmade4chch.

Treasure Hunt!

Sunday 6th March is Childrens Day and Devonport will be hosting a fabulous Treasure Hunt event to celebrate it. The Devonport Craft Market is a sponsor of the event and the market will be running from 10-3 at the Devonport Community House too so why not make it a family day out?

Craft Market this Sunday

The first market for the year runs this Sunday from 10am - 3pm.
A range of new and regular sellers.


Thanks to Helen from Valley of Lost things for her poster design.


We would love to see you all there!