BLACKFRIDAY ZOMGGGG

This is our first year participating in BLACKFRIDAY.  It's been a contentious one, as so many makers refuse to participate for many varied and entirely valid reasons.  Some feel it's too American a tradition and isn't relevant in the UK.  Some feel it'll undervalue their work.  Some feel they don't want to participate in the commercialised nature of the BUYBUYBUY ethos of it all.

We understand all of those concerns, however we also (as shoppers ourselves) absolutely love to feel like we're getting a bargain, and at this time of year it comes just in time for xmas shopping.  So we ARE participating in the great BLACKFRIDAY sale'o'rama by offering 33% off everything in both our online shop here, but also on our Folksy shop which you can find HERE - using the code BLACKFRIDAY (cunning, no? ;) on both.  We've decided this year to direct you all to Folksy because we love it as a marketplace (they're based in Sheffield - keeping it all in the UK!  Woohoo!) and they have a really lovely supportive team of people who support and push us all to develop as sellers.  AND they have a marketplace full of lovely MADE IN THE UK items!  In order to illustrate this point, we've picked our favourites from some of the Folksy shops who are participating in a BLACKFRIDAY sale.  (We struggled keeping the list to just 15!  If you do a list of your own, share it so we can oooh and aaaah over all the lovely shiny British handmade loveliness!)  So without further ado, here's some enticing items from our fellow Folksy sellers!

Note: Each shop will set their own discount, but all of the shops will be using BLACKFRIDAY as their discount code.

Folksy x BLACKFRIDAY

Alice in Wonderland Ceramic Shadow Box by creativearth

We love Alice-inspired items, especially how dark and mysterious this one is.

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Bunny Ears Headband by Talulahblue

BUNNY EARS. HEADBAND. YES!

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Geometric Thread Art by Alison McIntyre

We love ALL of the colour palettes used by Alison - but this one is especially lovely!

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Wooden Baby Teether by Elabora

These would make a great present for parents who want something more interesting and abstract than the usual run of the mill plastic you usually find with tethers. (SUCH pleasing forms!)

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‘The Woodsman’ Ltd Ed. Soap by Oakwood Soaperie

These look beautiful, and the descriptions make me want to grab my bearded fellow and have an adventure in the forest!

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Can’t Dance card by Rachel Seymour Design

This card made Kirsty test out the suggestion which left us giggling hysterically. For the record, Kirsty CAN dance. I’m not so great.

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Hand-painted Clutch Bag by LizziCamilla

OMG NEW FAVOURITE SELLER ALERT - when we were trawling through BLACKFRIDAY sellers, we stumbled on LizziCamilla and could hardly pick our favourite from her listings - SO MUCH COLOURFUL FUN! LOVE!

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I Love Books bookmark by delphineandmax

We love books and we love ceramics and we love TEXT based items.. so this is a no-brainer awesome stocking filler we NEED!

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Chunky Copper Pinecone necklace by Curious Magpie

We LOVE bold statement pieces, and this not-quite-lifesize pinecone fits the bill and makes us want to roll around in piles of autumn leaves (whilst praying there’s no hidden dog poo traps!)

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Gertie the seal - OOAK painting - by menagerie/Emma Gray

ANOTHER NEW SELLER WE’RE IN LOVE WITH! CLLLLLLLLL of her paintings are SUPERCUTE and it was incredibly difficult to pick one - however Gertie won out as Kirsty’s nan was called Gertie, and we just love the swimming hat!

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Minimalist silver studs by RachelMaryUK

We like the abstract shape of these - making us think of fangs and mountains and other spiky objects.

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Trawler Lino Print by Emma Higgins - Printmaker

Nautical? Tick. Limited edition? Tick. Want? Tick!

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Seashell Brooch by Jules and Clem

Loving the styling of this brooch - we’re a big fan of jewellery designed specifically to work with shirts!

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You Cheeky Stoat Handmade Greetings Card by Dig the Earth

This shop has loads of funny cards using antique animal illustration and a healthy dose of humour. Sometimes we love puns - this is one of those times!

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Cheese and biscuit brooch by Hello Sunshine

Kirsty loves cheese. I do not, but I DO love biscuits, so this still gets a place in a list! :)

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The ongoing evolution of our 'shopfront'

It's been NEARLY (but not quite) a year of Frilly Industries - and we've been super busy of late, looking to ramp things up even moreso as we count down to the inevitable xmas frenzy.  This weekend we've been at our first Nottingham market - organised by Bird in Borrowed Feathers, and it was FAB!  Amazingly friendly lovely diverse range of sellers, fab organisation with very clear instructions and requirements, awesome central city location (yes, I popped into Primark to nab a cheap cardi when I started to get a bit chilly!) and a great two days spent hanging out in Nottingham.  We created new merchandising displays for this particular market which we're slightly obsessed with, and so it seemed timely to have a quick look over the various iterations of REAL LIFE FRILLY.

1. Our first outing - December 2014, at the Made By.. market in a disused hangar in Aldridge

Photo courtesy of Wayne Fox Photography 

Photo courtesy of Wayne Fox Photography

It was cold.  So cold.  And we'd only JUST got to grips with Bertha, who was still playing up and being stubborn.  We'd had a run of insanely late nights in the studio prepping everything, with no clue how we were going to display things, and having only really just started thinking about pricing.  Consequently, everything was pretty much on one level, and our prices were WAY TOO LOW! (steep learning curve here we come..)  Our entire layout consisted of brightly coloured Duck tape to 'zone' areas of the display, some quickly layered pegboard, and a lovely light up sign.  The light up sign is pretty much the only thing we thought was a brilliant idea.

2. The Bust Craftacular look - which has lasted up until last weekend..

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Photo courtesy of Lee Allen Photography

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Photo courtesy of Lee Allen Photography

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Photo courtesy of Lee Allen Photography

We quickly realised our Walsall pricing error, and worked hard to figure out everything from our overheads to profit margins and beyond.  By the time Bust Craftacular came around in May 2015 we'd ironed those niggly bits out, and spent time figuring out how we wanted to present ourselves.  We kept the light up sign, but made it bigger and better and more colourful.  Even though most of our work is wood - we do this because we love bright colourful clothing and hair, and wooden jewellery matches everything!  So we opted to go BRIGHT and bold with our display items, and added extra height levels using different risers and trays.  We still weren't completely happy with this arrangement though..

3. Nottingham and beyond!

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Photos courtesy of our iPhones!

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Photos courtesy of our iPhones!

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Photos courtesy of our iPhones!

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Photos courtesy of our iPhones!

We've upgraded the Frilly light up sign (with plans to add to this over time) making it more portable - either hanging or 'floating' (good old Velcro!), kept our coloured boxes and trays and added some fun heads as displays!  We feel like maybe sometimes people don't know who an item is for - and we feel like all our stuff could be for ANYONE - from Iris Apfel (Kirsty's personal style guru) through to a bearded hipster dude to a small child.  By having these heads, we can show how our pieces might work on a range of imaginary (and fun!) people.  We think there's still probably some work to do on levels, but this is definitely my favourite Frilly stall so far!  Fun and colourful, but with a bombardment of characters and ideas and words and THINGS!

Now: to revamp all our online presences to match!