Made With Love by Kat

I’ve been meaning to blog about The First Cut , the latest exhibition at the Manchester Art Gallery, for a while as it involves one of my absolute favourite crafts – paper cutting. I was lucky enough through my work as a press officer to attend a special private viewing and chat to the curator, Fiona Corridan, who talked about the resurgence of paper cutting in art. I also spoke to three of the artists – Nicola Dale, James Aldridge and Andrew Singleton. Nicola Dale’s work Sequel depicts a real “tree of knowledge” – with leaves made from reference books covering all areas of learning, while Downed (pictured below) features a drift of paper feather made from Ordnance Survey maps which were being thrown out by her local library.  Nicola Dale - Downed She said: “Because we are moving into a digital world books are suffering – particularly reference books. Consequently, charity shops are full of reference books so I go in and hoover them up! At least I’ve rescued the...

Lots of lovely press coverage in the last few weeks in Make Jewellery, the Manchester Evening News and Large Manchester. I've pasted a copy of the Large Manchester feature below - the others will follow when I've worked out how to get electronic copies of them. Unfortunately Large Manchester printed my website address as madewithlovebykat.co.uk, not madewithlovebykat.com but hopefully people will have the sense to Google me if they like what they read. The days are ticking down to the official website launch - hopefully it will all be finished by Saturday. Keep your eyes peeled for a special celebratory competition!

I know it's a bit early to be discussing the "C" word, but imaging how excited I was to receive my Royal Exchange craft shop August newsletter today to find that I am mentioned! My jewellery will be available to buy as part of the Royal Exchange's Fairytale Christmas exhibition, which opens at the beginning of November. The jewellery on sale will be a special, fairytale-inspired collection created exclusively for the Royal Exchange, and will not have been previously available, although like all my pieces it will feature reworked vintage finds. Meanwhile, you can see the mention and pic here: I have also recently been featured on the fabulous blog, A Designed Life. You can read the full feature here . And don't forget to pick up next month's Lancashire Life to see my two-page feature! Woop!

In the words of those irritating Christmas text dating agency ads (anyone know the ones I mean?) I'm sad. The brass swallow charms I've ordered from New York haven't arrived yet - it's been weeks! - which means I still can't make my friend Laura's Christmas present. Laura - if you're reading this, I'm sorry. She bought me a fabulous handbag by Manchester crafters Don't Bitch Stitch , so I feel doubly guilty. But birds are a big theme - although someone told me once they were unlucky (stuff 'em, you make your own luck) - so I thought I'd show you my favourite birdy finds on Folksy. Felt birdy bracelet - £9 - PennyDog Designs Forest Bird Earrings - £6 - Paisley Chainsaw Gold Wagtail Brooch - £12 - Kate Broughton Kate Broughton also does gorgeous meercat, squirrel and deer felt brooches. I know it's more than six months 'til my birthday, but if any generous soul would like to buy me one I'd be forever grateful. A Bird In The Hand bl...