Made With Love by Kat

I remember a time when there seemed to be loads of articles on craft on the newspaper websites. Sadly that's not the case any more - we've been overlooked in favour of 10 New Things To Do With Your Spiralizer* - but there's still the Guardian's excellent "Do Something" series. I know, I know, I am soooooo late to this party, but I loved this article on making things from clay (and the fact it was written by my University friend Becky, all the better!) The Guardian also have this useful article for anyone thinking of setting up a craft business. However, as lots of us will know, it's not necessarily the initial push that is the hardest part, but keeping the excitement and inspiration going year after year. That's why I'm planning a series of interviews with craft sellers who have successfully run their businesses for five years or more, to find out how they keep their fires stoked. * I should admit here, I own a spiralizer. I'm not even re...

OK, so last year at the Edinburgh Festival I saw some really, really beautiful bracelets. They were made out of old vintage brooches, beads, pearls and various bits and bobs. They were also incredibly expensive. I thought to myself - how hard can it be? I bet I could do that. Then, like most ideas (at the time I also decided it would be a nice idea to write a stageplay, and the sketch show my friend Luke and I keep chatting about never seems to happen), it faded into the background. But there's a recession on, as we keep being told, and the idea of making pretty, unique jewellery as Christmas presents was very tempting. So a year and a half after the initial idea, I finally got hold of some vintage jewellery, dismantled some jewellery of my own, and fashioned a charm bracelet - I'll find a pic as soon as poss. Then I thought, I wonder if other people would like what I do? I wonder if other people are sick of paying bumped up prices just to have something that you can't buy ...