Claire Hurd Design in 'Kitchens, Bedrooms & Bathrooms' Magazine!

I am really excited to share these pictures with you today. I was approached by 'Kitchens, Bedrooms and Bathrooms' Magazine a short while ago asking for one of my Liberty Print Make-Up Bags. They were putting together a feature on denim entitled 'All in the Jeans' and wanted to include my make-up bag, of course I jumped at the chance!


The feature is in the August edition of the magazine, available to buy now. And here is my make-up bag on page 34!

Facebook Shop now Open

I have just set up a shop on my Claire Hurd Design Facebook page. I have had a few enquiries recently about purchasing my designs and products without having to create a Folksy account. I hope that customers will find this new shop easy to use and will enjoy having an simpler way to buy direct from the maker.

I would love you to take a look (by clicking here) and let me know what you think. My next step is to get a shop up and running here on my blog. This will be a little more involved to set up and may take me a little while. Please bear with me and I hope to share it with you soon.

Claire x

Exciting News!

I am really excited to share my news with you today - Claire Hurd Design has appeared in print!

Turn to page 6 of the current issue of Popular Crafts magazine and there is my personalised cupcakes artwork! As you can imagine I am very happy. It is a great issue too with some of the designers I follow online also featuring - I am in very good company.

Hopefully there will be more of this to come in the future. It is great to see that all of my hard work is worth it and my designs bring enjoyment others.

Claire Hurd Design products featured today

Today is a good day for Claire Hurd Design!

My personalised Elephant baby bib has been featured on the Cuteable blog for Flickr Friday.

My framed boat artwork has been featured on the Quite Contrary Crafts blog as part of a seaside themed Folksy Friday treasury.

My framed personalised cupcakes artwork appears in 'Today's 40 Favourites' on the Not on the Highstreet website.

Thank you to everyone for featuring me, I am so pleased that you like my designs.

Claire x

Claire Hurd Design Facebook Fan Page

I have almost reached 200 fans on my Facebook fan page! As soon as I do I shall be celebrating with a giveaway open to all of my Facebook fans.

If you are not already a fan please join me here to keep up to date with all of my latest design work and for a chance to be entered in to my celebratory giveaway.

Looking forward to seeing you over at Facebook, Claire x

Claire Hurd Design featured in the UK Handmade Valentine Gift Guide

My appliqué heart 'With Love' card has been featured in the UK Handmade Valentine Gift Guide 2010.

Take a look, it is a lovely guide, beautifully put together with lots of wonderful handmade gift ideas.

New advert on Shop Handmade UK

A while back I won a blog giveaway and my prize was to have an advert on the Shop Handmade UK blog for the month of December.

The lovely Belinda of Shop Handmade UK has been working on it for me using images I emailed over to her and has made it live a few days early. Follow this link to take a look, you will find my advert top left. It looks great - many thanks Belinda x

Bunting and Butterflies!

My bunting is finished! I am really pleased with it so thanks again to Mum for doing all my cutting for me and getting me started. I have made it in three sections so it can be hung in one long strip or in three sections one above the other if space is limited.

Please excuse the quality of the photos, they were taken in the evening and would really have benefited from some natural light!

Keep your eyes peeled for bunting appearing in my online shops (here and here) in the new year. If you would like to place an order before then simply email me at studio@clairehurd.co.uk.

I also wanted to share my butterfly badges with you. I shall be selling these at the Handm@de Cambridge Craft Fair on Saturday the 5th December (not long now!). These floral butterflies have been hand-stitched to their fabric base down the centre only so their wings stand forward and reveal a contrasting geometric fabric reverse. The butterfly shown has a bright pink gingham on the reverse.

Craft Fair and Google Maps

I have now received all the promotional material for my upcoming craft fair and wanted to share the details with you. It would be great to meet some of my blog followers on the day so if you are able to pop along do come and say hello.

I also wanted to show you this great Google Map. It has been put together by Sharon of Ravenwolf Design and shows the location of Folksy sellers in the UK. The idea is that we can get in touch with others nearby to form friendships and organise craft fair table shares together. It is a work in progress but is looking fantastic already. Many thanks to Sharon for all the hard work she has put in to this map.

What I am Working on Today

Just popping my head in to say a quick hello.

I am busy, busy, creating Christmas goodies for my Craft Fair stall whilst keeping on top of my online orders and commissions.

Here is a quick glimpse of what I am working on today.

My Handmade Christmas Robin decorations have been selling as quickly as I can make them so I have been working hard these last couple of days to produce a bulk quantity in preparation for further orders and for my craft fair stand.

I also have some 'Claire Hurd Design' bunting cut and waiting to be embroidered which my Mum has very helpfully started off for me (thank you Mum!). I shall do a proper reveal as soon as it is finished.

The Christmas Craft Fair I shall be exhibiting at is the Handm@de Cambridge Craft Fair at the Guildhall in Cambridge city centre on Saturday the 5th December between 11am and 5pm. Do come along and say hello. There are some great designers exhibiting and it will be the perfect opportunity to do some unique handmade Christmas shopping.

Shop Handmade UK Giveaway

I have taken part in the Shop Handmade UK giveaway and boy what a giveaway it is! The winners will receive one of two prize packs worth over £200 each. My contribution was one of my pretty pink coin purses and can be found in prize pack one.

For full details and the chance to enter this fantastic competition click here to be taken to the Shop Handmade UK competition page and follow the instructions there. The deadline for entries is 11:59pm (UK time) on Friday 4th December 2009.

Good Luck!

Claire Hurd Design on 'Craft Juice'

My Fairy Cakes artwork is on the 'Craft Juice' website today voted as one of their top crafts!

Claire Hurd Design on Cuteable!

My 'With Love' heart greetings card was featured on the Cuteable website today. Do pop over and take a look, it is a wonderful site and a real treasure trove of beautiful designs.

Claire Hurd Design featured on the Handm@de Cambridge blog

Today I have been featured on the Cambridge Handm@de blog as one of the makers that will be exhibiting at the Cambridge Handm@de Christmas Craft Fair being held at the Guildhall in Cambridge city centre on Saturday the 5th December.

I took part in a 'Meet the maker' interview so if you wish to learn a little more about me then pop over to the Cambridge Handm@de blog and take a look.

Handm@de Winchester

I have had a lovely, inspiring, sunshiney day in Winchester today.

I went to visit Handm@de Winchester for the first time and loved what I found there. The craft fair had a great variety of products all of a very high standard and all handmade by the exhibitors.

I met some really friendly designer/makers there and was particularly pleased to meet the people behind some of my favourite blogs:
I met fellow blogger and textile designer/maker Monda-Loves who was just lovely. It was great to see her beautiful products that I had been reading so much about.
I had a lovely chat with fellow Folksy seller Fabric Nation who had some great products, was very encouraging and admired my handmade bag that I had with me!
Having limited myself to just one purchase (in order to avoid being tempted to come home with one of everything!) I bought a really cute and beautifully made bird brooch from fellow NOTHS sellers meninafeliz. Bebe and Anne-Marie were very friendly, full of advice and offered me support in my future venture into craft fair selling should I need it.

Thank you to everyone I met today, I came home in a very happy crafty mood. I hope our designer/maker paths cross again in the near future.

Claire Hurd Design now on Facebook!

Claire Hurd Design now has a Facebook page where you can keep updated on my latest crafty goings on. To become a fan simply sign in to Facebook and do a search for Claire Hurd Design, then add yourself as a fan.

I look forward to seeing you there!

You can also become a follower of my blog to receive notification each time I add a new post. Simply click the 'Follow' button under the header 'Followers' on the side bar.

Claire x

Greetings Cards Now in Gallery Shop

My handmade greetings cards can now be found for sale in the Projeto Gallery, West Yorkshire. If you are in the area then please do pop along and take a look.

My cards are also for sale online in my shop. Please do visit and whilst you are there take a look at my handmade bags and accessories.

The Textile Directory Craft Focus Newsletter

Today I was featured in the Textile Directory Craft Focus Newsletter. They were concentrating on Embroidery for this (their first) edition of the Craft Focus Newsletter and spoke to me about what it was like to be an embroidery designer and asked for my advice on how best to make a living from it.

I also provided them with a tutorial on how to make one of my greetings cards. If you fancy a go then click here and take a look. If you do not have the time to make your own cards but like the design then take a look at my shop for similar cards.

My Shop is Up and Running ...

My online shop is now up and running. I shall continuously be adding new products so please keep popping by at http://folksy.com/shops/ClaireHurdDesign and I hope you will like what you see.
I have made my first sale already and have positive feedback from the customer. It is great to know that my designs are being bought and enjoyed by others.

New Business Cards

My new business cards have arrived! My brother Michael was kind enough to take a whole new set of photographs of my work for me last weekend so I can use the images for promotional purposes.

I have had new business cards and postcards printed by Moo Limited (http://www.moo.com) and am really pleased with the result. Their website is really easy to use and enables you to use a different image for each card, my order was also processed and delivered within 3 days - very efficient!