Our excitingly eclectic stall!

In chilly Sneinton, we stood all day and sold our crafts to whoever came our way!

It’s been a busy week as we are all quite new to making crafty wares to sell, but it seemed to go down very well. Taking part in the Hockley Arts Market was something we all wanted to try out to see how it suited us and it has made us think about new ways to show our work.

We were sharing our stall with Joy‘s warm and wooly delights and Tamsin, a Nottingham based textile designer who sold some beautiful and bright cushions, cards and creatures! It was lovely to work as a team and despite the freezing conditions, we had a great time talking to the public, meeting the other crafty stallholders and listening to feedback about our work.

All in all, a good day was had by all, especially once we had thawed out!

There’s Adam and Katies Beer mat Table Tennis bats – the perfect Christmas gift and other exciting crafts from recycled materials, Rebi has a book for all you furniture fans out there, and I know there are a few, and Amanda has put together a collection of her photographs and some Christmas cards which will surely delight.
Anyway we’ve had a busy few weeks thinking of what we should do next, we’re all looking forward to the weekend and some of us are frantically busying ourselves to ensure we have enough stuff to sell at t’ market.

“Table Tennis Bats 2 for 10 pand get ‘em while there ‘ot… (includes free ball) ” etc etc

[to be said in a market stall holder style, "bag a nanas a pand", "fresh strawbs £2 a punnet" ...]

It’s @  Sneinton Market 10-3pm this Saturday (28th November), come and see us for festive cheer!

We’re all experiencing those great feelings that surface when things you plan for come together and in our cases are generally followed by loud hoorays and happy ‘yays’. One of the reasons for our sense of well being, building on our achievements from last week, is we’ve sourced and collected plastic to insulate our studio windows (not too soon me thinks as the temperature has dropped quite considerably today). It’s from a friendly company, not too far from our studio, who were very willing to help us pick out the best polythene roll for the job and expected not a penny for their efforts or product. It really makes you realise how generous people can be. So very soon we’ll have insulated windows to go with our curtain covered doorways.

This weekend we had a work party! no disco balls or dancing was involved, but there is reason to celebrate, we have hung up some curtains, painted our art library book shelves, and with a blackboard almost ready to go, we went on a white rabbit road trip to Arnold.

The road trip took us to look and feel remnants of carpet as a potential aid to keep us warm through the winter, and round the Wilkos in Arnold, we didn’t quite make it to the recycling centre but we did find a tyre, which will be converted into a planter for our courtyard.

We are planning to procure some plastic to do some D.I.Y. double glazing this week so we’ll soon be toasty and can welcome you to our warm winter warren.

Hopefully both of these things will trap all the warmth in and make the studio as welcoming as this open fire.

One of the things we’re very excited about on our to do list is making one of the walls a blackboard in what is fast becoming our living room, by painting it with blackboard paint. We can then use this to document ideas, drawings or even as a space to show work.

If you spotted this in the latest issue of Leftlion, then a warm welcome to you! We update this blog weekly so you can find out more about us and what we’re up to.  We recently celebrated the anniversary of our first year in our cosy studios, and we were chuffed to be given a chance to introduce ourselves in the magazine.

We use our Old Coach house and courtyard as a space to make art and share our ideas with lots of tea and food.  We share a common interest in trying to make art which engages with its’ audience, and we support each other in our individual creative practices.  One of our aims as a studio is to think, work and live more sustainably and we are on our way to developing a greener space that works for us and our location.

The studios are located in lovely Carrington (just south of Sherwood) and we have really enjoyed getting to know the area and the people who live here.   We held a busy Open Studios event in June and we have plans for another event which will offer an opportunity for people to show their own creative work.  Watch this space for more info or join our mailing list by emailing studiowhiterabbit(at)gmail.com with ‘Subscribe’ as the subject.

Bye for now!

We are also on our way to ticking some items off our list with a brightly coloured rug acquired through Amanda’s sister and some curtains to contemplate on. These should all go towards helping make our studio warmer and cosier throughout winter.

Finally we are excited about our first work party, taking place later in October for which we will all come armed with more items off our list and prepared to have a fun day working together to decorate our studio and make it more homely

This week at WRS! we made a start on our growing time line, which we are going to add to as we plan out what to grow in the courtyard and studio through the seasons. We’ve each researched a different season, and though we’ve had some nice weather this week, the studio does get a bit cold over autumn and winter so we are looking to insulate and make our studio more homely with curtains and using other tips gained from visiting the E-SEE event which promoted eco businesses and ideas.

After our successful sofa find, we have come up with a list of things to look out for on the streets and on websites like freecycle and gumtree. But if you know of anyone with any of these items AND they are looking to find a new home for them then let us know…

• 30 stackable chairs
• 1 or 2 more sofas – comfy ones
• Recycled planters/objects to use as planters,(eg. old wellington’s)
• wood (for making a bench, and wildlife stack)
• Curtains/fabric
• Curtain poles/rails
• Snakes for doors (not real ones! we might make these)
• Carpet
• Digital projector? (anyone?!)

The next step is to paint our common room with leftover emulsion.  We’re also thinking of ways to insulate the studio before the frightful winter sets in.

We’ve started researching  different things we can grow throughout the year in the courtyard, and will soon have a plan for the next year.  We hope to be able to eat our own produce at the studio and thus stop buying microwavable meals!

There are more photos of the event in the following album- Finding Time photographs.