UK Handmade

In times of recession and an over-saturated internet you would be forgiven for thinking that turning a creative hobby into a business a bit risky. Most of us (myself included) started selling online as a result of making things for friends and family and with the vast choice of selling venues open to artists and crafters these days it’s easy to dip your toe in the water and see if your products sell to the general public. The recent recession is also a good opportunity for start-up business...Read Full Story

Devon-based designer, Maria Whetman, is the creative force behind the innovative jewellery label Fluxplay Jewellery . We caught up with her to find out more about her and her work. Can you tell us a bit about yourself and how you got started? Being rubbish at most stuff in school except for Art, spending most of my childhood at my little desk in my bedroom with my art-stuff, it was inevitable that I would go into some kind of artistic line of work. Small-metals became my love, making tiny...Read Full Story

My name is Sally Reay and I am an artist and designer maker.  I’ve always had a desire to make things ever since I was a little girl.  I was good at art at school too which set me on the path to Art College, where I got a BA Honours Degree in Graphic Design. When I graduated I worked in PR and marketing for a big London advertising agency, but after the initial excitement wore off and I found myself with a fairly non-creative desk job, I took a year out to travel in Mexico, Guatemala and...Read Full Story

This week, we meet the new editor of Popular Crafts magazine, Kerry Wilkinson, whom many of you will know as PennyDog. The new issue of the magazine, the first under Kerry's expert direction, is on sale now. Tell us a bit about yourself. I'm Kerry, I'm 24 and I live in a village in Leicestershire with my partner Alex and our two greyhounds, Penny and Fletcher. I also run my resin jewellery business - PennyDog ( http://www.pennydog.com/ ) but have dabbled in many different crafts as well as...Read Full Story

Welcome to the first of our STUDIO posts, where we take a sneaky peek through the keyhole into the studios/workspaces of different artists, designers and makers! To kick us off, our very own, Karen Jinks (founder of UK Handmade ) and creative force behind Chalk Hill Studio , lets us have a nosey around her own creative space. My studio has just had a makeover so half of it is still in boxes - it's not normally this tidy! It has undergone and few changes in the last two years ( here , here...Read Full Story