Tuesday 14 October 2008

Crafty Halloween and Scrapstore Heaven

I Think I must have had a sudden rush of blood to the head as I have organised a crafty Halloween afternoon for 18 children.....


I had loads of fun designing the invites

and even wrote a poem, I named her Ardnaxela as that's my name backwards

To cater for this many children, which incidentally seems to be growing as Jamie added two more today, I had to do a run the Scrapstore, I use to work at the Scrapstore and I loved it.
I actually got paid to fetch the scrap from companies, sort it, display it and sell it per basket or trolley and I even got to make projects and run workshops to teach adults how to make stuff. so that they could teach it to others, how cool is that!

It was a fantastic job but I couldn't stay as the stress involved dealing with company ideals was too much and the true potential of the business was not being utilized fully and I had to quit for my own sanity's sake.


It is chocker block with all manner of clean re-usable scrap be it fabric, paper, wood, plastics, carpet etc etc....

There is even an art shop.... it is a crafters paradise!

Some items are sold individually, while the bulk of items can be bought by the trolley load or basket full

a trolley of scrap is £14.50 and a basket is £4.75
Scrapstores can be found all over the country there is a really big one in Portsmouth, some have membership others like ours can be used by anyone for a membership of 50p

Daniel loves it down there, but obviously as its a warehouse environment children must be supervised


I bought a collection of items for Halloween and for my own stock, I managed to get 5 metres of baby blue windjammer fabric and 2 meters of petrol green windjammer for £1 a meter, the baby blue was going to become curtains for my landing but as it hangs so nicely I may use it for a table cloth, as I have been invited to a craft fayre in November.

I picked up ticking, scrap green and black fabric, paper cups and cardboard ice cream tubs, black paper, wool (50p per ball) red cord (40p per Meter) Swiss tulle netting and some small screw top pots for button and bead storage.

I only wish I had somewhere to make all my lovely creations where I could feel inspired without knowing that at tea time I will have to pack it all away so that I can dish up on the table I am working on, but alas the garage leaks like a sieve (plus Mr P's motorbike and tools are in their, I have another shed that has no doors and the elusive rat frequents, and my only watertight building is the old outside privy that has all my scapstore goodies in it and is the size of a .....outside privy to be honest!



Oh how I dream of a little space of my own, but preferably a little bigger than a toilet!

Once I have designed my witches, black cats and pumpkins I will cut all my templates out of lino squares from a sample book (also from the scrapstore) as they are very resilient and last for an age without getting damaged.

I will show you all my creations as soon as I have made them.

why not google scrapstore to see if their is one in your area!
you never know!

**Alex**

10 comments:

Petticoat Lane said...

What an absolutely brilliant idea and VERY brave, but good on you, I'm sure they'll all have great time.
Thank you so much for letting us know about such places, I'm sure many a blogger including myself with be goggling scrapstore straight away!! What a great job you had.
Alex you should start your own business running arty childrens parties, I'm sure you'd do really well. Joanne could make all the cakes!
Jane. x

Lesley (Notesfrommydays) said...

wow what a brave thing to do !! as you know my little girls party was only 8 children and i was traumatised afterwards LOL I need a scrapstore in my area there better had be now you have told us or i will be very disappointed :-)
thank you for your comment - dont worry my ironing piles, charity shop donations, and any other accumulated clutter gets hidden in my laundry room ! i dare not show a picture of that!
Lesley x

karen said...

Wow How brave are you. I Love baking and crafting with my little one but I don't think I could do it with that many of the lovrly darling's lol.
I Love the scrapstore too it's great although I don't get there very often cause we have to walk there and it's a long walk for a three year old lol.

MarmaladeRose said...

Hi Alex. What fun your going to have, I wish I could come and make Haloween goodies with you. If you've got a juicer you can make a juice from white grapes and spinach that is bright green and looks revolting, but tastes lovely. It's my kids favourite.
RE my cupcakes, they're destined to sit in my kitchen on the cake plate, as I always seem to be making things for other people, I thought I do something for me this time. Good Luck with your Haloween crafting. Fi

Petticoat Lane said...

Me again!! I'm so excited as I've found a scrapstore nearby in Lacock, I'm going to take the girls after we go to a Halloween event at Lacock Abbey to make more of a day of it, so thanks for the tip.
Just re-read my comment I left, the 'goggling' instead of 'googling' made me chuckle, must preview my comments more!!
Hope you're having a good week-end.
Jane. x

Pink Feather Paradise said...

Hi Jane, I am glad you have had some luck finding a scrapstore, most are run as charities very few are run by the council. I hope it is full of exciting little treasures and that you enjoy your event at Laycock Abbey.
I have been very busy and I have just blogged some of my happenings so far this week!

Cheers Alex

Mrs Jelly said...

I've been "warned off" from my local scrapstore because they worked out who I was and that I ran my own business. They said they were worried I would use any of the scrap for commercial reasons and this is against their policy. Shame, because I used to get metres of fabric that I could use to make prototypes with.

JuliaB said...

Hello Alex. I came across your blog - and most importantly this post - last week and immediately looked up scrapstore places in Oxford. Thanks to you, I had the MOST FABULOUS time on Saturday!!! THANKYOU!! There is a little scrap store in the back of a community centre in Oxford, jam packed with bits and bobs and an absolute saviour for the friend I went with who has 2 reasons to go there 1) he does a panto every year (writes it and produces all props etc.,) and 2) his house was trashed by vandals last year and garden tools etc., picked up here have been a huge help for him. I shall be posting about it later on today (hopefully!) with appropriate linkage and thanks. Wonderful tip thank you!. x Oh .. i think you're a brilliant artist too. x

Pink Feather Paradise said...

Hi Jellybelly jellybrain the policy at Yeovil Scrapstore was very similar, but it is very difficult to police so we let some things slide, sometimes we were given items that could have been sold as they were for financial gain but we limited the amount of items you could buy to so many per basket or trolley, as long as fabric was made into something prior to being sold we didn't mind so much....
cheers Alex

Twiggy said...

Hello there
I've just found you via Marmaladekiss, lovely blog. The scrapstore looks fab and your Halloween party sounds great fun, brave lady. Have fun playing with your new bits and bobs - apologies if that soiunds a bit rude ;)
Twiggy x