my creative space - teach

There's a secret I've been keeping for a little while now, a plan I've been hatching with my new friend Melissa. I've been dying to share it but I wanted to wait until it was all organised and unveiled.

Melissa Tan opened her new craft classroom space and shop SewMakeCreate at the end of last year in Sydney's Inner West, my part of town! SewMakeCreate is a wonderful little crafting and sewing space and shop close to Broadway Shopping Centre, tucked away down a closed off leafy street in Chippendale.

Melissa has come to her new venture from the fashion world. She's a maker too and has an Etsy shop. Introduced by mutual friend Sue (my first friend on Etsy) we hit it off at our first meeting and bonded over a love of craft and sewing and our desire to share that with others.

I also fell in love with her too cute sidekick Pepper above (a 'puginese') who helps her run her creative space. What a sweetie!

I'm very excited that I'm going to be part of  SewMakeCreate, hosting my first ever craft classes at SewMakeCreate next month! The class I'll be teaching is a two part workshop on something dear to my heart, Eraser Carving for Paper and Fabric printing. (Other classes include crochet, sewing, watercolour painting.)

If you've followed my blog for any length of time you'll know that block printing is one of my favourite things. I love the simplicity and speed of the process. I love the way you can experiment easily and make unlimited different designs with just a few stamps. How you can print or combine those stamps in many different ways to make new designs. Or the many and varied applications, from envelopes to bags that you can print with them.

And you don't need to be a great artist, some of the most beautiful designs are made with simple shapes.

I can't wait to share this style of printing with others. I've loved the recent workshops I've been part of, there's something really inspiring about being part of a group learning and crafting together. So it will be great to host my own.

If that sounds like fun to you head over to the SewMakeCreate website and see more details about the two part workshop.  All materials will be supplied, you just have to show up. Part one deals with carving your block and printing on all sorts of paper. Part two will see us printing on fabric, and in particular a tea towel and a tote bag. I'm going to bring some of my stamps to play with too.

The best thing about this simple and inexpensive craft is that you can take your stamps and what you've learnt and keep experimenting with it at home. Once you learn to stamp there are so many ways you can use the prints in your life.

p.s. I'm still weighing up options for an alternative to Google Reader, but I know a lot of you have moved across already to Bloglovin. If so you can follow my blog with Bloglovin here.