I've always loved crafts, whether its colouring in, building things, painting etc. I've always tried my hand at anything and everything creative. I loved doing Art and Design Technology in school. I just loved how hands-on it was, building papier-mâché models, drawing still life pictures. I'm definitely more creative than I am a scholar.
When we were invited to the Viking Arty Party in London, we jumped at the chance to try and improve our crafting abilities. Held in Lumiere London (where I'd attended another event fairly recently), the event was already buzzing when we arrived; full of amazing lifestyle and stationery bloggers. Some we've met before and some we got to know at the party, we had a great time chatting with everyone, and catching up over a cuppa.
There were three activity tables placed around the beautiful venue; Modern Calligraphy with À L'aise, Block Printing with Tea and Crafting and Mindful Origami with MindFOLDness.
Put in 3 groups, we each got to try out each craft for an hour with a short break in between for snacking and chatting. Our first craft was block printing! We absolutely loved this one as we're really into prints at the moment. We both went for on-trend prints; Kirsty went for a palm leaf and I opted for a very fiddly flamingo print. Cutting these designs out probably took the longest, especially mine. But it was definitely worth it in the end! The two designs looked great when we finished, even the weird brownish/purpley shade I mixed looked okay! Tea and Crafting were great at teaching everyone how to create their very own block printed magazine file.
The second workshop was learning Modern Calligraphy for beginners. I was most excited about this one, as I've always wanted to learn calligraphy and event had dreams of writing my own wedding invitations. But that'd take a lot of practice, I'll let photoshop do my calligraphy for me I think.. It was really fun sitting with What Cat Says and La Bella Vita chatting away and laughing at how badly we were attempting fancy writing. We definitely got better as the workshop went on and were finally able to write our blog name and it not look like a child had done it!
The final workshop was by MindFOLDness. He explained how relaxing origami can be and presented how origami can actually be very lucrative.. who knew!? I learnt how to fold a couple designs when I was younger. My grandma used to house international students when the boarding school near her was overflowing with students, each were kind enough to teach me how to fold something new. I'd learnt the crane, heart and water lily by the time I was 14, and since then have received origami sets for various birthdays or Christmases. It's my party trick!
In this workshop he taught us how to make an envelope from an A4 piece of paper and a different way of doing a crane from a coloured square of paper. This was much more of a team building exercise than the other workshops, as we got to help each other with the folds and ask for help if we got stuck. We all helped one another to keep up and get it right, it was great to talk to some more bloggers too!
We even got to take away all the bits we'd done that day as well as a goodybag of a craft to do at home. The bag included gold, silver and black permanent markers (which I have used to draw on pretty much every little thing I can find that I can jazz up) to decorate two white mugs. I cannot wait to find the perfect design to draw on them! Kirsty on the other hand, pounced on them straight away and wrote slogans on them!
As a little treat, we've got an amazing discount for our readers! You get 15% off any product at À L'AISE using code: SUPER15 !! Go on, go and treat yourself to some beautiful stationery, including greetings cards, leather goods, calligraphy supplies, gift wrap, origami sets and writing sets!
Take a look at some more photos from the event, courtesy of Search Laboratory who put this amazing event together!
What's your favourite craft?
I have worked with Viking in the past, and they even invited me to this event too. I would have loved to have gone. It looks lovely, and you would have been there!
ReplyDeleteAngie | Chocolate & Lipstick | Beauty, Fashion & Lifestyle Blog
They're such a great brand. So gutted you're so far away now. Would have been so fun to have you there! Miss you girl!! xoxo
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