News & Events

Here we are at the end of another year and our last craft fair of 2018 was cleared up at 4 p.m. on Saturday 24th November. It was well-attended by both our members and customers, so thank you all for that.

But our special thanks must go to all the attendees, both participants and the public, at our first big Christmas Craftastic extravaganza held on Saturday 17th November at Kirkwall Grammar School.

This was our first really big event involving other designer-makers and artists. We also invited a number of charities to have a space for sales or games. Works donated by the artists and crafters became prizes in a big raffle and 8 charities received £100 each from the proceeds of the prize draw.

We also thank the students who gave us some live and lively music, the Rotary club for bringing Santa and his elves along, the Youth Cafe for providing ‘tea and stickies’ (as well as soup and yummy mince rolls!), and not forgetting wonderful make-up artist Leanne Hallran for some amazing face-paint work for littlies and not so littlies.

It appears to have been a success for everybody. Thanks are also due to many of the participants for setting the stalls up on Friday evening, and helping put the KGS back to how it should be for classes to start again on Monday.

But most of all we owe grateful thanks to two committee members, Teenie Cromarty and Lynn Bartlett, who dealt tirelessly with the organisation of the event from start to finish and really made the idea come to fruition.

New members join following the ‘Craftastic Christmas’ event.

The Craftastic Christmas event has also led to some new members for our group. Fiona Lennox is a silversmith making amazing unique pieces, each crafted lovingly by hand. She also does commissions.

Carol Hunter is the owner of Hunter Aromatherapy which produces lovely organic balms and room and linen sprays. Carol has qualifications in both Clinical Aromatherapy and Swedish Massage.

Another recently-joined member is also producing wonderful organic cosmetics. Carol Evans of Orkney Organics makes deodorant, and hand and foot balms. One of her speciality products is Gardeners’ Balm. All these cosmetics are lightly scented with flowers and herbs.

Coming soon, Andrea Holmes – Artist. Andrea uses different media including graphite and pastels to produce beautiful scenic work as well as individual portraits of animals. Also some of these works are printed on things like cards and mugs. Andrea also does commissions.

Well that seems to be it for 2018.

Our one-day fairs will start again in March and we have already booked our annual summer exhibition which will be open from the end of June through to the end of July.

Keep a look out for our advertising on our Facebook page, local media and here through our website so you never miss a chance to snap up that special piece as a present or to treat yourself.

Very best wishes for the year to come.