Februrary is a SALE market at I heart.

Are you pockets feeling empty after all your holiday spends?
Join us for the first of our biannual Sale Markets on 7th February 2015 and pick up some great bargains for small small money.

We'll see you there!

Poster and Design by Dominic Strauss. 

Sweet Saturday

Treats and coffee

The May I Heart Market held last Saturday was a wonderful success! We had such a great time seeing everyone perusing through the stalls and socializing wirh friends and traders.

The day was chilly but the atmosphere was still amazing and we thank all those who stopped by. We all warmed up with coffee from the Coffee Guys and munched on delicious muslie with fresh fruit and yogurt from our new trader Juice up. 

We also indulged in some homemade crunchies, a favourite in the I Heart Market office and loved by our team. There are always a few stashed in our bag to snack on so here's the recipe. They are oh so delicious and a must for every kitchen. So bake up a storm everyone and fill those jars with these tasty treats that are close to our hearts.

 

See more about I Heart Market and our traders on Facebook and follow us on twitter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Image thanks to Pinterest

To make:

250ml cake flour

250ml sugar

500ml oats or muslie

100g margarine

30ml syrup

5ml bycarb

5ml hot water

 

Mix all the dry ingredients together.

Melt margarine and syrup in a pot.

Mix bycarb with the hot water, then add to the syrup mixture.

Pour the syrup mixture into the dry ingredients and mix well unitl all the dry mixture has been incorporated.

Grease or line a baking tray with foil or wax paper and empty the mixture in.

Tighly pack it in, pressing it down.

Bake for 4-15 minutes. Test if it's ready by pressing gently on the top, if firm, remove from the oven.

Cut into squares, wait 5 minutes then remove from tray onto a cooling rack.

 

Our secret tip:

Melt some dark chocolate and spread or drizzle it over the top once the crunchies are cool.

Simply delicious. Enjoy.

 

 

Rollin Vintage

Ryan and Liesa of Rollin Vintage recently joined us at the market with their ingenius recreations of antique cutlery. Bracelets out of bent forks are not a new idea but Rollin Vintage has taken this craft to a new level of artistic delight. 

This is their story in Liesa's words: "Ryan spend a few months in the UK, at one of the markets he saw spoons that were bent all the way around into a ring. He loved the idea and told me about it when he came back. I was disappointed because after he finished telling me about it as i thought he’d whip out one of the rings for me....but he didn’t. He then promised to make me one and the first one he made turned out pretty well and he persisted."

All their jewellery is one of a kind. Even their ring sizes use recycled, out of the ordinary methods to create them. Instead of using the usual jewellery manufacturing ring sizes, they use a range of different sized gear rods from cars to size their rings. 

Their persistence has paid off and Rollin Vintage has grown from strength to strength since then. They have recently opened up a shop in Howick and added many new up-cycled vintage treasures to their list of products. 

We particularly love their 'Tablescapes' - a mini succulent garden housed inside an old book and their Tin Pendants made from gorgeous old tins with bold retro designs. 

Be sure to come and peruse their stall at the next I heart market!

Scrabble Love

Join us for more market fun in July and 

invite yourself and your friends to our Facebook event.

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Concept and design by Dominic Strauss.

Thinking about handmade - Guest Post

Hi fellow crafters. Sam from Hey Cherry here, with a few thoughts about the I Heart Handmade pledge. I was chatting to a friend about this campaign a few days ago, and he said something that got me thinking. What he said was 'Yes, it's all very nice to support local crafters, but what if the stuff they make is kak?' And that's a good point.

Now, I've watched a lot of crafters evolve over the last couple of years of I Heart Market (including ourselves) and the products have got better and better. That's kind of different though. Those products were made with care to start with, it's just that their makers have learned and grown and developed great new ideas. I have also seen, at various markets and shops, handmade goods that are slapdash. It's true, just because something is handmade does not mean it's well made.

Thinking about this led me to this interesting article. The gist of it is that you have to think of handmade goods as a product like other products, in competition with both the factory-made goods and the work of other crafters. And, as a maker of handmade, you have to put care into your product, into its packaging and into how it's presented. Here's a line that is very important:

Handmade can’t compete on price, nor can it compete on a moral high ground, but handmade can compete on the way it is uniquely designed for real people.

At the end of the day, as much as we can jump on a high horse about the economics of manufacturing and the morals of production, the true beauty of handmade lies in the real person standing at that stall sharing with you the story of how they created this unique and lovely thing.

When you buy handmade this season, remember that the person you are buying it from made it, especially for you (even if they've never met you before, it really is specially for you). They sat up late at night cutting and sewing and welding and glueing and taping and packing and labelling. They're there, right in front of you. That's a gift in itself.