Craft Central, moves into the Centre of Wellington

For over a year Craft Cen­tral’s been a delight­ful lit­tle mar­ket held month­ly at Mira­mar School, one of those lit­tle secrets only locals know about, like Craig the Chemist who always has stick­ers on hand to bring a smile to kids’ faces.  But Lib­by and Kather­ine, Craft Cen­tral’s cre­ators, had big dreams, to turn their 100% NZ made mar­ket into an Event Mar­ket, one with all the bells and whis­tles that has an answer to every prob­lem shop­pers have at fairs, and to cre­ate an expe­ri­ence that just made you hap­py.

This Sat­ur­day Octo­ber 4th from 10am till 3pm Craft Cen­tral is com­ing to town at The St James The­atre in Court­ney place —  for if you have Big Grand Plans why not have them at a big grand light-filled his­tor­i­cal­ly sig­nif­i­cant build­ing?

 

For shop­pers there are over 75 stalls each sell­ing NZ-made cre­ations. The per­son you shop from is the per­son who cre­at­ed what you buy, no imports, no resellers, just authen­tic local craft and design across a range of dis­ci­plines like ceram­ic artist Sarah Wigley, fash­ion illus­tra­tor Pix­el Ink, artist Joe McMe­namin, print mak­er The Paper Bird Soci­ety, fab­ric and wall­pa­per design­er Eef and Ini, design­er Ali­son Blaine and Auck­land based crafter Zip­pi­ty­Doo­Dah ,  and chil­dren’s cloth­ing design­er and mak­er Hikkepik.

In Lib­by’s words:

“No oth­er mar­ket offers this lev­el of tal­ent and this range of prod­uct, from bou­tique fash­ion, ceram­ics, home­ware, tex­tiles, design­er wall­pa­pers, jew­ellery, steam­punk curiosi­ties, eco prod­ucts and more, this event will delight and amaze.”

For cre­ative types there is an abun­dance of activ­i­ties. The Welling­ton Mak­er­space Char­i­ta­ble Trust will be run­ning free stop-motion ani­ma­tion work­shops dur­ing the day. Work­shops are so cen­tral to Craft Cen­tral that upstairs an entire room is devot­ed to five dif­fer­ent work­shops run­ning all day long. Aimed at both­adults and kids, they are designed to give every­one a go at mak­ing. As par­ents Lib­by and Kather­ine know the prob­lems of jug­gling shop­ping and fam­i­ly, they want­ed “par­ents to enjoy the event with their kids so we designed work­shops that get kids craft­ing allow­ing Mum or Dad to do a spe­cial activ­i­ty with the kids as well as shop­ping for unique and beau­ti­ful items.”

Down­stairs there’s  a knit lounge where you can take your first stitch­es into the world of knit­ting, or get some help with a project your cur­rent­ly stuck on. Or just hang out with fel­low fans of yarn and have a glass of wine or cof­fee from The Jim­my and work on your lat­est project.

Final­ly there are prizes, for the first 50 peo­ple through the door at 10am (when the fair starts) are free gift bags pack with treats from Craft Cen­tral Arti­sans, like badges from Super­Very and  ear­rings from Things Unseen.  Sign up for their mail­ing list before the fair and win $100 of Craft Cash to spend on the day, or you can enter  a raf­fle to win a giant bas­ket of crafts, with all mon­ey going direct­ly to Welling­ton Chil­dren’s Hos­pi­tal.

And for Welling­ton­ista Read­ers, here’s some­thing spe­cial from Super­Very, you can  win a set of these colour­ful birds. Just com­ment here with the stall you are  most excit­ed about & we’ll draw & announce a win­ner on Fri­day.  The win­ner can pick their prize up at the fair on Sat­ur­day.

The fair is free to every­one so see you on Sat­ur­day at Craft Cen­tral!