Introducing Monday... Faerytopia

Greetings from fairyland !

My name is Rachel Allkin and I have been making fairy folk for the last 8 years in a wooden workshop at the bottom of my garden (appropriately !) hidden in the woods of east Galway.

I trained in mixed media art and craft at college in Northamton , England and furthered my studies with short courses in silver smithing, weaving and felt making.

After a number of years living and working as a musician in Spain the call of the west was too great and I settled in galway with my lovely hubbie Ade. Our family now consists of Oscar (nearly 5) , Twig ( a hairy terrier), Frida (a startled cat), 2 unnamed goldfish,and a hoard of fairies (too many to count !).

The very first fairy i made was for my Mother's christmas tree and after friends and family begged me to make them one too i thought I might be on to something.

From there I started fashioning fairy folk on a regular basis under the bussiness name' Away with the Fairies' and selling them on the wonderful St. Nicholas' market on a saturday in galway . If you're ever in galway on a saturday please check it out as its a wonderful mix of organic and homemade produce and lovely local crafts.

i have also had wonderful support from many of the lovely craft outlets around the country including O'reilly-Turpin in westport and Glor in Ennis.

Each fairy starts her life as a flat piece of fabric (often vintage, recycled or sari) , then she is sewn together on a machine and stuffed with lavender and fluffy stuff. i then decorate her (my favourite bit) with lots of lovely embellishments, buttons, braid, ribbon, beads, feathers , shells..... and create a face for her with tiny seed beads as cheeky fairy peepers. Her hair is created with hand dyed wool and a silvery thread is sewn to her head so she can be hung up to float around in the breeze. Lastly but certainly not least the fairy is christened and her name tag is tied to her spindly wire arm so that any proud new fairy owner will know what to call her when she finds a new home.

My range has expanded from just 'freshly caught fairies' to fairy folk for all special ocassions and seasons. Some of the bestsellers include fairy bride and grooms and new baby fairies which can all be personalised eg. hair and eye colour, names and dates etc.

We are often found at craft fairs around the country and of course the market in galway so please stop by and say hello.

I also run craft classes in and around loughrea for kids (adults classes coming soon) convo me for info.

I'd like to take the oppourtunity to say hi to all the crafty ireland team members really looking forward to getting to know you all, I haven't been on any kind of team since school but this is so much cooler !

My Etsy shop http://www.etsy.com/shop/Faerytopia

My personal blog http://awaywiththefairies.ie/blog/index.php