Crafty News Desk

Greetings from the Crafty News Desk.

How are you all doing? 
New Year - new collections in the ETSY shops and loads of new members in the Crafty Ireland Team.  Our membership is growing and growing - how many have we now?   Great to see the wide selection of crafters we have in our group.   Take a look at the last few groups of new members on the blog here > group A  group B

Not a lot of fresh newsie titbit's for you this week.  Everyone seems to be beavering away being creative.
 
Great news though about a new Europe office for ETSY being set up in Ireland  - see this earlier report Limerick Meeting  Loads of speculation going on as to where it will be located and how many staff will be needed as well as the advantages we as Irish Crafters will have when it opens.

Also some of our crafters are involved with the Showcase Ireland in the RDS.  Loads of luck to you all.  If you want to read more about this check this out rds

In case you need to keep in touch with the year of craft and what is coming up check out this link Craft Year    As to what we as a group might do to showcase our creativity, no news yet.  Any plans for regional meetings coming up?  There are loads of ideas out there that we need to harness.

www.irishshop.com is looking for new suppliers for their website www.irishshop.com  They cater for the Irish American market and would be interested hearing from new suppliers. 

Make contact here ; irishshop

Interesting item  ----  check out this website   http://upstart.ie/  art  throughout the upcoming election  !!!!

If you have any news items that you would like to pass on to the team e.g. markets, art/craft exhibitions, courses, meetings, selling opportunities, items to buy/sell (within  reason and only craft related) giveaways in your shop etc etc etc....  contact me through my shop here HuggleKnits

That's it for this week. 
Cheers
Mo

An Opportunity To Exhibit at Showcase Ireland 2011.

Do you want to sell wholesale? Do you want to find more outlets? Do you want to promote your work to a wider audience? Do you want to help Etsy Ireland's exposure?

I'm in the process of trying for a stand for Etsy Ireland members at Showcase Ireland in Dublin in the RDS in January 2011. The application forms are out now and it's a first come first served basis so we have to be quick! The cost is 275 euro per square metre and the smallest stand is 4 square metres, so the stand is expensive if you were to go it alone. But as a group we can split the costs so it would be more affordable.

I have to email the organiser with details of what we'd have in our stand so I need to know who is interested asap. The organiser will then let me know if it is possible to take a stand as a group and we will proceed from there.

The event is wholesale orders only, no selling straight to the public, it is purely to get your work into outlets.

If you are interested please email me at bridgetfarmerprints[at!]hotmail.com as soon as you can with details and images of what you would take to Showcase Ireland.

If we get a stand the next step will be to meet up and discuss how our stand will look, order or make business cards, make display etc. I think this will be an excellent opportunity for anyone taking part.

See here for more information about Showcase Ireland 

There is also the possibility of getting an etsy team grant so it wont be as expensive, I'll look into that.