Those of you who know me, will already know that I’m not a fan of the cold hard faceless sell but am a huge fan of the personal touch! And that’s partly why The Supermums Craft Fair works so well because when you buy something from a stall, you’re not buying from a large corporation, you’re buying from a small business who cares! Behind every stall is a person and I have always encouraged them to come out and say hello in their descriptions and now I have taken it that one step further with this fabulous feature so you can get to know them even better!
Each week a stall holder from the super duper website will be chosen to become…yes you guessed it… Stall Holder Of The Week! This award is given to someone who has been seen out and about networking their stall and generally being an absolute star! And this week the award goes to…. drum roll please…
The lovely Alison from Ali B Vintage! Congratulations on being the latest stall holder of the week Alison! So let’s start off with the most important thing of all… Let’s talk about you! Hi I am 49 years old (soon to be 50 in July, but we are not talking about that!!!!) I have been married to my wonderful hubby graham for 31 years, and have two grown up sons who are 27 and 24. I know I don’t look old enough ! lol . I have a dog, a cocker spaniel called Cadbury . We moved to Felixstowe a year ago for a total life change,we have a caravan holiday home here and spent most of our weekends and holidays here and decided life was too short to be doing jobs we were fed up of and having to wait until retirement so my husband took voluntary redundancy and I gave up work as a Teaching assistant to move. The best thing we have ever done! Only problem is everyone wants to visit us as we live just by the beach! (I’m only joking!).We spend a lot of our time walking Cadbury along the beach and riding our bikes.
I totally love the idea of doing what you have done, you are so right in that life is too short and we should do more of what makes us happy! So tell us Alison, how long have you been crafting and what was the reason behind starting your own little business? I’ve been crafting for as long as I can remember, my mum was a trained seamistress, so she taught me and my two sisters to sew. I did have a very long break, as I got married, had the boys and worked, so I didn’t really take it up fully until I moved to Felixstowe. We had builders in doing an extension and was virtually living in the dining room, we had just bought the beach hut and it needed doing up, so I decided to make curtains, cushions, bunting etc, bought an old singer sewing machine in a cabinet which is fab and off I went, got hooked again, did a car boot and took along a few of my makes, got a really good response, was told about a local shop that rents out shelf space to local crafters and that’s it! Ali B vintage started!
We both know this question is coming…and so do quite a few members of the chatty room….in fact I think I can hear some of them cheering right now as they know I’m going to be asking it it…. Fluffy Bits! We all love your fluffy bits so tell us how they came about! (And for anyone who has stumbled across this interview by chance and is worried about what sort of website it is… we are talking pom pom pals and pets…) My fluffy bits (I’m now stuck with this thanks to Sam from Nimmy’s Jewellery! Chuckle, chuckle!) I think I’m going to trade mark “fluffy bits” I was watching Kirstie Allsopp talking about pompoms and remembered as a child I used to love making them, I think because I was a teaching assistant and had a thing for nice pens, I thought what about pencils with pompom animals and pets to make them more interesting and that’s how they came about.
As well as your fluffy bits, you also make the most beautiful bunting! This includes the most gorgeous mini bunting for bike baskets. I believe you now stock this in a bike shop…. tell us more about how this came about… The bike bunting wasn’t going to be anything I would make to sell, last year I went to the local shop and saw this pink (I love pink!) old fashioned style Rayleigh bike, and bought it, it had a black metal basket on the front and I bought a wicker basket for the front and the owner gave me one for the back, me being me decided to jazz it up and add mini bunting and my mini hearts to the baskets, apparently people had seen me riding up and down the beach and in town and they were going into the shop to ask for them,the owner knew it was me and contacted me and asked me to make them to sell in the shop, how lucky was that!
Let’s talk beach huts…. How much time do you spend in yours and how important has it become to you? Ooooh my beach hut! Aka Ali B vintage headquarters. I absolutely love it, its all decked out vintage. ~We were very lucky to get it because they don’t come up for sale very often. If the suns out, its only just down the road from us to we pop along and have lunch there, sometimes it’s a rather long lunch! Weekends we spend there as well, we have lots of friends in neighbouring huts so its very socialble and well. When we had the storm surges in December, we were there and saw it floating about!I thought we were going to lose it, but luckily we didn’t! we have recently painted it, guess what colour?…..pink!!
A pink beach hut, love it, love it, love it! So tell us, what is your favourite item on your stall right now and why? That’s a hard one, my favourite item, I think its got to be my fluffy bits!! They are very time consuming and fiddly but I enjoy making them. Then I decided to make them into hangers., there are more designs to come! Watch this space!
Burning question and its one that every stall holder of the week must be asked… chocolate or wine… There’s no thinking about that! Definitely chocolate! Everytime, think my dogs name is a dead giveaway! Haha!
Ha! So it is! So tell us, as you do quite a few different types of craft, what 2 crafting tools could you not live without and why…. My old singer sewing machine (in fact I have 3, one for spares and a hand one, in case of a power cut! Lol) and scissors, takes me ages to cut out the bunting!! Don’t trust myself with a rotary cutter!
If you could only pick one stall to be your favourite on the website, which one would it be and why… You can’t ask me to pick just one!!! Everyone of the stalls are fab and if I was a millionaire I would definitely buy from all of them! Favourites are ; Iris gifts and cards, little miss mitton, willow crafts, ajenno by jo, bluebird and daisys BUT I had to pick ONE, it would be Daisy Eliza Designs, her scarves are fab, I have one with different colour flowers and looove it!
Well its been absolutely lovely talking to you Alison, one last question before I let you go back to that fabulous beach hut of yours….. What would you like the future to have in store for Ali B Vintage … Uuummmm, the future for Ali B, it’s a hobby to me so I just want to plod along doing what I’m doing, its just meant to keep me out of mischief , so I’m quite happy with how it is now, sorry if that sounds boring but as I said life’s too short……..
As I’m sure you will agree, Alison was a fabulous choice for the stall holder of the week award! Of course, there are so many other stalls who have been stars over the last week and they deserve a special mention too. Sadly I can’t pick all of them so each week I will pick just 4 and this week, in no particular order, special mentions are going out to….
Before you go…these are a few of my favourite things…. There are so many amazing and gorgeous products on the website, so many talented stall holders! Each week I will picking just a few of my favourites items to share with you and these are just some of them…. Why not take a little time and browse the site to find your own…
If you would like to meet some more stall holders then why not join the group Supermums Chatty Room on Facebook! Its a place for all stall holders to show off their stalls and get to know each other but everyone is welcome to come along and join in the fun. After all, what could be better than chatting and shopping with friends! And please do come back next week to see who has been chosen as the next… Stall Holder Of The Week…. xxx