Kingfisher Flowers

Sally Baker of Kingfisher flowers is a woman of many talents - among other things she runs community allotments, teaches creative writing and is a published poet. But her passion is growing organic flowers so she's started a business doing just that.

Her beautiful sunny allotment is a peaceful plot that buzzes with life and colour although sometimes too many visitors want to share it with her.  "We've had birds and beasts of every kind, some are more welcome than others, but it's encouraging to see that it's a healthy environment."

Sally supplements what she can grow by buying seasonal British flowers and using foliage from hedgerows, (having asked permission from landowners of course!) She creates simple informal arrangements for all sorts of occasions and is happy to work with clients, sharing her skills and using material from their own gardens.  Another speciality is succulents and she'll be running terrarium workshops at the Egg Factory in the spring.

Meanwhile at the Egg Factory Christmas event on December 13th Sally will be helping customers make their own festive wreaths. Come along and get your fingers green!

Looking at the Lockharts

Louise with her products

When Louise Lockhart got her degree in Visual Communications she decided to make a start on her lifetime's mission - to illustrate every surface on the planet! And so the printed Peanut  was born. Based in Hebden Bridge Louise is now selling a prolific range of items from t shirts and soap to prints and party games, all decorated with her colourful exciting designs.
Some she produces herself but she's aiming at becoming the head designer of her own brand. "I've done a collaboration with Donna Wilson and I'd really like to run my business along the same lines getting the products made for me by UK small batch manufacturers."

Although Louise doesn't want a shop of her own she's become a dab hand at the pop up. With her mum Lizzie, recently retired from running the Art Foundation course at Bradford College, she's joined with several other local artists to form Hebden Pop ups.   Lizzie, "the bargain queen", sources interesting curiosities on her travels, and also contributes her own handmade textiles.  They both like the idea of targeting festival times when visitors and locals are looking to buy and made quite an impact at On Reflection hair salon the day le Tour came to Hebden Bridge.

Tour de France by Lizzie Lockhart.

So we're pleased that Lizzie and Louise will be subscribers to the Egg Factory, mostly using the screen printing facilities.  They'll also be popping up at the Egg Factory for the Christmas event on December 13th with fun things for customers to make and do, as well as a goodly range of delights for last minute presents.  Looking forward to seeing what they come up with!

Louise with friend Charlotte Meacham at last year's Christmas pop up shop

Some thoughts on crowdfunding

We all do our bit on the social media at Made in the Valley but this crowdfunding malarkey is making me realise how much I operate in a comfort zone. You've got to get outside it, fast! It's by turns exhilarating and scary, sticking your neck above the parapet. Gulp....

We've had some brilliant pledges so far for which we'll be eternally grateful people.  Meanwhile, put kettle on Mother, let's do another tweet (or is it twit, or twat even??) 

We're Here!

When the Made in the Valley team went looking for a new home last year we never expected to actually find one.  But we did - straight away! It was flat! It had parking! It was big!  (Erm, too big? Never fear, Wood and Wire needed a new home too, so we split it in two.)

We got cleaning and painting and transformed it from this....



To this



And we decided to go down the coworking route, creating a making and doing centre for startups and homeworkers to incubate their businesses.

We're nearly ready to open our doors properly and we're launching a crowd funding campaign next week to get us on our way.

Watch this space!