Spotlight on Heartfelt Handmade

As the creator of Heartfelt Handmade, Marie Kitchen uses felts and fabrics to make a range of lovely personalised name banners, letter hangers and other cute decorations for all occasions, with great attention to detail and a wide range of colours. All her items are hand cut, hand stitched and made-to-order. You are definitely guaranteed an original as no two items are made exactly the same.

Star name banners

Marie's always had a creative streak and is a self-taught stitcher with an unrelated background in the travel business! Going back to work after having her second child was not a suitable option and didn't fit in with her young family anymore. This is when Marie's hobby of making personalised gifts for the children of her friends grew and Heartfelt Handmade was formed in Jan'08 - spreading felty loveliness to the world!.

Heart name banners

Marie sells her items online, on sites specialising in handcrafted products such as Etsy and Folksy, she has also realised the importance of social networking sites in the promotion of her business and tweets on twitter, uploads all new images to flickr , writes her own blog and has a fan page on facebook. The crafting community provides her with fantastic support and inspiration as well as free advice when needed!

'Going Dotty' Letter Hangers

Marie will have a selection of her name banners on show at the fayre, all are made to order and if you place an order on the day, Fri 12th June, there will be no p&p charges applied. Why not buy a raffle ticket and be in with a chance of winning one of Marie's beautiful name banners?.

All the wonderful raffle prizes have been donated by the stall holders and proceeds go to our local charity, Pepper. Raffle tickets can be purchased on the day or prior to the fayre at most of Berkhamsted's Junior schools, toddler groups and you may even see us along the High Street handing out our flyers and spreading the word.

Hair clip Tidy

Other handcrafted items to be found on Heartfelt Handmade's stall are these handy hair clip tidies (with pockets for bobbles and bands too). Having two little girls was enough motivation and inspiration for making these, hair clips were found all over the house prior to their creation.

Birdy Birdy Tweet Tweet hangies

You can also pick up a cute birdie to hang from a peg anywhere in your house - such cuteness!

Tooth Fairy Pillow Monsters (but not scary!)

There will also be a range of alternative tooth fairy pillows in the form of Mr or Mrs Monster inspired by Marie's wobbly toothed 5 year old, Maddie. They have a clever pocket on them to place a tooth in which doubles up as somewhere safe to stash the cash from the generous tooth fairy (cash not included!).

Marie welcomes all custom orders and in the past she has customised a bread bin for a wedding - instead of a wedding list the couple had requested help towards the cost of their honeymoon - hence the bread bin - somewhere to place all that dough! She has also made party favours such as dino badges and cupcake hangers and takes great pleasure in making such special mementos.

Dotty Dino badges and cutesy Cupcake Hangies

There are plenty more mama spotlights to come, so please keep reading our blog as we countdown to our first Bumps, Babes & Beyond Fayre.

Love

MTAM

x

Spotlight on Nevie-Pie Cakes

Bird House

Natasha Collins, aka Nevie-Pie Cakes, is another one of our very talented Mamas. The creator of some truly amazing cakes and cookies. Make yourself a cuppa, pull up a pew and try not to dribble over your keyboard too much!

Ben 10 and Angelina Ballerina painted cookies

Natasha studied Graphic Design and specialised in illustration. After working for a year as an illustrator she fell into textile design and loved it. Her hand painted cookies and cakes are a testament to her talents as an illustrator. All are beautifully painted and in such detail, it's seems a shame to eat them!


Fairy Cake and painted '60' cake

After Natasha had her two gorgeous little girls, she found she wasn't able to go back to work as a textile designer but was desperate to unleash all her pent up creativity!

Chocolate mud cakes and pink swirl cupcake

Over the last few years Natasha has become more and more adventurous when making her daughters' birthday cakes and finally last September she took the plunge and set up her own cake business, Nevie-Pie Cakes.

Pirate and Underwater cakes

Natasha had discovered a technique of painting on cakes which can create something very unique, and is a great way to use all her surface pattern skills. She also discovered a talent for making figures from sugar paste, anything from Makka Pakka to Troy Bolton!

The Tailor of Gloucester cake

As well as cakes Natasha makes cookies on sticks which are great for party bags. Natasha says, "I love being involved in people's special occasions and it is great to hear back from my clients how pleased the recipients of my cakes have been."

Four and twenty blackbirds cake

Natasha's cakes and cookies will be for sale at the Bumps, Babes and Beyond Fayre, how can anyone resist a mud cake or two?

MTAM

x

Spotlight on MILLSY

Today's More Than a Mama spotlight shines upon Georgina North and her business MILLSY.

Personalised bath towel, flannel and apron

MILLSY products include beautifully personalised aprons, flannels and bath towels. Each letter is hand cut from a huge range of gorgeous fabrics and appliqueed onto wonderfully soft 100% cotton bath towels and flannels as well as lovely crisp white aprons.

Lettering can be made from a beautiful range of fabrics and colours

Which little child doesn't love to have items that are theirs and theirs only? There will be no mixing up of towels and flannels at bath time nor aprons at bake time with these wonderful products.

Perfect gift for Fathers Day

Before 'MILLSY', Georgina could be found in the City, working for a global investment bank within their Human Resources department. Whilst on maternity leave, she turned creative and started up MILLSY as a hobby. Then the recession came along and Georgina was made redundant.

Flannels never need to be mixed up again!

MILLSY was launched as a business earlier this year and has been keeping Georgina busy alongside her two gorgeous and energetic boys aged 3 and a half, and 14 months.

More fabulous More Than a Mama mamas to come!

We will keep you posted.

Love from

MTAM

x

Spotlight on the Mamas - Stealing Candy

To give you a taste of what to expect at the Bumps, Babes & Beyond Fayre we will be spotlighting all the members of More Than a Mama along with their products, as well as our other fabulous sellers, in the run up to the fayre.

Our first product spotlight is on ....Stealing Candy ........



(baby shoes from Toby Tiger)
Jo Esson, the founder of Stealing Candy, has been running her wonderful website, selling baby clothes, toys and accessories for ages 0-4 and has sourced a range of fun and funky fabulous fashions, a bright explosion of colour and cool, with many items made from organic cotton.

(Rainbow stripe baby clothes from Toby Tiger)

Babies definitely stand out from the crowd in these super stripy sleep suits and dresses from Toby Tiger, made from 100% super soft organic cotton.

(Organics range - items sold separately)
Fancy going all dotty instead? This Organics range offers super soft sleep suits, bandana bibs, hats and blankets. Also available in pink dots.

(Elephants by Toby Tiger / Pelicans (or Storks as we like to call them) by ej sikke lej).
Or if animals are your thing, look at this elephantastic sleep suit and the ever popular 'stork' pattern.

Stealing Candy also offers soft toys that are so incredibly cute, it's hard to choose which ones to show you. These are from the Kathe Kruse range, horse and monster rattles and soft duck and giraffe. Irresistibly sweet.

Stealing Candy offers free gift wrapping on all online orders and free delivery on orders over £40. Orders taken at the fayre will receive free postage. Be sure to check out Jo's SALE basket too, plenty of bargains to be had.

We leave you with these luscious fairy tutu's. They have petals inside them...wow...I think we'd all have liked one of these when we were little.

Jo has been instrumental in making The Bumps, Babes & Beyond Fayre a reality and brought us 'More Than a Mama' mamas altogether for our first meeting at her home earlier in the year. All this whilst running her own business and being a full-time mama to her wonderful children, William, aged 5, and Martha, aged 4.

Check back soon for our next More Than A Mama product spotlight......and don't forget, you can check out the sellers websites in the meantime, just click on their logos on the right of this page.

See you soon!

MTAM x

Welcome to More Than A Mama

What's all this about then? Well, look at these amazing products..... all designed, made and/or sold by members of 'More Than a Mama', a collective of Berkhamsted mumpreneurs juggling babies and children (and husbands) with their own businesses.

We will be showcasing our own creations and wares, along with a wealth of other stall holders, at regular events throughout the year, starting with our summer 'Bumps, Babes and Beyond Fayre' taking place at The Town Hall, High Street, Berkhamsted on Friday 12th June from 9.30am till 12 noon. Hope to see you there.










'More Than a Mama' mamas.