Inspirational Road Trip

I recently went on a road trip with my friend to Cardiff, Wales, to see Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds.

While we were there we took the opportunity to do a bit of sight seeing as we had never been to Cardiff before.

We went down to Cardiff Bay for a look round and I found so many wonderful little shops and attractions that have just filled me with ideas!

The first place we visited was The Wales Millennium Centre where the tourist centre was selling a lot of local gifts, such as slate tiles and coaster, welsh honey, and other novelty items.  I bought a lovely butterfly bottle top from here as a gift for my parents.
The centre also houses the Portmeirion Gift Shop.  These sold a variety of gifts and items that I loved.  They have an on line store here.  I was really inspired by a few items of their stationary, particularly a writing folder made from oil cloth with a map pattern.  Unfortunately I cannot find it on their website now, but yesterday went on a fabric shopping trip and saw some oil cloth with a map pattern so am contemplating whether to buy the fabric to make myself something similar.  Decisions decisions......

The next place we went was Craft in the Bay, the Makers Guild in Wales.  This was full of all manners of items from glass to ceramics, textiles to jewellery.  I loved it here, and would highly  recommend anyone into crafts visit here.  I saw various things I would like to have a go at making myself, such as intricately decorating hanging hearts to fabric jewellery and fabric/stitched wall hangings.

The picture shows items made by a textile artist called Susan Smith, links are also available for many more crafters part of the makers guild on the website.

We also visited the Norwegian Church Art Centre where they had an exhibition on by Andrew Coslett "Made in Penarth".  They were also showing some very interesting jewellery using colouring pencil but sharpened to about 1 cm long.  They were very cute!

The last attraction we visited was Lightship 2000.  Originally built as a light ship, it was bought by Cardiff Bay and restored to be a floating Christian Centre.  You can walk around all the areas of the boat, including the engine room, old sleeping quarters and light tower.  There is also a cafe on board, and a chapel that is still in use for services.

There were also a few independent craft boutiques within Mermaid Quay of the bay, including Zia and Fabulous Welshcakes to name a few with websites.  For the rest I highly recommend you visit!

Until next time, happy Crafting <3

xxx