All of the above are available to buy from Makers Online, a new portal championing designer / makers. There are no joining or listing fees; a small commission is taken on each purchase. Therefore, you don’t start paying until you make a sale.

Products are displayed prominently rather then being buried under several layers of navigation and there is a link to each maker on the home page of the site. Shoppers can find what they’re looking for quickly and with minimum fuss and there’s free shipping throughout the UK.

For further information go to www.makers-online.co.uk.

Pics (clockwise from top left):

Blue Vintage Ceramic Brooch by ItsAlchemy

Little Turtle Cushion by Simon Seabright

Betty Purse by Nicola De Cruz

Mine Stacking Rings by Kalicat

Hannah Zakari is 5 on Friday (16th October). To celebrate they have set up an online gift hunt. Visit the Hannah Zakari website to be in with a chance of winning one of their fabulous prizes. Every day, starting Monday, there will be a different gift hidden somewhere on the website. To enter you need to track it down.

Hannah Zakari was the first online boutique of its kind in the UK and has been selling indie designs since 2004. Happy Birthday Hannah Zakari.

For more information visit the Hannah Zakari blog at www.hannahzakari.blogspot.com.

PS I haven’t forgotten about the ‘My Habitat’ feature. What I did forget was to bring my camera to work today. I’ll be posting tomorrow.

Betsey Loves is a quirky little boutique selling pretty jewels and accessories. It’s a showcase of the beautiful and brilliant wares of independent designers and crafty creators from around the globe. Betsey loves vintage, kitsch and retro. And so do we.

Current designers include Bedcrumb, MUKU, Pina Colada, Wonderland, Orla n Eva, Coveted, Crash & Burn and the site’s signature brand Betsey Boutique Jewellery. They’re always on the look out for new and exciting designers and so do get in touch if you think your work fits their style.

The boutique offers lots of choice and there are some real gems to be found. Check it out at www.betseyloves.com.

At the end of August the Bonbi Forest Indie Emporium will close its doors. Well, sort of. It will no longer sell the work of lots of independent designers. The focus will be solely on the Bonbi Forest brand. Owner / designer Lee May Foster has lots of exciting things planned. She explains, ‘The store has grown and grown over the last 2 years that it has been open and now has nearly 60 designers supplying their wonderful goodies. . . . along with the growth and its success it has also meant that there has been a big increase in the amount of work it takes to keep it running smoothly and efficiently and it really is just a bit too much for this one designer to keep running on her own, as well as keep on making and creating new and fresh and lovely things.’

Lee May will relaunch in September with a whole host of new tees, accessories, jewels and art. Before then you can take advantage of a 15% discount. Just type in BYEBYE when prompted at the checkout. But be quick. There are only a few days left.

Go to www.bonbiforest.com.

Good luck Lee May.

Sarah Bagner, aka Supermarket Sarah, waved goodbye to the corporate world and set up shop in her own home. She sells a hodge-podge of vintage clothes, weird and wonderful objects and exclusive new designers’ work. The opening page of Sarah’s website is her living room wall. This changes regularly with different themes and inspirations. Hover over the images to buy them. But be quick. Sarah has a keen eye for quirky, eccentric knick-knacks and they don’t last long.

Current designers include Mel Elliot, Mrs D’arcy, Victoria Grant and The Whistling Chair.

Find Sarah at Portobello Market or at www.supermarketsarah.com. Perfect for Friday afternoon browsing!

The next six week course to be held at Urbis, Introducton to Surface Pattern and Decoration, is now open for bookings. The course will introduce you to ways of creating 2D patterns of your own, for use on textiles or other decorative surfaces. The course content includes:

- selecting appealing images/shapes of your preference
- producing compositional studies based on these images
- looking at the work of Raoul Dufy, a Fauvist painter, who also had success as a textile designer
- viewing some of the history of the Arts and Crafts movement, predominated by the work of William Morris

Most of each two hour session will be spent on practical work, with some sessions involving viewing brief presentations on relevant artists or designers. You will have the opportunity to try a variety of 2D techniques. All materials will be provided.

When: Tuesday 9th June, Tuesday 16th June, Wednesday 24th June, Wednesday 1st July, Tuesday 7th July, Tuesday 14th July (6 - 8pm)
Where: Urbis, Manchester
Cost: £60 payable by cheque or cash in advance of first session. £55 concessions (students, those in receipt of state pension or income support)
To Book: Email a.owen@urbis.org.uk and provide your name, age, telephone number and email address and briefly describe whether you have any previous experience of creative activities. Alternatively call Amy on 0161 605 8261.

A fascinating day in the life of feature about Masao and Deanne from TokyoMade. If you’re not familiar with them already you should definitely check out their online shop. They sell a range of cool clothes, accessories and gifts all made by Tokyo based designers. And they have recently started a Flickr Group called TokyoMade Street Style.

Here’s their day.

We (Masao and Deanne) spend our days on Tokyo time which has a weird way of making life seem like there is only 5 hours in a day but 25 hours worth of excitement to get through, leaving very little time for sleep. Lucky for us we are both night owls, clicking away at the mouse until the very early hours of the morning.

Each day starts out quite early for Masao, he is usually up with his soy latte and a good book or fashion magazine sitting in the sun on our balcony well before I even entertain thoughts of the day. I usually spend a bit of bleary eyed time rolling around on the futon until I come to terms with what day it is and what a cool life I live here in this wild, illuminated city of Tokyo. Before long the day is underway for both of us and that usually means spending the morning glued to our Macs, checking in on orders, updates, emails, writing blogs and product descriptions etc.

Our office is designed so we sit side by side at a long white desk. Masao’s end looks neat, organised and efficient. Mine is none of those things but it is colorful and there is no end of things to look at and move around. We love the contrast and appreciate that we work in different ways, it is part of what keeps our spirits high while working, living and playing together. So while Masao clicks away in the admin area of TokyoMade checking orders, emails and site organisation at his neat and tidy work station I scribble blog ideas down on brightly colored paper and stare in wonder at the growing pile of gorgeous pieces I have to write product descriptions about.

The door bell rings most mornings, it is usually our delivery guy dropping off bits and pieces. The EMS postal system is superb here, super efficient. At any time between 9am and 7pm we call up the local post office and they come with their scales and pick up parcels to be sent around the world. All the weighing and paying gets done right in our genkan (the entrance to Japanese houses or apartments where the shoes are left). If we are not wrapped and packed by 7pm Masao usually jumps on his bike with TokyoMade packages and heads for the post office which is open 24 hours, the convenience of the system is extremely helpful.

After lunch is usually a good time for us to head out into the human traffic and have our meet ups in cafes and spaces around Tokyo. Masao spends a lot of his time connecting with Japanese designers and checking out interesting places around town. Most weeks he meets up with Guy Perryman, a Tokyo Radio DJ, together they interview TokyoMade designers and feature them on Guy’s radio program Tokyo Expresso.

Evenings are a mixture of events for us. I teach my Hoop Dance (www.hooplovers.com) classes or rehearse most nights while Masao checks out Tokyo’s events or comes home to work on both the English and Japanese versions of TokyoMade and whip up a mean veggie soup. The day comes full circle and we are usually back where it all started, glued to our Macs, by about 11pm every night. While it is usually time to put our bodies and computers to sleep by about 3am I don’t think we ever really switch off. You could say Masao is completely obsessed with TokyoMade, a healthy obsession! He definitely never switches off, I adore his passion and commitment. I have to admit I switch off while hoop dancing, my other love.

TokyoMade was a dream that we manifested together and now work endlessly on together. It is so exciting for us to watch it grow. We love working together on such a creative project and feel very lucky to be able to do so. The best thing about running a design hub is we get to meet so many talented designers here in Tokyo. The design events that we have to go to (it’s our job!) are pretty cool too. It feels great to know that we are sharing what we love here in Tokyo with the rest of the world. Setting our own schedule and being in charge of our own lives is definitely one of the perks of running an independent business.

There are some days when we spend so much time staring at our computer screens that we actually have to turn to each other and say, “Hi! Remember me?”. That is probably the least lovable thing about working on TokyoMade.

- - - - - -
Thank you Deanne and Masao.

Here are those links again:

TokyoMade - www.tokyomade.com
HoopLovers - www.hooplovers.com
TokyoMade Street Style Flickr Group - www.flickr.com/groups/tokyomade

For the last two years Indie Fixx Shop has been delighting and tempting us with an abundance of unusual and inspiring handmade goods. I was therefore sorry to hear that on 15th March it will be closing its shutters to allow shop owner Jen to spend more time with family and on new pursuits.

Until then everything is on sale. All items have been marked down between 10% and 50%.

Be quick. Items are selling fast! www.shop.indiefixx.com