Mathilda's Market Blog: Our 'Fabulous Finds' program

You may recall our exciting new initiative for 2010 called the 'Fabulous Finds' program. This program supports and showcases fledgling, up-and-coming designers and creators of baby and kids products. Why are we doing this? Well, at Mathilda's Market, we love the people and products that are part of the handmade / craft community, and we also understand the difficulties of starting up a small venture. So at every single Mathilda‘s Market, we‘ll be offering a stall for the reduced price of $50 to TWO fresh and exciting businesses. We hope being part of Mathilda's Market will give these businesses a great kick-start and help them grow.

We have been gleefully receiving and trawling through the applications and we're proud to reveal our first "home made batch” of Fabulous Finds:

Name: Salena Knight
Business: Flower Child
Market: Paddington Town Hall, Sydney - Saturday 6 March 2010

As the owner of Flower Child, Salena has designed a range of simple-but-cute clothing that harks back to when times were a bit simpler. The range caters for children from newborns to size 2. For little lassies, she has created pinny's and reversible wrap dresses, which can be worn back-to-front or front-to-front, with bloomers to match! For the lads, Salena has a nappy knickers (nappy covers) and shorts are in the pipeline.

Name: Linda Marek

Business: Delilah Devine

Market: Loreto College, Adelaide - Saturday 6 March, 2010

With a textile background, Linda desperately felt she needed to keep herself occupied, so she started Delilah Devine. The Delilah Devine product range is diverse and includes brooches, decals, wall art, etc. Her range is inspired by a love of vintage patterns and a seemingly endless fascination with scavenging the hard rubbish collection ...! Each item is hand made, featuring limited edtion vintage materials. All are a little different from each other (just like us, really). Linda has oodles of enthusiasm and determination and with this, she's learning to love the business side of things too! We think Delilah Devine is quite unique in its crossover appeal to both kids and adults. (Linda finds that adults often buy her artworks that she created with children in mind!) Linda outsources the laser cutting of her brooches, but every piece is hand finished. The stunning vintage wallpapers she uses are sourced from all sorts of wonderful places and are generally off cuts and end rolls so each run is limited.

Name: Elise Roka

Business: Quite Contrary Designs

Market: Hawthorn Town Hall, Melbourne, Sunday 14 March 2010

Quite Contrary is art for little girls! Elise hand illustrates fabric buttons which are then crafted into beautiful, highly original necklaces. But who says you have to wear them around your neck? They also make sweet little art pieces to hang up in a bedroom! No two are ever the same. Elise's illustrations for the Quite Contrary range are inspired by nursery rhymes, animals, fairytales and various little messages. Necklaces are the main feature of this collection, although Elise has started to branch out into hair ties and clips, by popular request. In future, she plans to include little boys in the fun, with hand knitted scarves and hats adorned with illustrated buttons.