Vintage Champagne Bustle by Talulahblue

Fashion designers of Folksy have been invited to enter a rather swanky competition this week. In a new television series for Sky Living, pop superstar Rihanna will be searching the UK for the next generation of raw, undiscovered designer talent and has picked Girls Aloud singer Nicola Roberts to head up the challenge for her. Sky Living announced:

Over eight weeks twelve unknown designers will be challenged by Rihanna and Nicola to create outfits for a string of musicians and celebrities. The show will celebrate the extraordinary talent and creativity in the British fashion scene. With Rihanna, a fashion icon herself, and Nicola, who created her own Dainty Doll make-up range, at the helm, the show will recognise the increasing influence popstars have on mainstream trends.

The final challenge and ultimate task for the winner will be to design a unique stage outfit for Rihanna’s Wireless performance in Hyde Park in July 2012. The chance to dress one of the world’s most famous women for an event that will attract worldwide coverage is the perfect springboard for the aspiring designer’s future fashion career.

If you think you’re up to the challenge then visit Sky Living or e-mail applications@twentytwenty.tv

Applications must be received by Wednesday 15 February. Womenswear, menswear and accessories designers welcome. Filming takes place over 8 weeks in the UK from April 2012. Good luck!

Here are the lucky winners….

- Kate Bowles
- Zebedee
- Astrid Weigel

Congratulations to all 3 winners and a huge thank you to everyone who submitted work.  You will be able to read all about what happens on our visit to the Maker Faire event in the September Monthly Update post on the blog, watch out for that on Monday 5th September.

Folksy is very pleased to announce that we will be sponsoring our first event on 3rd September – the Mini Maker Faire in Brighton.  As this is a special occasion (and because it’s been far too long since our last one) we’ve decided to hold a competition to celebrate.

We want to show the public attending the event, the wealth of amazing craft and design that our Folksy sellers produce so we’ll be constructing a large Folksy artwork to display on the day.  We want this to be a visual representation of what Folksy is – a huge number of individual sellers which together make one big talented community, so what better way to represent this than constructing the artwork using work by our sellers.

The piece will be assembled on the day of the event and the public will be helping us construct the huge artwork by choosing where the pieces will go.  The event will then be documented and brought back to Sheffield to be displayed proudly in the Folksy office.

How to enter

To enter please make one small object which we can attach to our Folksy artwork.  The item can be made from anything, we’d love to see a wide variety of crafts from all our sellers.

• Items can follow any theme or colour and can be made from anything as long as it’s no bigger than 10cm.
• Please don’t make the item too heavy though as it has to be attached to the piece.
• If the item is made from a solif material such as wood or ceramic then it would help us construct the artwork if there was a handle or hook to attach it.
• Please note, pieces cannot be returned to you as they will form part of a permanent work.

What can you win?

When all entries have arrived we will pick * 5 of our favourite items 3 of our favourite items and the lucky winners will each be given a whole day to have their shop displayed as the featured items on the front page of Folksy.  We will be featuring a different seller each day so up to 15 items from your shop will be displayed on the homepage of Folksy all day.  These special sets of featured items will be displayed in the week running up to the event from Monday 29th August to Friday 2nd September.  This is a first for Folksy, we’ve never featured a whole shop as our featured picks so this is a great opportunity to have your shop showcased.  If there aren’t quite enough items listed in one of the chosen shops then we will pair up two sellers and display both their items together.  We will also promote these sellers through our blog throughout the week.

Closing date

All items must arrive in the Folksy office no later than Thursday 25th August.  Please send your items to:

Maker Faire Competition
Folksy Ltd
217 Portobello
Sheffield
S1 4DP

Good luck to everyone, we can’t wait to see all the wonderful work!

* Please note:  We are choosing 3 items, not 5, as there were 3 overwhelming winners voted for by staff, the rest of the votes were split across the remaining entries.

What’s a blog badge? It’s a little picture that Folksy fans can add to their blog or website to show that they sell, shop or generally support Folksy. We’ve had some for a while but it would be great to have some new ones that really sum up the diversity and talent on Folksy.

The brief

Design a new blog badge for Folksy. The badges measure 200 x 140 pixels. You can use the Folksy logo if you like, but it’s not mandatory.

It should be a great advert for Folksy which will be used around the web, so think about how to make something so fantastic that people can’t help but click on it to visit the site. We’re looking for four different types of badges that could include:

• a generic advert for a seller’s shop (similar to the ‘Find me on Folksy’) badges
• an advert for shopping on Folksy
• a celebration of a particular style or craft
• an endorsement for buying handmade on Folksy

All other ideas that fit this brief will be gratefully received.

The badges must be submitted as a 200 x 140 graphic, but the image can be made from anything you like. You could use a graphics package like Illustrator or Photoshop, or you could paint, sculpt, knit, crochet, embroider (or make in any other way) something and scan it/take a photo of it which will work at that size. It’s a small size so whatever it is needs to be clear, but be creative!

We’ll be looking for badges that:

• look good (duh!)
• serve as a good advert for Folksy (so not too cheeky and no rude words please!)
• have a bit of personality – like our sellers
• reflect the variety of styles and crafts on Folksy – so celebrate your craft or niche

Judging and prizes

Four winners will be picked by the Folksy team (that’s James, Rob, Anne, Andrew and Toni) on 31 May 2010. The four winners will receive free listings for one year (this doesn’t include exemption from commission fees, and four-runners-up can choose between a set of free business card or mini-cards from MOO. (Thanks MOO – we love you!)

The winning badges will be added to the blog badges page with a credit and link to the winners’ Folksy shops.

How to enter

To enter, add your finished file to The Folksy Blog Badge Competition pool on Flickr by 30 May 2010. If you don’t have a Flickr account, send the file to be@folksy.com and we’ll upload it for you.

Maximum 3 entries per person.

• Sharon Burn (who is Daisies Are Our Silver on Folksy)
• Julia Haigh
• Nicola Munro

Congratulations to the winners who all receive a cracking bag of goodies from the participating shops. Thanks to Fee for organising it all and to all the sellers and searchers who took part.

It’s a shame it’s all over but at least there are no more egg puns for another year…

It’s that time of year again – time to get cracking with an Easter Treasure Hunt. Folksy seller Niche has organised a fantastic competition where there are great prizes to be won. Simply look through Folksy to find the shops where the Easter treasure is hidden.

To take part, look out for special Easter eggs on the shop banners across Folksy. There are thirty-three eggs of three different colours (pink, yellow and blue). Find eleven eggs of the same colour and email a list of the shop names to folksytreasurehunt@gmail.com for your chance to win one of three goody bags filled with fabulous Folksy goodies worth up to £100! Find all three groups of eggs for more chances to win.

Winners will be announced on 5 April. Happy hunting everyone!

The A4 Draw is a fantastic competition being run by South Essex College. A £4 ticket buys the chance to win an original A4 piece of artwork by established artists and graphic design students from the college.

There are entries from Rob Ryan, Gemma Correll, Folksy sellers Amy Blackwell and Lucy Player and many many more. You can see the selection on The A4 Draw blog.

Funds raised will help the BA (Hons) Graphic Design group to fund their graduate exhibitions this summer at the South Essex College graduate show, New Designers and D&AD New Blood. Tickets are only available from The A4 Draw Folksy shop until Thursday 11 March. Winners will be drawn at random on 12 March.

Good luck to all who enter. Let us know if you win!

The voting also closed last night on the People’s Choice category of the competition. And so, as at 10pm yesterday, the item with the most ‘favourites’ was…

Ingrid, from Rose Lullaby Dolls, with 85 votes.

Congratulations to Rose! She’ll be invited to join the other winners in showcasing her portfolio of work in the Sue Ryder Care store in Camden in February. And, of course, if you’d like to own Ingrid, you can bid for her over at eBay.

A big mention too for the two runners-up, which were the Vintage fabric and glass bead necklace from coolmummy and “Winter Girl” Recycled Stained Glass Panel from Through The Round Window – both beautiful items.

Well done again to all the winners – and remember to keep bidding on the eBay auctions…

The judges all came back today with their choices in the four categories (Update: see also the peoples’ choice winner). So, without further ado the winners of the four categories are: