The Craft Fantastic

This time we chatted with Jenni from The Craft Fantastic; a Northampton-based wedding flower, paper craft and bookbinding company.

She makes a wide range of papercrafts, including “hand bound notebooks, journals” as well as origami flowers to sell on her Etsy shop.

Jenni always had a passion for making things and a few years ago taught herself book binding, and being a notebook addict she realised that she loved this type of craft right from the start.

“A couple of years ago I made origami flowers for a friend’s wedding. While I was doing it, I realised how much I love working with my hands and creating things. After the company I was working for changed direction, I decided it was a good time to start my business properly.”

But it isn’t just papercrafts that Jenni is interested in, crafting is something that she has always done. “I love being creative and have done lots of different crafts since I was young. Clay modelling, knitting, painting and of course origami. I remember I even used to make mini books for my toys!”

“Papercrafting is the one I’ve stuck with over the years, while other crafts have come and gone. With origami, the fact that you can take a flat square of paper and with the right folds turn it into a 3D flower is very satisfying!”

If you visit The Craft Fantastic website, you will notice that they sell lots of cute and colourful products. When asked where the inspiration comes from, Jenni said that she gets it “from the different materials I have on hand.”

“I do a lot of up-cycling. I love reusing things to make small batches of unique items, rather than bulk-buying in new materials and doing large batches of the same things. The miniature books I make are from off-cuts of my full-size notebooks.”

As we mentioned earlier, The Craft Fantastic make papercrafts for weddings and they have already started taking orders for 2018. A firm favourite for brides and grooms are the bouquets with sheet music as they are “just a bit different and use a neutral colour, so they mix in well with any colour scheme.”

In November, Jenni attended a craft fair where she sold lots of Christmas stock, including paper baubles and festive centrepieces, as well as gift boxes for her notebooks. She is now concentrating on her final orders before Christmas, before she relaxes (at least for a little while!).

When she isn’t crafting, The Craft Fantastic’s “captain” enjoys playing the piano, guitar and occasionally singing, and going along to open mics and local gigs. She has a music degree and worked in this industry before setting up her business, so this is still something she likes to get involved with.

Jenni plans to spend 2018, and the years to follow, working on her business. “Onwards and upwards! I’m only in my second year of business, so I’m still building both my products and my client base.”

As the interview came to a close, we asked Jenni one final question; why insurance is so important to craft businesses like her own. She said; “If you’re doing this seriously you need to have something in place and having a company that understands what you need as a creative business is important.”

“Insurance is essential if you’re planning to do craft fairs, as many organisers insist on product liability.”

The CraftCover team would like to thank Jenni from The Craft Fantastic for getting involved with our Crafter in the Spotlight. We really enjoyed learning about your papercraft business and wish you all of the luck for the future!