Spotlight on: Valentine’s Gifts
Romance is in the air at the Farmers’ Market this February as Valentine’s Day falls on Sunday 14th February.
Visit the market in the run-up to find a match made in heaven and pick up some special, one-off gifts, soak up the atmosphere with a coffee and cake and take advantage of SPECIAL VALENTINE”S OFFERS at our new stall The Perfumed Workshop, and The Cotswold Handmade Soap Company!
The Perfumed Workshop: **Special Valentine’s Offer – buy any bottle of natural perfume and receive a complimentary soya candle worth £17!**
New to Stroud Farmers’ Market, The Perfumed Workshop is just the place to go to find an extra special gift. Rebecca Tracey, who runs the stall, has created an extensive range of organic, artisan perfumes, soya candles and room diffusers, all made without chemicals or synthetic substances. In fact, the candles are so pure, you can even use them as moisturisers when warmed! The candles burn smokelessly for 60 hours and come in nine fragrances, including the energising Lemon, Patchouli and Lemongrass, and the warming Petitgrain and Geranium, and are beautifully packaged with dried rosebuds on top, while the perfumes and room diffusers, which are alcohol-free, come in eight gorgeous scents.
LOVE this: The Ambre Essentiel eau de parfum is a sensual blend of patchouli and vanilla to give a deep, woody and mesmerising aroma
The Cotswold Handmade Soap Company: **Special Valentine’s Offer – all candles £10 (usual price £12)**
Sue Collins and her husband John continue to expand their giftware range of natural vegetable oil soaps and soya wax candles. Soap is where it all started and Sue now produces nine natural soaps, made in small batches and cut, trimmed and packaged by hand. The soaps are naturally SLS and paraben free. The candles are contained in pretty glass votives, each burns for 50 hours and they produce no soot; Sue uses a thicker wick to ensure that all of the candle burns evenly and not just down the centre, thus producing less wasted wax. There are 10 candles to choose from with intriguing scents such as Black Pomegranate, Dark Plum, Rose and Patchouli and Mimosa and Mandarin.
LOVE this: the Orange and Cinnamon Soap with its uplifting scent is just the thing for brightening someone’s day!
When James and John Barker couldn’t find a pair of cufflinks they liked, they decided to do something about it – and create their own! Teaching themselves the art of fused glass, they discovered a passion for jewellery-making that has turned into a viable business from their studio in Berkley. They carry a range of jewellery and cufflinks at their stall all year round, including the beautiful dichroic glass heart pendant which has a pretty, unusual, sparkly, metallic effect.
LOVE this: the eye-catching Valentine’s range of red glass pendants with embossed hearts on the inside are all completely unique and come gift-boxed.
Georgie Haywood Driftwood Crafts
Georgie’s talent for creating something beautiful out of what is essentially debris, is astounding. The driftwood she uses for her pictures comes from Porthcawl or Sands Bay near Weston Super Mare, and is the perfect medium if you like the natural look. For Valentine’s Day choose one of the tactile driftwood hearts on canvas, which come in two sizes. Or, if you’re feeling cheeky, Georgie’s ‘Friends with Benefits’ picture showing two sheep, one knitting from the other’s coat, is a must! Georgie has garnered quite a following for her work in depicting animals and also takes commissions.
LOVE this: if you’re looking for a ‘token’ gesture take a look at Georgie’s range of pretty fabric hearts set on canvas.
Tania Harvey Artisan Silver Jewellery
If you don’t like your jewellery too polished, this is the stall for you! Tania’s flair is in creating beautiful jewellery that is not perfect – to create a more rustic look, she will work with textures to produce a beaten or hammered effect or play with oxidisation to create more tonal elements in the pieces. This means that each item is completely unique and has an energy and vibrancy that is quite captivating. Check out the little heart studs that give a quirky edge to the usual silver earrings.
LOVE this: for a big-hearted gift, Tania’s chunky heart pendants with a bar and clasp opening at the front are just the ticket!
Tim Buckingham, co-founder of this long-established kitchen and furniture makers, is a keen advocate of the reduce, re-use, recyle mantra, and it’s this ethos that brings them to Stroud Farmers’ Market every month. On the stall you can find a lovely range of hand-crafted bread boards made from offcuts of oak or beech wood. Each board is individually cut, shaped and sanded, then treated to a coating of pure vegetable oil to ensure it is fit for purpose. They come in various lengths, 30-40mm in depth, but can be made to order, and look out for the new range of platters, longer in length, and slightly thinner, perfect for serving food, and with a handle for hanging them up when you’ve finished.
LOVE this: if food is your first love, take a look at the range of heart-shaped bread boards that come in various sizes.
You can’t go wrong with top quality chocolate for Valentine’s Day and it doesn’t come much better than these amazing Belgian chocolate brownies. Made by hand by Sarah Jaskowska, the brownies are an indulgent way to show someone you care – Fairtrade chocolate and cocoa, sustainable, locally sourced ingredients, all wheat- and gluten-free, these are brownies with bells on! The range of flavours is equally impressive – the difficult thing is deciding when to stop!
LOVE this: specially for Valentine’s, Sarah is producing a keepsake tin containing a selection of nine generous bitesize brownies in three of her most popular flavours – Classic Chocolate, Salted Caramel and Raspberry.
The unseasonally warm December means that there should be a fair few spring flowers ready for Valentine’s Day at this multi-faceted stall, including gorgeous bouquets of home-grown narcissi, anemones and ranunculus. Or you prefer to give something that lasts take a look at the pretty pottery hearts, hand made and decorated with different countryside images.
LOVE this: make a strong statement with a rustic Valentine’s heart, hand crafted form birch with red raffia bows and cranberry mini hearts.
