We are very excited about the markets and the general happenings on St Peter’s Street, hopefully a lot more on that later.

So here we are, dates for your diary this year

Sunday 24th June – St Peters Street Summer Market

Saturday 18th August & Sunday 19th August - St Peters Street Maritime Weekender

Sunday 18th November – St Peters Christmas Market.

We will be sending out details of how to apply soon. If you have applied for a market before you will get an email from us, if you haven’t and want to be included then drop us an email with details about yourself to imakefunstuff@googlemail.com and we’ll add you to the list.

The application process is now live, please visit our Application page for information.

Deadline is Friday 30th September.

We will contact successful applicants the following week ending Friday 7th October.

Exciting things are happening at our favourite local independent business LoveOne. Over the summer, while owner Cathy Frost was enjoying her well deserved summer holidays some hardworking builders added a beautiful staircase, now as i’m sure you all know, stairs must lead somewhere and that’s true here too! LoveOne now has an upstairs! 2 new first floor rooms, one showcasing retro and vintage homewares and more furniture! And a back room, now home to the talented Maria of Mimibellatree. Maria will be offering very affordable craft workshops in her new cosy surroundings. You can find a workshop list with dates and prices on her website.

Cathy is delighted with her new floor, new stock and new ventures in offering workshops at LoveOne. Things just keep getting better down this end of town, other independent businesses unique to Ipswich on St Peter’s Street include…

Maud’s Attic

Baiss & Co

Hanks & Salmon

Purity

I Scream

Marianna

Rovian Sports

Diablo Ink

Myrtle and Mint

Gandhi Indian Restaurant

The Thomas Wolsey (Previously Bar 4)

Elizabeth Pawle is an illustrator and printmaker. She has sold her work at previous I Make Fun Stuff markets but has recently been absent from our events because she brought her beautiful baby Wilfred into the world. Now her little chap is growing up Elizabeth is finding the time to be creative again and make work to sell in her Etsy shop.

She is also moving in a new direction and has turned some of her illustrations into badges. Above is the polar bear, but he is only one of a variety of characters Elizabeth has been busy making.

We’re hoping she’ll be back with us soon for the Christmas Market!

This weekend our friends in the North, Norfolk that is, are holding the Clutter City Summer Fete in Norwich at the Norwich Arts Centre on St Benedicts Street.

They are just like us, they love all things handmade and arty so if you are heading up to Norwich this weekend go and see what delights they have to offer. Or make a special trip just to go to Clutter City.

You will find a couple of I Make Fun Stuff regulars there too, Canny Belle and Cuppa Tea and Cake so stop by and say hello to them too!

The St Peter’s Street Summer Market was a tremendous success, we’ve grown up a lot since last year. This year featured many more stalls, a wider range of things going on and most importantly a lot more visitors. We were busy from 10am until we started packing up, so a huge thank you to all who came along.

Special thank yous go firstly to Seven for allowing us to put a banner on their railings at the end of St Peter’s Street to help promote the event. We are absolutely certain having it in such a prominant position made a massive difference to the number of people who came along.

Secondly we’d like to thank Ben Gummer MP and various local councillors for attending and showing their support to our cause and allowing us to show them that there is an independent side to Ipswich’s retail future that shouldn’t be ignored!

A large thank you also goes to IP-Art and to Ipswich Cenetral who have shown massive support to what we do and have made our jobs a lot easier over the last two years. A particular thank you goes to the Ipswich Central Street Rangers for being available throughout the day.

Finally and maybe most importantly to our wonderful stall holders for taking the time to come and sell their amazing products. We literally couldnt do this without you!

We’ve got some brilliant photos that we will share with you soon but for now, thank you everyone!

Things have been a little quiet on here in recent weeks but that is only because we’ve been so busy making sure that all is ready for our next event. The St Peter’s Street Summer Market that is taking place, funnily enough, on St Peter’s Street on Sunday 26th June.

Keep an eye on our Facebook page through next week as we’ll be posting some sneaky previews of what’s in store.

If you are coming down, dont forget to take advantage of Ipswich Centrals ‘Park For A Pound’ offer in the Foundation Street car park, which is just a few minutes walk from St Peter’s Street. Handy!

If are coming along be sure to let us know and share it with others using our Facebook event.

If you are looking for some unusual baggage I can guarantee Focused Bags have exactly what you’re looking for. Sophie Mason, the genius behind Focused uses broken skateboards to make these one of a kind bags, but this is only the beginning of the skateboard based products she designs and makes herself in her back garden workshop. You can also buy keyrings, hand cut letters and most recently Sophie has been making jewellery, a mosaic fold out chair and a fantastic mosaic coffee table. These furniture pieces are a MUST see!

If you want to get yourself some goodies from Focused, Sophie will have a stall at the St Peter’s Street Summer Market on Sunday 26th June.

These wonderfully vintage looking Moby Dick brooches are made by Sarah of House of Ismay. Sarah is based in sunny rural Suffolk and makes books, cards, jewellery and homewares using vintage and reclaimed materials. Sarah uses pages from an old copy of Moby Dick for these brooches, which she sticks onto reclaimed wood, cuts out the beautiful Moby Dick shape by hand and varnishes it several times for durability.

You can get your hands on one of these lovely chaps from Sarah’s website , we highly recommend you go for a browse at all her other goodies! House of Ismay is also a regular stallholder at I Make Fun Stuff markets and you can find her at the St Peter’s Street Summer Market on Sunday 26th June too!