Floral Crafts and Cards

If you have arrived at this web site searching for Card Making Supplies or looking to visit an Essex Craft Shop or just looking to enjoy the fun of card making workshops then you may want to go directly to our new web site. It'll show you how to find us or if you prefer you may buy your craft products from us online.

Floral Crafts and Cards started life shortly after our twins were born. Wanting a change from changing nappies and talking babies all the time I decided I needed to get back to doing some creative crafting.

I have always had an interest in crafts and arty stuff runs in the family. My brothers were graphic designers and my dad was a good amature artist, we still have some of his paintings on our walls.

As for me , well I started off with floristry, going to evening classes for three years before our twins came along.

Thats when the card making started. It really helped me to stop going stir crazy by giving me something else to think about.

At first I just made the usual cards for christmas but I was soon encouraged by family and friend to create more and sell them. So that's what I did. I booked a table at a local craft fair, a simple 6'x2' table with a white cloth and lots of my cards on display. It was a great success and I was hooked, there's nothing more satisfying than making something that somebody else likes.

After that we, (I say we because by that time I had roped in most of the family to help out one way or another), booked some more shows, made the craft stand bigger (which ended up being 20'x 8') and started to sell some of the card making supplies that we used ourselves.

Our Craft Stand at a show in Essex

As you can see it's supprising how much space craft supplies can take up!

Even though it was twenty feet long and eight feet wide it was still a bit of a juggling act fitting in hundreds of peel off stickers and decoupage papers, but the shows were still great fun.

Our Craft stand at a show in Essex

And like most people we created a website that gave details of the shows we would be at and also allowed us to sell our craft products online.

Over the years our little card making business has grown from a 6'x2' table to a nice managable sized shop and online store that takes up just about all of our time.

In 2008 we had a name change to reflect more of the ethos of our business ethics and morals, so Floral Crafts and Cards was changed to Thrifty Crafter and it is our company aim to ensure that any card making product that we sell is honestly priced.

Our website changed too, it's now thriftycrafter.co.uk. And it's grown, just like our shop!

We now run regular card making workshops which I absolutley love doing and many of our customers have become true friends. In fact it is due to these friends that we have continued to evolve as a business although I must confess it sometimes feels more like a social club with all the banter that goes on.

If you live in Essex or near to the Dartford Crossing then why not pop in to our shop and take a look, we'd love to see you.

Details of how to find us can found on our Visit Our Shop page on our main website.