Birmingham city centre is slow­ing turn­ing into the warm spot for cre­at­ive and hand­made happenings.

Greeting you at St. Martin’s entrance

Case in point — while wan­der­ing through the Great Western Arcade yes­ter­day we stumbled, quite lit­er­ally, upon tables selling hand­made fairy cakes, soaps, jew­ellery, and some­thing pos­sibly inter­est­ing to do with old china. No advert­ise­ment, just a cluster of stalls peopled by smil­ing faces and lots of goodies.

Never to be left out of the fun, we’re set to con­tinue the trend this week­end on Saturday the 7^th July for a Creative Craft Fair at St. Martin’s in the Bullring. From 11am until 4pm, with a break between 2 and 2:45 for lunch, you will find me and my trusty cre­at­ive cohort, Amy (bead­ing god­dess in the mak­ing) who will be shar­ing my table, as well as other cre­at­ive types flog­ging our wares while excitedly dis­cuss­ing all things crafty and handmade.

St. Martin’s in the Bullring

St. Martin’s has a lovely tea shop loc­ated at the Rag Market side of the church. Which means you don’t have to walk around feel­ing parched or des­per­ate for a loo (hey, that’s import­ant when you’re shop­ping till you drop!).  Admission is free, which means you’ll have more money to spend on tea, cakes, good­ies, and maybe even a sojourn into the Bullring for those brave souls who like a bit of jost­ling through crowds and people watching.

If you’ve never taken a look inside St. Martin’s you’re in for a treat. What a stun­ning Gothic church, pro­tec­ted at every corner and crevice with wild and human (or wildly human?) gar­goyles (OK, tech­nic­ally they’re grot­esques, because gar­goyles have spouts, but let’s not be picky!). It’s one of the first places Ben and I ven­tured to when I moved to Birmingham nearly four years ago. One does not need to be reli­gious to appre­ci­ate the beauty and his­tory of this place.

I’m told there are other events held at St. Martin’s on a weekly/monthly basis which might be of interest to those liv­ing local to the city:

•  CraftworX, a group for mem­bers with social dif­fi­culties, fun­ded by the Westhill Endowment
•  Tuesday Gathering, work­shops and retreat events, please con­tact us for info
•  Wednesday Knitting Club, 12:30 — 2:00pm in the Tea Lounge, just turn up
•  Friday Lunchtime Concerts, free, every Friday at 12:30
•  SMART Poets, meet monthly and hold events

So if you find your­self in Birmingham City Centre on Saturday the 7^th July, 2012, please do stop by and say hello. We’d love to see your shin­ing face. Maybe, if we’re all very lucky and Summer decides to make a show, we’ll even have a res­pite from all this rain!

That’s St Martin in the Bull Ring, Birmingham B5 5BB

Creative Craft Fair — St. Martin’s in the Bullring