The weekend is what you make of it - there's endless opportunities whether you're at work or play. Today we speak to Claire Brudenell. Blogger, pro crafter and fellow foodie, Claire also knows how to celebrate Halloween in style!
What do you do for work?
I have the rather brilliant job of Marketing & Licensing Manager for Nottingham based craft company Trimcraft. I feel very lucky to be able to combine my love of craft with my Marketing degree. No day is ever the same which keeps it exciting after 4 and a half years, I could be looking for new illustrators for paper collections, filming craft tutorials for YouTube or planning social media and blog posts for the website. I love being surround by so much creativity from our talented design team who make the beautiful artwork that we sit surrounded by, to our group of crafty makers who create amazing projects using Trimcraft products. I love social media and getting to connect with like-minded crafters, we are very sociable and pride ourselves on acknowledging anyone who tags or reaches out to us, and it annoys me when bigger companies with much more resource don’t take time to talk back to their followers.
What is your passion outside of work?
I love food, and luckily so do my friends, so we can often be found checking out the fab restaurants in Nottingham or eating cake. Nottingham has really exploded with the variety of restaurants it has in the last few years, we are spoilt for choice. I also love gardening and growing plants…mainly food like aubergines, tomatoes and herbs, I probably love this as I get to eat the fruits of my labour. This year I grew Okra, I was so impressed when it actually grew! Much to my boyfriend’s annoyance I also love anything vintage, I love to visit vintage markets and reclamation yards to fill our house with quirky finds, I usually sneak them in while he’s at golf then wait to see how long it is until he notices them!
We adore your blog, I heart Maggie, what inspires your craft projects?
Thanks, it’s still quite in its infancy. I used to blog for Trimcraft but as our team grew we took on our talented copy writer Sarah who now looks after that side so I thought why not start my own blog and ramble on there. I also have to give a shout out to my friend and colleague Cat who takes some of the photos you see on my social media. I am trying to get better at photography and she has some great tips! When you are surrounded by craft product day in day out it’s hard not to be inspired to create, I think my main inspiration comes from what I see in the shops, I always think that’s a great idea but I could easily make that myself, so then I set out to do just that! Also if you are wondering the name for the blog, it comes from the street I live on and not my name, it can get confusing!
When is your weekend?
My weekend starts on Friday evening and ends on a Sunday, pretty standard. I love my job but I also love weekends, they do seem to fly by though.
How did you spend this weekend?
Saturday started pretty lazy with a small lie in followed by a lovely dog walk, we are co sharing Zeus a Rottweiler cross Akita for a few months to help out a family member, he’s huge but very gentle and lots of fun to take walking. As it’s Halloween me and my friends went to a charity event, I love Halloween and dressing up, this year I went as a zombie Geisha, it was a lot of fun. I have a great bunch of friends and we try to see each other as often as possible.
Sunday started with a small hangover, brunch and a bit of cleaning. I worked on a few more blog posts while watching pet rescue reruns, the weather was rubbish so it was nice to be lazy and hang out with the dog! I also made a apple and blackberry crumble we ate it with lots of custard while watching our newest addiction Narcos.
How typical was it for you?
Yeah, Pretty standard although there was no cake! I try and use my weekends to see family & friends, unwind and plan lots of crafty makes. My weekends are looking quite busy until the end of the year so it was nice this one was chilled.
What was your highlight of last week?
I am really lucky that I get to travel with my job and last week myself and our design manager Alice booked a trip to New York for a licensing show in May. It’s one of my favourite places to visit, we have already started planning what we will see, eat and do!
Your ideal Sunday menu...
I would choose, a big house in the countryside surrounded by friends, we are lucky to have a group of friends we holiday to remote cottages with each new year, this year it’s the Brecon Beacons and I can’t wait to relax, go on long walks and drink some really good red wine by a log fire, I would choose this menu for my ideal day there.
Breakfast: Smoked Salmon on toast with poached eggs with a big mug of milky tea.
Lunch: Naughty but a fish finger sandwich with mayo and lots of black pepper.
Dinner: I just found the most amazing slow cooked BBQ Brisket recipe, I’ll let it cook all day in the slow cooker then make some homemade wedges & coleslaw to go with it. I would wash this down with a nice Malbec
What's in your fridge?
Quite a lot as I have just been shopping, we have lots of veggies and ingredients for paella (You can find the recipe on the blog), salmon, feta, picked onions (a slight addiction), a homemade apple crumble ready for pudding!
QUICK FIRE - without too much thought, name your absolute favourite...
Book: Oooo tough choice One Day by David Nicholls
Film: The Goonies or Beaches…cheesy but I have seen both hundreds of times.
Album: my music taste is quite eclectic but I seem to go back to Jack Savoretti – Written in Scars a lot, he has a lovely voice.
Holiday destination: Croatia, I went there for the first time in June, and it really blew me away!
Museum/Art gallery: The V&A in London
How can people follow you?
Blog iheartmaggie.wordpress.com
Twitter @IHeart_Maggie
Instagram i_heart_maggie
Work: www.trimcraft.co.uk
Featured
