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Not Rugby - Crafternoon Tea

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Handpainted vintage plates at Crafternoon Tea: I don't see any rugby!

FRI, 16 SEP 2011 12:00P.M.

Daily distractions for sufferers of World Cup fatigue, from Ally Mullord.

Auckland’s Eden Park is notorious for being the home of the You-Know-What, but just around the corner is something far nicer than rugby: a craft market.

I know that traditionally neither the word ‘craft’ or ‘market’ inspire confidence and the two together are worse, but bear with me - craft markets have come a long way in the last few years.

The markets of my childhood were a mishmash of trestle tables covered in various crap from one or more of the following categories:

• Clothing (bits of second-hand polar fleece that could do with a wash)
• Decoration (doilies, candles with shells stuck in the sides)
• Jewellery (often featuring shells and/or wire)
• Food (dodgy jars of preserves with names like “Barbara’s Best Lime Chutney” and “Martin’s Pickle Fiasco”)

But things have changed! It’s 2011 now, and also I don’t live in Blenheim any more.

Crafternoon Tea is my local craft market and it is awesome. It’s in Kingsland and runs on the third Saturday of every month, which is tomorrow (and also the weekend after payday, which makes it particularly dangerous).

I talked to Lisa Madden, who has been running Crafternoon Tea since April, about the “great little market” she looks after - it would have been weird if we talked about something else, and also not very useful for this article.

Ms Madden says Crafternoon Tea is getting bigger and bigger each month, and “this month’s been chaos with emails and phone calls”.

“Last month’s market blew me away… the quality every month is just getting amazing,” she says.

Stallholders apply through Crafternoon Tea’s blog and must provide images of their product before being accepted, to weed out the dodgy-chutney crowd – something Ms Madden says sets the market apart and ensures only the best stallholders are involved.

Ms Madden is qualified to select the best – she has her own stall at the market, selling vintage childrens’ toys, and says she does it “for the love”.

“It’s such a great group of people, the stallholders – it’s a really good little community.

“It’s just really nice watching them all sitting there having a little natter… and getting a chance to showcase their products.”

I become over-excited about the ‘afternoon tea’ section of the name and demand to know if there will be food – I’m reassured that not only will there be cupcakes and a stall from Blackwoods Bakery, Atomic's café is next door for those marketgoers who, like me, are zombified wrecks without their morning coffee.

As well as decorative items, like the hand-painted vintage plates and fabric morepork doorstop my flatmate and I picked up from last month’s market, crafts on show tomorrow will include jewellery, food and childrenswear.

Crafternoon Tea is on tomorrow from 10am to 2pm at the Trinity Methodist Church in Kingsland, on the corner of Sandringham and New North Road. Your local craft market is something you’re going to have to look up yourself.

Ally thank you so much for you great article and it was so lovely to see you on saturday. 


Enjoy your sunday everyone. I'm going to try and recover from yesterday. A HUGE thank you to my amazing husband Daniel I really could not have done it yesterday without you. And all our super support beautiful stall holders you ROCK. 
Applications open tomorrrow for our 2nd birthday market in October. Also watch this space for our December market applications which I will open in the next few days. Lisa x