Magpie Makes

27/05/2024

This is so wonderful 💕 Thank you About Thames Ditton 🥰

09/04/2024

We’re finalists in the Best Childrens Business category of the Surrey Muddy Stilettos awards! We’re so proud to be amongst some other lovely local businesses and super grateful to everyone who nominated us and have voted so far.

If you’d like to vote for us please follow the link in our bio or in stories - all your support comes with huge thanks 💛

Kerry & Suzie x

07/04/2024

Our sewing clubs have loved this project and they’re all now proudly taken home. You can see if you scroll through some of the beautiful details the kids have managed to achieve…can you spot the elephant who’s sewn a sneaky snack?

Well done sewing team! We’re excited to show you next term’s project! 👏

05/04/2024

We’re finalists in the Best Childrens Business category of the Surrey Muddy Stilettos awards! We’re so proud to be amongst some other lovely local businesses and super grateful to everyone who nominated us and have voted so far.

If you’d like to vote for us please follow this link - all your support comes with huge thanks 💛

Kerry & Suzie x

https://surrey.muddystilettos.co.uk/awards/vote/

13/03/2024

These friendly frogs jumped out of our infant art clubs last week! 🐸
After two sessions of experimenting with paints, oil pastels, cutting various shapes with scissors and adding details then layering it all together, these superb frogs made us smile and we hope you love them too 💚

07/02/2024

This half term our sewing clubs have been focusing on embroidery with an eye for detail. Please do scroll through and bask in the joy of their beautiful ideas!
Our washing line project has really sparked some fantastic work from these sewing super stars (all years 3-6 except image 1 which is a teacher example)

We love the mindfulness of these clubs particularly as this week is children’s mental health week 🙌

14/01/2024

A great opportunity at Royal Academy of Arts for our budding artists... 🎨

The Young Artists' Summer Show is an open submission exhibition, taking place both online and on-site at the Royal Academy, that recognises talented young artists at primary and secondary school level.

31/12/2023

Happy New Year from us 💛

Wishing you all a happy healthy and colourful new year. We’re enjoying this lovely rest time and hope that you all are too. Looking forward to kicking off our new term - we’ve got lots of new ideas to throw at you!
Thank you for your brilliant support this year.

Suzie & Kerry and all the team xx

15/12/2023

This one’s all about TEAM 🌟

This wonderful bunch of women we have woven into the fabric of our business and also our lives. Some are facing health challenges, some juggle working with us alongside other busy jobs, some have family members who need lots of support, one is pregnant with a new little Magpie, some have been with us for years and some are still new but what they all do every week is give their energy and time to enriching children’s creativity. They’re patient and kind and inspiring with your kids.

Last night was a chance for us to say just how much we appreciate them and tell them how flipping brilliant they all are!
Can you spot your Magpie teacher here? If you can and you’d like to drop her a comment we’ll share any with the gang. 💕

12/11/2023

Thank you for all the kind words we've received from parents about recent birthday parties, including this lovely message from Sally.
We love making your party as fab as you are 🥳

05/11/2023

Which firework would you choose if your bonfire night needed some extra whizz pop or bang? This was the design challenge for our juniors in art club this week and we think they nailed it 💥

Hope you’ve all had a happy and safe firework night

05/11/2023

Which firework would you choose if your bonfire night needed some extra whizz pop? This was the challenge for our juniors in art club this week and we think they nailed it 💥

Hope you’ve all had a happy and safe firework night

30/10/2023

Half term done and we’re back into planning, catching up and getting back to all your messages.
Our half term was full of -
Giggles with kids in our camps
Sewing machines whirring
Sweeping up pins & needles after busy camps
Too much tea
Juggling teenagers
A joyful day in London soaking up ideas
Time for granny and family

How about yours? What did you get up to?

22/10/2023

We love this…

10/10/2023

Every week our sewing clubs teach the children to slow down, concentrate and create small steps towards their final project which we run over a full half term.
Engaging in this type of artistic activity can be a great release for children with proven benefits for their mental health and well-being 💚
Have you been creative today on ?

06/10/2023

Just leaving this here to wish everyone a happy Friday!

Our juniors clubs love a drawing challenge and they absolutely aced our Snoopy week. Keep scrolling to see the most adorable Woodstock 😍

19/09/2023

Meet Kerry
That’s me. I started this massive adventure nearly 10 years ago and that still amazes me that we’re still doing what we’re doing every week. My first career was in branding and I worked in design agencies mostly designing packaging you’ll see in high street shops. Before that I went through art school and used to sew all my own clothes when I was in 6th form. I’ve never been through a time when I haven’t been creating in some way or another.

Now I spend my weeks developing projects for all the children in our clubs and watching them embrace them is so incredibly cool! I look, listen and quiz them all the time about what they enjoy about art, sewing and life. I tailor our projects to them because the children are the centre of what we do. It’s why Magpie Makes began. I’m still learning, often scrap ideas that don’t work but love it when they do. I want to help your children grow into their own creative skills and have lots of fun along the way.

If you want to join our creative team please do reach out as the more club leaders we work with the more kids we can inspire 💪 And if you’re reading this thinking you might have an idea for your starting own business DO IT, it’s exhausting and wonderful in equal measure

24/08/2023

If you’re looking forward to joining our juniors art club this term I thought I’d explain some of the differences between the infants and the juniors clubs.

We recognize that week 1 some of these little people will be coping with the transition into a whole new building or new school so we always start off with a simple and fun task.

But when everyone is settled we can begin to guide our Magpies into some more challenging projects… we love exploring watercolour techniques and inks. We’re happy to give juniors a canvas to work on which makes the projects a real keepsake. We look at the work of famous artists and practice dexterity with simple origami. We’ll often draw as a group step by step which is brilliant for learning drawing skills. And our favourite is giving their imaginations a stretch!

Here are some projects we have loved working on with our juniors this last term. Which ones your favourite? I’m sure you can spot the simpler one we used as an introduction to the club and then how the projects grow in complexity? The most important thing is that everyone is proud of their work 💙

17/08/2023

So as much as we all love the summer holidays, I was reflecting that for some of you the new September term will bring with it a place in one of our art clubs. Excited? We hope so! Here’s some useful info to help you understand what’s in store:

Art club is split usually into two age groups- infants (y1-2) and juniors (y3-6) - unless you’re at a primary that can’t accommodate the split and in that case we blend the ages. This helps us tailor the projects and build the skills journey slowly.

Our main aim is that art club is fun 🤩 so please don’t worry that your child won’t be supported. Our teachers are all experienced and have creativity flowing through them, they’re all kind and cheery and wherever possible they’re assisted by a helper. The helper scoops up anyone who needs more support or just a friendly face.

We plan our timetable carefully so week 1 is getting to know each other with a simple project and then we build up to painting and 3D making. We teach with a mixture of materials - painting, chalk pastels, oil pastels, collage and not forgetting the essentials drawing and cutting skills (super important building blocks!) We always supply good quality materials even for the little ones, we find it really does make a difference to the results.

You generally don’t need to bring an apron as everything is washable, a snack is a good idea for hungry tummies as long as it’s no nuts or sweets please.

Here are some of our favourite infants art club projects from this year - we’re SO proud of them! I’ll share the juniors and talk more about that in another post. And if you’re joining…welcome! We’ve got a fun term ahead 💕

09/08/2023

Meet Suzie.
Many of you will know her well and if you haven’t met her here’s a face to the name, because it’s pretty inevitable that if you’ve emailed us about a party, a club, a workshop or camp you will have had a reply from our Suzie. She’s one half of our partnership and the absolute beating heart of Magpie makes.

She’s got the most incredible knowledge of our business, she remembers SO many children’s names and if we ever lose anything in the studio the chances are she’ll shout out ‘bottom left cupboard at the back’ and she’ll be right! She teaches a happy bunch of kids every week in her clubs (they all love her) and also manages the huge tidal wave of correspondence that flows into her inbox. Now that the business has grown that is no mean feat - 500+ families to communicate with each term 😅

As of tomorrow Suzie’s taking a very well earned break and we’re closing the studio doors for a summer wind down. Please be patient if we’re a little slower coming back to you but rest assured any messages will be logged and responded to when we reopen on the 29th August.
I think you’ll all agree that a switch off and family time in the summer is just what we all need to be energized and inspired in the new term.

30/07/2023

Kind words from parents continue to inspire us to deliver the best creative experiences for your children. Thank you Lorenza for this great review, we will miss Alana 🎨🪡

26/07/2023

Busy, engaged, thinking, using their hands, choosing colours, trying new techniques, perfecting new skills… all whilst having lots of fun, I know that’s what I want for my kids during the holidays.
Our Art camps are brilliant for doing just that - here are some of our artists from the last few days 👏

23/07/2023

Only 5 spaces left to book for our summer holiday camps! ☀️
Machine Sewing and Awesome Art camps are fully booked, so if you want to join us this summer, we have spaces in Cooking camp on 29th August, hop over to our website to book 🧑‍🍳

We cannot wait to start our creative camps on Tuesday 🤩

21/07/2023

Wahooo it’s the summer holidays!!

Before we move on into our summer camps programs and beyond into September we wanted to take a moment to say thank you 🙏 Without any of your wonderful kids we wouldn’t be running around 24/7 as we are - but we love it, we really do.

We are privileged now to be teaching over 500 children a week in our clubs (that number totally blows us away!), we’ve got the studio busy with parties every weekend and a fully booked summer of camps ahead.

Last Friday we had a little photo shoot with (who is a legend) and what we love most is these pictures with lots of happy busy creative kids…it’s after all what Magpie is all about.

Have a brilliant summer break everyone (and if you missed out on a camp this holiday we’re now booking October)

Kerry & Suzie x

17/06/2023

Whoop whoop it’s party time! 🥳

Happiest of birthdays to our super stars who’ve come for magpie parties this weekend! We’ve loved being a tiny part of your special days.

Parties are fully booked now until September but we do have just 1 slot available on the 15th of July 🌟
Jump in quick guys!

01/06/2023

A few snapshots of our busy week of camps. We’ve been creating with textiles, sewing (on machines & by hand), fabric painting, tie dying, painting, cake decorating and planting! WOW

How lucky we are to have our studios and be able to host such amazing workshops for your brilliant kids. Thanks to everyone who came and if you missed out this time there will be more over Summer

28/05/2023

Off we go into half term 🚀
These awesome rockets made in our KS1clubs, used a mix of materials and techniques to create an out-of-this-world artwork to blast home! 💥

26/05/2023

Our super sewing clubs are all sewn up for this half term, with these Cats and Dogs going to their new homes!
The details are so cute, well done Magpies 👏🐶🐱

18/05/2023

25/04/2023

In cooking club this week our Magpies made Sweet Potato Falafel Balls and Fruity Couscous 😋
The children are brilliant and learning more skills each week, today with Jo at Diddy Diners the children concentrated on knife skills to micro-chop the ingredients.
Every week the recipes are different, sometimes savoury sometimes sweet…always delish, so if your child would like to join us, please get in touch for all the details 🧑‍🍳