Navan Craft Collective that showcases dozen small enterprises celebrates 1st anniversary
A NAVAN-based craft collective that showcases more than a dozen local businesses celebrated its 1st anniversary at the weekend.
Navan Craft Collective located on Brews Hill stocks a wide variety of goods all hand made from jewellery to ceramics and skincare to soy wax melts and digital embroidery.
The store opened last October after Martina Keegan saw a need for a space in Navan for makers to be able to sell their goods at a brick-and-mortar shop without paying extensive fees. As luck would have it an opportunity presented itself just at the right time after her daughter who owns Lorna's Bakes decided to close the coffee shop part of her business leaving an ideal space vacant for a concept such as a collective.
“I retired from work in October 2021 and I always wanted to do something craft related so I registered my own business, Forget me Knot Crafts,” said Martina.
“My two first loves would be crochet and flowers and I crochet handbags and I grow and dry flowers that I make into picture frames, they are not fresh but the way I design it, it looks like a flower has been picked,” she added.
“I was doing a few markets around the time last summer and someone said to me, isn't that a shame your daughters shop is closing wouldn't that be a great place to display your goods and talk about a light bulb moment!
“I said it to Lorna and she said mam you won't believe it, someone else said the same thing to me last week!”
After speaking with fellow crafters in the area, Martina and co decided to open the craft collective is the space available on Brews Hill.
“I knew a few crafters that I contacted and we decided to go for it and called it a collective where you work on a voluntary basis manning the shop or else you rent a shelf,” explains Martina.
“We currently have 14 crafter's products stocked,” she added.
“It's a non-profit in a way, they get the full price of what they sell, commission isn't taken out of it.
“We are so happy we decided to go for it, it's been a fantastic year and hopefully we will continue to grow.”