A shop called Wanda

Photo gallery: Modern craft in Petone

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ROSS GIBLIN/The Dominion Post Zoom

REFLECTED GLORY: Wanda Harland, aka owner Martha Craig, says her only criterion for buying something is that she likes it.

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Surfing Trade Me and having a family has been good for business for Wanda Harland, aka Martha Craig.

Two years ago the entrepreneurial mum was "idly" looking on Trade Me when a space for her Jackson St store, Wanda Harland, popped up.

A few weeks ago she was "mooching" around on the website and saw a shop for lease in Elizabeth St, Mt Victoria, where she will open her second store on September 18.

Craig moved from Mt Victoria to Petone seven years ago when she had the first of her three children, now aged seven, four and seven months.

Like "every mother does, I started my own little business", children's wear line Babylicious, which she sold at the Petone Fair and online. Her designs are screenprinted in her home-based workshop. "Most of the designs are the same, but nobody bought them back then. The world was not ready for it. I think I sold about seven; now, at any given fair, I'd sell 100," Craig says.

Her theory is that appreciation of handmade products has changed and now people love anything that's irreverent or silly.

Customers struggled to get their head around the concept of the "modern craft movement" when the store first opened.

She describes it as an "eclectic designer gift store and unique in the Hutt".

"It's really satisfying having products that people really enjoy, like Boocraft's trophy heads," she says.

The "monster heads" are made by Johnsonville artist Debbie Allen for kids to have on the wall in their room to scare away other monsters that are under the bed, "because they'd caught one".

But adults like the idea just as much.

Craig discovered Allen at Craft2.0, now a bi-annual fair at the NewDowse gallery in Lower Hutt. In the early days, Craig helped founder and talented crafter Sue Tyler organise the event.

The store sells other locally made crafts, as well as a range of top New Zealand accessory brands such as Soko and Saben handbags, Paris House Wallets and Meadowlark jewellery - quality products that you formerly had to go into Wellington for.

Craig says her only criterion when buying for the store is that she likes it.

The store also stocks Dishy, a quirky range of hats, bibs and accessories made from Kiwiana teatowels, which she now owns. She bought it from the original designer when it came up for sale last year because she "didn't want anyone else to have it because it is so cool".

Craig's Babylicious range (also available online), which also caters for adults, encourages customers to get their butt into the Hutt with underwear screen printed with "Hutt" and "Petone".

Craig does the screen printing herself - "I know I could outsource the work, but I want to do it. It feels creative, fun and I really love doing it".

Customers mostly assume Martha is Wanda, and they are not wrong. It's a name she has carried around for 20 years.

"When I was 20, I was in a flat with six girls and we all gave ourselves silly names. We used to lie to boys when we went to the pub.

"Mine was Wanda, which was also the name of my tooth fairy when I was a child. Harland was the name my father had picked out for me if I was a boy.

"Friends called me that and a few weeks ago my son lost his first tooth, so Wanda the tooth fairy is back," she says.

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audrey   #2   11:20 am Sep 04 2009

woo hoo! i remember that flat...

Su Yin   #1   09:10 pm Sep 03 2009

Good one, Martha! Hoping to see a branch pop up in Auckland soon.

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