Bucks designer brings handcraft business to Aylesbury with temporary pop-up shop

A Bucks woman, who has been designing and crafting knitted accessories for roughly a decade, is opening a temporary pop-up shop in Aylesbury.

Sarah Orpin, who creates bags, Christmas goodies quilts, and many other items, is opening a pop-up shop at the Layby Farm in Stoke Mandeville.

She has been creating and selling goods from her website and via craft fairs for years, but from Monday 27 November to Friday 3 December, from the popular Stoke Mandeville site.

Her business is called, Butterfly Bazaar, more information on her work can be found on Instagram and Facebook.

Sarah, who lives in Prestwood, is well-known locally for providing 1,300 Covid masks locally, at a time when they were not readily available for the public in 2020.

Sarah said: “I’ve been creating stuff all my life, since I was a child, it’s in my DNA. I was trained as a typographer, that was my degree a thousands years ago. I did that for a few years until I had my children.

"When my children were small I made their clothes and sold hand smocked dresses.

"I’ve been a painter and decorator for about 30 years, and I’ve just given that up, partly because my back has given me up.

"And I’ve been working in this empire for 10 years on and off. My start was doing jewellery and rosaries for cathedral gift shops for a while, and then I turned my hand to making bags and quilts and other stuff.”

Sarah’s daughter, Sophie, who helps her out with social media and other promotion aspects of the grassroots business, spotted the opportunity to trade from the pop up shop.

Sarah added: “Rather than towing stuff around every weekend, I thought being in one place might be quite useful.”

After the week in Stoke Mandeville, Sarah plans to continue trading and creating from her home. While the pop-up shop represents a great opportunity, she weary of the costs involved in running and keeping a business open from a fixed venue.

However, she hopes Stoke Mandeville residents might see some of her work up close and potentially pick up an early Christmas gift.