Support the Makers

Passionately championing makers, creatives & independents

Who we are....

Support The Makers was born from owner Carmen’s love of of colour, textiles and accessories all handmade by local makers in her native county of South Africa.   Moving to Edinburgh I wanted to fill my home with colour and things that I loved and this started my journey into discovering local makers.             

I hosted my first market in Portobello in 2018 and it was this first market that pushed me to create a platform to give local makers the chance to have their work exposed to a wider audience.  

Over the past 5 years I have been able to work with a huge amount of handmade makers, creatives and independents to host markets, collaborate on exciting projects, attend festivals and work with venues to host markers markets, makers meets and creative workshops.                                      

I will always look for new opportunities to give my makers and am very proud to have grown my love of handmade to where it is today. 

What We Offer

MAKERS MARKETS

We curate the bet local makers and creatives to attend our makers markets. We aim to give our makers a wider audience to showcase their work, to gain the confidence to sell their products at our markets and grow their own business. Makers are selected from our application form.
We work with venues and festivals to host makers markets and we also attend some markets as a trader.

MAKERS MEETS

We host makers networking events giving our makers and creatives the opportunity to meet other makers and also learn and develop new skills for their own business from guest speakers who are industry experts. These are monthly events with a range of guest speakers and fun activities at times on offer to support our makers.


CREATIVE WORKSHOPS 

We give creative workshop hosts the opportunity to host a creative workshop at our markets and we also at times co - host creative workshops. We encourage learning new skills for both adults and children and are passionate about workshops being a part of our markets and again giving our workshop hosts the confidence to showcase their skills.

A word from our makers

Doing markets with Support The Makers has been such a great experience. I feel super lucky to be surrounded by such a lovely and supportive community of makers and Carmen puts so much hard work into making sure we are all seen! I can't wait to continue doing markets in the future!
Lyndsey Currie
Textiles
Support the Makers is full of heart and passion for the hand-crafted, locally made, independent businesses. At the core of STM is a desire to promote makers like me, and give us a strong platform from which to go from strength to strength. The physical markets are busy events, well organised, promoted and diverse. It’s all down to a single person who drives this community with enthusiasm, love and commitment. Carmen is always on fire and I love her excitement for makers like me.
Kiki - End of Terrace Trading
Stitchsmith
Being involved with Support the Makers Markets and Support the Makers has given me a feeling of community. I’ve met so many lovely people through them and it’s given me a network of creative people that I didn’t have before.
Caroline Convey
Artist
I have been lucky enough to to be part of the support the makers across three platforms •Instagram takeover •online makers market • physical markers marker And now with the website it means makers have even more coverage. It’s so exciting to have the new website because now everything is in one place, you can find out more about the makers and where to purchase their crafts and what ‘Support the Makers’ is all about. Being part of this makers community is so encouraging, inspiring and also fulfils my shopping habit! Carmen is amazing and is responsible for it all. She is so supportive, believes in all the makers and does endless amounts of work.
Jenny - Wren by Jenny
capes and kimonos