Alexis Shillinglaw
&
Sewing School
click on below pictures to view facebook pages on each category
Over the years i have self-taught myself many different kinds of Crafts (hence the name HANDY CRAFTS.
My son John Richard Glen was very much involved in the setting up of my business in the town of Galashiels in the Scottish Borders.
The first person that i really started making clothes for was my daughter Jennifer Glen who is also a very successful Head Therapist at Zen in Edinburgh.
Jennifer as a youngster joined an Irish Dance School in Edinburgh and danced for many years. Over the years Jennifer needed to wear beautiful dance dresses that needed to be eyecatching in design and colour for big events, nationally & internationally.
Watching Jennifer work tremendously hard over the years gave her dad and i great pleasure and pride and something i do miss seeing. These youngsters work so incredibly hard with great agility and presence on stage with such pride and flare gliding along the dance floor.
These costumes were expensive and due to the expense, I thought it might be something that I could try to Embroider and make myself. Something I adored doing and as time went by the other mothers approached me about making their own children's costumes.
Starting up a Business on your own was very hard and then set about researching organizations that would consider my venture to bring Irish dance costume making to the Scottish Borders.
Heriot-Watt University had premises that were equipped for self-employed ventures of people who lived in the Borders.
After applications etc, I was finally given a fantastic room to further my business with the help of the University and to take on a young student to tutor in The design & Manufacturing of Irish Dance Costumes.
I worked for around a year at the university and then decided to work from home after building a huge room onto the house to run my business from there. I run it successfully for 5 years and had some amazing feedback and recommendations from very happy clients, which will be added to the website.
As the years passed I felt that working from home can also be a little lonely, so I applied to work with the National Health Service as a receptionist and worked there for over 10 years but still did sewing for myself and family members as a hobby.
I knew then that Sewing and Design was a really great love of mine 2nd to the family of course, but my family was very supportive of my different ability to turn my hand to different crafts.
Then I made the decision to leave the National Health Service and rent a little shop in the town center of Galashiels. Starting up the business was a worry, but one that I felt I really wanted to do. So my son helped me greatly to start-up and support me along the way.
At that time my son had started working as a Trainee accountant and guided me along the way and was of great help to me during his trainee period. So that is when Handy Crafts by Alexis Shillinglaw was Established in 2016
I will include a few pictures of my little shop that I was so very proud of and do miss.
I ran the business for 18 months before making a huge decision to move to the warmer climate of Spain.
Leaving my family behind was the most difficult thing to do, but having this opportunity and a new outlook on life with my husband David Shillinglaw who worked as a Carer. Making this move was the right thing to do for our health as the benefits of heat can help our joints and be able to take in the beautiful sights of Spain.
What I had in Galashiels was what I really wanted to bring to Spain.
Unfortunately at the time of our house purchase, the Euro dropped and due to this, I couldn't open up my little shop.
The next best solution was to work from home as self-employed. So this is what I did and still running at present in Huerta Nueva, Los Gallardos.
Over the past 2 years, I have worked so very hard to gain respect from fellow ex-pats as well as the very friendly Spanish people in the surrounding area.
I hope this helps you all to understand my love and passion for what I do, which shows in all my work as you will have read from clients' recommendations.
Using Facebook to promote me has helped amazingly, but now feel it's time to design my own website to further my career.
You will be able to purchase items on this site in time as I move from section to section.
This is a very early stage of design and will improve in time.
So if your looking at having something truly bespoke and designed for yourself or a family member, then please don't hesitate to contact me or email me.
Many thanks to you all
Alexis Shillinglaw
