It’s that Christmas Present buying time of year again! Are you looking for a Christmas gift for that special woman in your life, your wife, partner, mother, mother in law, sister, auntie, best friend? Do you want to get them a Christmas present that is quirky, handmade and made in Ireland?  Sallyann’s Handmade Bags can help! How to buy a handbag for a woman in your life and get it right… Feeling confused??   It’s that time of year again. You can try to ignore Christmas, but once they’re playing carols on repeat in the supermarket and there are reindeer in every shop window, the annua ..read more

That moment when you unroll a new design of fabric for the first time…. ….is pretty scary! Grey Poppy Fabric It takes a considerable amount of time to come up with a new fabric design. Last year’s Poppy design was months in the making. This year I knew I wanted a new colour way of this popular design. So I started with a new innovation for me – a colour atlas. It was sent to me by the company that prints my fabrics, and it has every shade of every colour that they can print listed on it.  Each has its own hexadecimal code, so I can tell any graphic designer or printer that I want shade C5 ..read more

Look What is Back in My Online Shop! I have a wonderful friend here in West Clare. (Actually I have many wonderful friends, but today I’m talking about this lady specifically). She is a bundle of positive energy and fun.  I often meet her when I’m in Miltown Malbay calling to the post office.  She roars at me across the street “SALLYYYYYYAAAAAANNN!, making me jump. The other day she rang me to say she had some fabric for me.  This lady is very specific in what she likes, and she has her own bag design.  Much to my son’s dismay, we arranged for the fabric to be transported b ..read more

Happy (Belated) New Year! Welcome back to my website – it’s been a while since to wrote anything here.  But a new year has a funny way of spurring you into doing things that have been lurking in the dark corners of your mind. According to my calendar, Monday 17th January 2022 is Blue Monday. Officially recognised (not sure by whom) as the most miserable day of the year.  So that’s a bit grim.  But the same calendar says that Thursday 17th February 2022 is Random Act of Kindness Day.  I confess I didn’t realise such a day existed. Amy Small Zip Top Handbag in Red Burren But ..read more

Well, they took their time! New fabrics ideas can be a long time brewing, or just arrive, like a bolt from the blue.  The idea for my new Poppy design was definitely one the latter types of inspiration. I was walking back into the garden from my morning walk with Poppy, our dog.  In the back of my mind was the thought that I needed to start the process of developing a new fabric idea. But I needed a central flower around which to create. And that’s when I saw the red poppy. Blink and You Miss Them Poppies seem to come up overnight. They burst into bloom, then within what seems like ..read more

The Phone Buzzes….  ….and if it is from the legendary Mags, that means there’s a load of jeans ready to be collected from the Irish Wheelchair Association. So today I drove into Ennis to collect the latest collection of the good, the bad and the ugly of jeans.  Every single pair are useful to me, no matter how battered, threadbare or banjaxed. The denim bin at Irish Wheelchair Association   And now there is just the small task of washing, drying, sorting and cutting the jeans. Two loads jeans on the line, 3 more to goWashed, dried, folded, ready to be cut   It’s a great fee ..read more

Mood Enhancing Handbags! As the bright lights and festive atmosphere of December become a distant memory, and we all face into a grey and dreary January, it’s time to look at a small thing that can make a big difference to your mood and wardrobe.  And it doesn’t involve dieting or Dry January! Most women carry a handbag or bag every day, but in the depths of winter when outfits can tend to become based around dark colours, life can become very monochrome. So what is needed is a bright, colourful handbag that will be practical for work, the school run, shopping, travel or for the baby stuf ..read more

The Origins of This Delicious Cake I was a child in the 1970s. There wasn’t the food culture like now. Exotic was a term leveled at garlic.  Recipe books were rather unadventurous and tended to be a little dull. There were none of the food porn photographs of today’s weighty tomes extolling the delights of Middle Eastern pomegranate molasses or myriad uses of Mexican tortillas. French food was about as exotic as you’d get, and it tended to be said in the same phrase as “posh”. My Mum is a great cook, and she loved to experiment. Still does in fact.  Some of her creations nowadays are ..read more

Finally! Wow, has it been a while since I wrote a blog post.  In early October I got a call from the RTE Nationwide office to say that the following day they intended to show the piece they filmed with me , as part of a package relating to the Local Enterprise Office “Women in Enterprise” day.  This was exciting, so I prepared myself for half an hour of hiding behind the couch as it was broadcast and then possibly a few extra online orders. I sorted out all my cutting, denim, straps and metalwork. And that was the start of it. Suddenly I had amazing customers from the length and brea ..read more

  A Little More Time Six months into life with Covid 19, the lack of large events like Bloom has meant that time I would normally spend creating lots of stock has been available to me for developing ideas that had been bubbling away for a while. Some, like the ability to customise my handbags with the addition of an internal zip pocket, or in the case of a Clare Large Messenger bag, with a top zip, internal zip pocket and a divider, I have already mentioned here in my last blog. I finally developed the backpack design I had promised for the best part of 2 years! I’ve even created a range ..read more