Hochanda

In time for this year’s Christmas must haves we introduce Parveen the Spice Queen, Bradford’s answer to Nigella Lawson. Parveen is an Asian housewife proud of her culture and cooking and in this, her first cookbook she brings together the flavours of India with a huge dollop of Yorkshire common sense. Parveen is passionate about her culture as well as her cuisine, as a wife and mum of three, she is a keen advocate of Indian home cooking and a dedicated cookery teacher. After leaving the corporate world a decade ago, Parveen began demonstrating and teaching cooking around the UK and Europe. She is a firm believer that with the right method and the right spices, anyone can create the most delicious authentic food. For almost a decade Parveen has taught Indian cooking, ran cookery demonstrations and catered glamorous Bollywood Dinner Parties. She brings all of this experience to life in her step by step cookbook. The book includes every English favourite including Chicken Masala, ...

We had so much fun at the Crafting at Ally Pally event last weekend that we just HAD to share some of our best bits for you… With a great mixture of friendly faces from Hochanda HQ, from all areas of the business including Customer Service, Marketing, TV Operations and Buying, it was lovely to see such a huge amount of Hochanda fans – it was so lovely to meet you all! Here’s what some of our friendly helpers thought about their experience at Ally Pally; “It was lovely to meet people I present to from the Hochanda studios and to hear how much they love our channel. Lots of viewers at Ally Pally bought in their projects to show the Hochanda staff too. It was fascinating to see how they crafted with the crafty goods I've shown over the past year.” – Charlie Hopkins, Presenter “Loved my first trip to Ally Pally – it was great to meet the people who I share my work with” – Emily Bunting, Marketing Graphic Designer “It was a real pleasure to spend some time chatting with ...

Join Hochanda, The Home of Crafts, Hobbies and Arts to celebrate our 1st Birthday. We’ve got 7 Days packed with celebrations!  To celebrate we will be bringing you some fantastic deals, competitions and bonus gifts from your most loved guests and brands for a whole week! You can look forward to shows from Creative Expressions , Inkylicious , Sheena Douglass , Crafter’s Companion , Claritystamp , Debbie Shore , Imagination Crafts , Six Penny Memories , IndigoBlu , Chloe Endean , Craft Yourself Silly , Sizzix , Robert Addams and so many more!! So what have you got to look forward to? Credit on your Account For anyone who has not shopped with us before, we’d like you to join in on our birthday celebrations too, so how does £5 off* your first order sound? Simply proceed to the checkout once you have chosen your items and we’ll do the rest – it couldn’t be easier! We wanted to say a HUGE thank you to our existing, loyal Hochanda customers and what better w...

The revolutionary tool that allows you to create up to 20 identical pompoms at once in all sizes from 1cm - 12cm diameter! This week we welcome Sue with her amazing tool, Multipom, which is set to save you time when it comes to making pompoms. Pompoms are so in fashion at the moment, they’re easy to make and are a beautiful addition to all your projects. Sue will be bringing you not one, but TWO inspirational shows, both demonstrating the versatility and how easy it is to use the Multipom . Sue will also share with us her tips and tricks on getting beautiful, thick and consistent pompoms for all of your makes! Educationally the Multipom offers some simple maths, with the possibility of working in groups. For young children, counting and measuring and for slightly older children, simple division, with the added bonus of each making a pompom or more to use in craft work – it’s perfect for the whole family! We’ve pulled together some fabulous inspirat...

Exciting news Crafter's, we've got another inspiring supplier for you! Helen Johnson from the Decorating Store Online will be joining us on Sunday 31st July to demonstrate the fabulous Rust-Oleum range so we caught up with her before her shows for some sneak peeks and she even gave us her 5 top tips!  Upcycling has seen a huge surge in popularity over the last 18 months with more and more people looking to transform their old and worn furniture into something usable in their homes to save the cost of buying new! Not only do you get the satisfaction of the money you’ve saved but also knowing its something that you’ve created to be utilized in and around your home, or to be gifted or even sold for use by someone else. There are more and more products entering the upcycling market but our favourite here at Decorating Centre Online is the Rust-Oleum range – a global brand that specialises in ‘specialist coatings’ and with this breadth of knowledge and experien...

Decoupage is a beautiful craft that everyone can get involved, regardless of your experience! We’re so excited that we asked the lovely Nikki Killenger to give us a quick step-by-step on how to create this beautiful plant pot before she join us to demonstrate the incredible Decopatch products next week!  Step 1.  Choose your paper’s and prepare all the items you want to work with. Step 2.  Tear or cut your papers, according to your design. For this design I have used scissors as I wanted a band around the pot, but usually you can just tear your papers. Step 3.  Decant some glue into a smaller pot to make it easier.  Apply glue to enough of an area to put your first piece of paper. Step 4.  Apply paper, you can pick the paper up on your brush to place it. Smooth the paper onto your item from the centre out. Step 5.  Build up your pattern, butting your papers up to each othe...

We’re so thrilled to be welcoming Decopatch to the Hochanda family that we wanted to share with you just some of the incredible affects you can create with Decoupage.  What is Decoupage?  The word decoupage comes from the French verb découper, 'to cut out'. The decoupage technique can be used to personalise items in your home - the best thing is that the designs can be as simple or as complex as you like. Simply, decoupage involves cutting out pictures, gluing them to an object and then coating the pictures and the object with layers of varnish. Decoupage is a great craft, it’s super easy to do and you can pretty much decoupage anything; from a tired chest of draws to decorative letters, it’ll easily spruce up any item in a short space of time!  Image Source: Wunderweib Decoupage – the basic technique Decoupage is a simple yet effective way of personalising your items, so before you begin here’s a step by step of the basic technique. Once...

In preparation for our Card Making with Creativ Company shows this Saturday we thought we'd share this handy, Monochrome Wedding Stationery tutorial with you!   This easy step-by-step is made from a greeting card decorated with black design paper and white textured paper with printed text for each of your guests. Decorated with a matching waistband made from the same materials and a rhinestone sticker, this will be sure to add some bling to your day. Download the envelope template and line it with glitter paper to make it extra special for your wedding day! Download your Envelope Template Here Step 1. Make a waistband by cutting a 4cm wide piece of black design paper with glitter to the same width as the greeting card. Make a 'name tag' in the same manner as the invitation itself (see the next step). Make the lining for the envelope from the same paper using the template which is available as a separate PDF file for this idea. NB: the lining can be loosely pl...

Katie Skilton gives us a sneak peak at what's to come with her next show on Hochanda with Sizzix! Hello there… Today I wanted to share a quick blog post with you with some sneak peaks of what I have coming up on my Sizzix shows on Sunday 19th June. I know there are a lot of Tim Holtz fans out there so this release is going to be really exciting for you. It is time to get those inks, paints and mixed media projects out as these new dies will be perfect for that. One of the most popular products on my Hochanda shows are always the Sizzix Mixed Media dies and this time will be no exception as I bring you the latest release - Mixed Media #3 Not only that but we have some fabulous cogs in both Biqz dies and Thinlits Dies. And of course the new release Sizzix Bigz Die Dapper.  How cool is this for the men in your life? Over the 3 shows I will be showing you how to get the best from your Sizzix dies and sharing a lot of crafty inspiration. ...

Father's Day is the perfect time to spoil your dad and though it can be hard to find the perfect gift for Father's Day, hopefully we can make it a little easier. Whatever his superpowers may be, from caring for his garden to fixing items around the home, we’ve got the perfect gift ideas just for him. Car Care There’s no better sight that glistening vintage sitting in your garage or driveway, but it can prove very challenging to shield his precious car from the elements and keep the shine looking good as new. Give your Dad the perfect gift this year and buy him the products that will keeps his treasured car or motorbike glistening for weeks to come - We'd recommend the Ultimate Finish Valet Kit !  Shop Car Care Now >   Collectables Father’s Day is the perfect time to add to your dad’s memorabilia collection! Whether he’s a big sports fan or a James Bond enthusiast we have all the collectables you could ask for. Give him a gift he can tre...

Welcome to our Bank Holiday Bonus Event ! With exclusive freedom member discounts of up to 20% off selected products, Bonus Items included with selected products purchased from our live shows AND our Accumulator Prize Draw giving you the chance to win your very own bundle worth over £900 – we really are spoiling you this weekend! Join some of your most loved brands like Sheena Douglass, Chloe, Be Creative, Creative Expressions and more for a fun packed weekend not to be missed! During each LIVE hour, 5 names will be randomly selected from completed orders from the previous hour – the more you buy, the more chance you have of winning this amazing prize! For More info please see our terms and conditions . We’ll be keeping you updated at the end of each day with each of the names that have been entered in to the final prize draw, to be drawn during the 8pm show on Monday 30 th May – Don’t miss your chance! ...