If, or when, you are ever up in Belfast don’t miss visiting Space Craft at 9b The Fountain Centre (up the escalator in College Street) where you will find a wonderful selection of applied art and design at affordable prices.

Run by the Craft And Design Collective, there is a shop and a gallery, the latter showing exclusive pieces of artwork and the former more commercial ranges — a similar distinction as between haute couture and prêt a porter in fashion.

Dedicated to “the promotion, representation, understanding and development of craft, applied art and design in Northern Ireland and beyond”, the Collective members rent shop space and undertake to staff the shop one day a year.

At the moment it is an absolute Aladdin’s cave of inventive, exciting and original design — everything from ceramic bowls to jewellery, woodcraft, silverwork, handbags and cards. You name it and it’s probably there.

I was delighted to see that Sue Cathcart, whose papier mache figures I love, has branched out into a range of cut-out Perspex jewellery as well as her famous Mr Paper cards — Mr Paper is entirely made up of Belfast Telegraphs! Look up her website, www.mr.papers.com — it’s guaranteed to make you smile.

Sue also has a great range of ‘Wee Dolls’ — little figures presented in boxes, which are charming and inventive. Sue’s pieces caught my eye but actually there are so many lovely things that it is almost impossible to choose which to mention.

Rehash from Banbridge has a range of very unusual handbags made from combinations of wool, leather and linen, while Gemma Andrews of Hillsborough makes beautiful silk and organza brooches and necklaces in some great colour combinations.

Then there’s Rag Button with cards and wedding stationery, hand-throws, contemporary tableware by Adam Frew, ceramic wall pieces by Red Earth Designs, glass and chrome sculpture by Heather Wilson and beautiful burr-elm mirrors by Noel McCullough of Ballymena Furniture. And so it goes on and on.

In the gallery the Belfast exhibition has just finished and the next is an installation by Stuart Cairns, which opened yesterday and will run until April 25.

For more information check out www.craftanddesigncollective.com

elizabethobaird@googlemail.com