Japanese Joy

I am back with another Handmade Artists' Forum Blogring Featured Artisan. This week I am going to introduce a new member on HAF, Kazumi. Kazumi hails from Yokohama, Japan, and has thrown herself into activities on HAF. She maintains a great blog where she is promoting other handmade artisans with gusto, as well as doing blogs about her creations.

She makes wonderful purses and clutches in cheery prints, including cute owls and funky sock monkeys. She also does some amazing chalk art designs, including designs perfect for cafes and restaurants. And then to top it all off she makes Sock Monkeys. I love Sock Monkeys, so happy and carefree.

So now that I have given you a taste of all she does, check out more for yourself. You will find her blog here, and her purses here. Then you will find chalk art over here and finally click here for Sock Monkeys. And on top of all of that, she has an Etsy store!

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A Blue Period

Recently I asked some friends for some ideas for themes to make into blog posts. One of those ideas was 'a blue period'. Now being the type of wag I am, I put 'blue period' into a search on Etsy..and got 4 pages of results! And yes I am aware there are different ways of interpreting the theme! What follows are my favourites from that search on Etsy! Enjoy!

ergodesign

Gibberish

Shana Ely Frase

Emlynn Designs

Pink Lemonade

utopianaurora

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Wednesday Whimsy

This is the first in a series of blog posts I will be doing each week where I drop by ArtFire with a theme and then pull some related items to share with you all. The theme for this week is 'Whimsy'. So let's take a look at what I found.

Christy De Koning

a Cagey Bee

Susan Calvert

Judy B Freeman

Join me next week for another wander through ArtFire.

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What a doll!

I'm back again with another Handmade Artists' Forum Blogring feature Artisan. This week our featured HAF member is iKnitQuiltSew. Sandi is the talent behind iKnitQuiltSew, and although relatively new to HAF she has jumped in and become involved.

Sandi has an Etsy store where she lists her gorgeous hand knitted baby items, including booties and beanies, as well as hand made quilts and gorgeous handmade cloth dolls. In her profile she talks about her work and one line really grabbed me - "I truly love what I do... whether it's knitting that perfect pair of booties or hand-quilting my latest creation, it's a labor of love." This is how I feel about my work, so I love hearing it from others.
She also has a fabulous blog where she promotes other handmade artisans as well as doing tutorials and showing her creations.
I really recommend dropping by iKnitQuiltSew for yourself.

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Warm Fuzzies

Welcome back! It is time for another Handmade Artists' Forum Blogring featured Artisan. This week the amazing talent is twiddletoes. Now I hadn't actually heard of them before, and I think I have been missing out.

twiddletoes is the creator of socks! Hand knitted, natural fibre, warm, snuggly, gorgeous socks! She creates one style of sock that is really interesting to me. She calls them Tabi Toes and they are based on traditional Japanese toes socks. When I read about how she decided to make them, seeing people wearing flip flops over normal socks, I had to laugh a little - because that is considered a no-no in Australia! LOL

But I personally love toe socks, so I'm thinking that I would probably like Tabi Toes too! She uses fabulous combinations of colours, and has developed a luxury line using cashmere, alpaca and yak. Yummy!

You can see twiddletoes at a number of locations. There is twiddletoes Etsy and twiddletoes 1000markets, as well as twiddletoes.com, where you can also find her blog where she features other artisans and allows a little look inside her life.

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Spreading the Love

This week the featured artisan on the Handmade Artist's Forum is ME! So I have had a great week reading all these fabulous blog posts about me. But I am not going to do a blog post about myself.. I do enough of that! Instead I am going to blog about the Handmade Artists' Forum.
The Handmade Artists' Forum was begun over a year ago by Andrew and Kimberley Kitchen as a way to support handmade artists and the handmade community. Many forums are begun by folk everyday, but many do not succeed to any great amount. The Handmade Artists' Forum is not like that. It has grown at an astonishing rate! I have been involved with a few forums, and I have never seen one grow as rapidly and consistently as The Handmade Artists' Forum. This is due mainly to the drive of Andrew and Kimberley. Andrew, in particular, set out to Tweet HAF all over the internet. That's actually how I found HAF. He followed me on Twitter, so I followed him and heard about the very new (they had just started) forum. The thing that first grabbed my attention was that it was an SMF forum (forum software), and a couple of forums I was working on were SMF, so I figured I could offer to help them.
So I joined up, mentioned my experience with SMF, and suddenly found myself as a moderator.
Being on staff has given me an opportunity to really see how much stuff Andrew and Kimberly do - and frankly I have to wonder where they get the energy from. They have busy offline lives, yet they spend as much time as possible promoting and supporting handmade artists around the world.
One thing that they noticed was that many handmade artists who were trying to sell on various 'handmade' sites were being made to compete with commercial items, via supplies and vintage sections. This was part of the reasoning behind the Handmade Artists' Shop - a selling venue that is completely handmade, no commercial supplies, no vintage.
All in all, the Handmade Artists' Forum is a home for anyone who loves handmade and wants to support the handmade community. It is an absolute pleasure to be involved with, and I am very glad to have found them.

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Elegance Personified

The Handmade Artists' Forum Blogring is back! The first amazing artisan to be featured is the amazing NaLa. She is an incredibly talented jewellery artist, who creates pieces that are both elegant and delicate, with a certain timelessness which is sure to make them continuing favourite in your jewellery box.

When you stop by Jewelry By NaLa on Etsy you are sure to be struck by the gorgeousness of her creations, and the high quality of both her workmanship and photography.
NaLa also has a fabulous blog, where she keeps her readers updated on new creations, as well as promoting and supporting other handmade artisans and handmade groups.

I absolutely recommend dropping by her Etsy store and her blog, it is well worth the visit.

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