Insects!

It's getting cold outside and all the insects that spent the summer rushing about going about their business have disappeared from view. Where do they all go? Where do they hide away until the warmth of spring lets them know it's time to get busy again? Their disappearance is one of the reasons I get down in Winter. A garden full of chirping, buzzing, hopping, leaping insects looks so alive and vibrant. Once they go the garden looks tired, as if sleeping due to hypothermia. I want them to hurry back. Bring on Spring!

Pigeon Prints

Panchromatica

Mountain Path Studio

Jes Switaj

Rainwolf


I want the insects back!

Written by Lynne of Hyperloop Hoops and Pirate Pixie Crew

Flickr Friends Finds

All this time I've been away sick you lovely people have still been adding photos of your gorgeous handmade goodies to our Flickr group. Thank you so much for doing that. I've picked out a few to share with the other blog readers today. There were so many to choose from that it took me 3 hours to finally pick. Needless to say there are loads more I want to share, but it will have to wait until another day, or this blog post will be a mile long.

Purple_Ebren

Coolbeans717

Seethewoods

Aileen Clarke Crafts

Beib

Adorable, beautiful, stylish, comedic, fantastic... the mixture of things you can find in the flickr group is amazing. Please go check it out and click through to the photostreams of the posters to the group to see even more amazing handmade items, but remember to make yourself a cup of tea or coffee before you do as you are sure to be there a long time being wowed by what you see.

Written by Lynne of Pirate Pixie Crew and Hyperloop Hoops

Hammered Metal

Just pictures and links today. I love the texture and simplicity of hammered metal, so feast your eyes on these beauties:-

Christen Largent

Nova Designs

Studio 618

Sara Buk

Realisation Creations

Kathryn Cole

Artigiana Jewellery

Clicking on the image takes you to the items listing. Clicking on the name takes you to the shop. Check out other items from all these sellers. There is lots of gorgeous stuff you need to see.

Collated Lynne of Hyperloop Hoops and Pirate Pixie Crew

My handmade Christmas wish list

Every year around this time people start to ask that question "What do you want for Christmas?" and to be honest most of me wants to say "Nothing thanks, give what you would have spent on a gift to the charity of your choice", but I'd be lying if some of me didn't want to say "Wooooo I'd love...." Now I'm going to stick with my first statement and tell people to give donations, but just for the fun of it I'm going to share with you some of my favourite handmade goodies that are on my imaginary Christmas list.

Mithi's work always makes me go "Wow!". She is such a talented lady and fabulous with it. Check out her shop for more beautiful embroidery pieces and her brilliant illustrations.

Vaisto's shop has so many clothes in it I would love to wear. Her asymmetrical skirts and trouser combo's are my favourite. This skirt's colours are just so bright, cheerful and fun that you could never be sad wearing it!

A couple of weeks ago I stumbled across the artwork of Rima Staines and The Hermitage. This picture really grabbed me as it pictures perfectly how I feel about being trapped inside my malfunctioning body some days. The Hermitage website is beautiful, please do visit it.

PlaiderPillar shop is full of creations I'd love to fill my home with. The Giant Octopus McPaul Therman fills me with delight. He's stupendously grand! He is not alone either all the other creations in this shop are scrummy.
For all of you that think I don't have a girly bone in my body, you might be surprised by my choice of Alangcry pretty flowing skirt, but yes I do have some girlishness and this swirly skirt appeals to it.

Googlie Goggles! Yippeeeeeee. I love these vintage Austrian military glacier goggles from MorningBird. I always find it really hard to find sunglasses I like and when I do, I always manage to break them, so maybe goggles is the way to go.

Recycled handmade goods are not only are lovingly crafted but they are environmentally friendly too. Katcha bags made from recycled rubber inner tubes are soooooo stylish, well designed and useful, who wouldn't want to own one?

Add to this list in the comments by linking us to your favourite handmade shops.

Are you making and selling handmade goods?

After a bit of a chat between fellow artisans that sell their handmade goods online, I've started up a forum, the Handmade Business Forum, that is independent of all the sell through sites, where people can come and chat about being in business, but mostly to discuss promotions and ad campaigns for their shops and websites.

We all know how hard it is to get our goods seen and sometimes it's hard to know where to start. This forum is a place where we can help each other with ideas and join up as teams to promote each other. The forum is set up so only members can read it, this allows you to chat about your ideas in private.

We will be using the forum to plan for group promotions, like the Coriandr Express that a group of us ran a few months ago, and to come up with new ideas that will get the handmade movement's message out there to a wider public and gain publicity for all of the forum members.

If you make and sell handmade goods and wish to join in, please sign up to the forum and come and chat.