No more plastic bags.

Every time I go off out into the countryside somewhere along the way we find the remains of a plastic bag. This little island that I live on is getting so over populated that very few parts of it can be considered wilderness and human beings seem to be incapable of keeping their rubbish to themselves. My solution is to get everyone to give up using plastic bags and plastic packaging that is not biodegradable. The sooner we do this the better in my opinion, so I'm going to offer up some alternatives to use.

There is no excuse for using a plastic carrier bag when you can take your shopping home in a set of these zebra totes from Rainbow Swirlz. True to their shop name Mendy and James make these stylish tote bags in a rainbow of colours, so you are sure to find one that you like.

Ones and Zeros Fashions make these groovy Lunch Monsters™ to store your packed lunch in. They are great! Insulated to keep your food cool and fresh and you can use them over and over again. You'll be the envy of all your friends. Easy to clean and eco friendly. I think they are fantastic!

What a perfect gift to help someone to stop using all that plastic. Initial this bag do exactly what their shop name suggests. They personalised tote shopping bags with an initial. Show your love for a friend or family member and the planet by giving them a gift set of 3. You could even fill them with goodies before you wrap them.

Proletariat Bags has a great range of bags that even the most stylish shopper will be proud to be seen carrying. This one in is in a green canvas with a screen print of a gas mask on the front. Others have bio-hazard symbols, legs, spiders, dragonflies... a whole host of symbols. Check them out. I know of a couple of teenages that would love one of these bags.

Pouch bags are wonderful! I am an owner of one and I take it everywhere with me. It is used nearly every day to carry my knitting/crochet around with me and when I shop it is the first bag I grab to take with me. They are made from strong re-purposed and vintage fabric. I'm loving mine.

So there is no excuse for using plastic bags any more. Proudly walk up to the check out in any shop and say "Oh no it's ok, I don't need a bag thank you. I have one of my own." Just think how good it will feel each morning putting a non disposable lunch bag into your child's school bag, knowing that your child won't be adding to the mountain of plastic that goes into the litter bins every day. We cannot go on using and throwing away do much non biodegradable plastic. It will take thousands, if not millions of years for the ones already in landfill sites to disappear. Lets stop adding to that pile now. Get some reusable biodegradable fabric bags and use them!

Written by Lynne of Hyperloop Hoops and PiratePixieCrew

Artisan of the Week, Elaine of Tooaquarius

Morning all! We have a fabulous artisan to feature today. I admire this ladies work so much. Having had a go at making polymer clay beads myself I know just how hard it is to make such beautifully crisp designs. Elaine, of Tooaquarius, has mastered the skills needed and creates some of the most lovely beads I've seen. Her talent deserves to be celebrated.

1. Could you please introduce us to who you are and what you do?
Off-line I'm Elaine Robitaille but on-line I've been Tooaquarius for quite a while! It was a play on a birthday based name - 2 Aquarius for being a 2nd month, Aquarius - and the fact that I'm often simply *too* Aquarius. I began working with clay in my final semester of an IT program in college and I haven't stopped since. I often kid that I haven't gotten out of the honeymoon stage yet but it's sappily true.

As far as my craft goes I work with polymer clay - a medium originally marketed for children - to make millefiori designs, a technique borrowed from glass beadmakers where a design is built up of logs of glass and then stretched so that the logs lengthen but the design shrinks. I slice and apply these canes to beads, vessels, boxes... pretty much anything I can pop in the oven and bake. I sell the smaller items - canes for other clay artists and beads - online and the rest offline.

2. What led you to take up your craft?
When the jewelry making bug bit at the end of high school I had some crazy fun making daisy chains and seed bead items. As time passed I found myself making more wire and chain pieces and incorporating larger glass and stone beads. They were also very expensive on my college student budget! I decided I would start making my own
focal beads and as I had a newborn and a teeny little suite, I figured I would go with clay rather than a kiln and torch.

Fast forward 10 years, I make jewelry to showcase the beads instead of the other way around.

3. Which part of your work do you most enjoy?
Designing is my favourite part. Drawing was my first love and my approach to design allows me to combine that and my interest in technical aspects. I get to pull themes from photographs and fabric samples, flower gardens and fairy tales, and mix it up. I have almost as much fun making my colour recipes,tools and shapes as I do deciding on the patterns.

4. Which part do you find hardest?
Finishing work is an ongoing challenge. Properly executed, it makes stunning pieces but it's a dull task and so tempting to take short cuts!

5. Where do you hope to be in 1 year’s time?
Safely ensconced in my new office-studio in a small town about 500 km from here! Business wise, I'd like to keep up the slow but steady trend: a few more wholesale accounts, steadier sales on-line, a bigger show or two, another class and perhaps another couple of articles pitched.

6. What is the best advice you have ever been given?
Since I can't remember any advice I've been given once I'm asked I will repeat a quote I read on the Happiness Project blog: The days are long but the years are short. In addition to telling me to value my time it's also helped me with my patience and to adopt a one step at a time process. I often see fellow crafters rushing to become big names, sell large volumes and stressing out about it - I think I'll enjoy the process.

7. Could you name artisans sites/shops would you recommend are worth a visit?
There's an impressive and awe inspiring amount of fabulous art and craft out there so I'll offer a sampling of clayers I adore:

Kathleen Dustin
Colleen Downs
Elise Winters
Bettina Welker
Anita Sterling-Winthrop

8. What is your favourite sandwich filling?
My favourite sandwich filling was perhaps the toughest question as I love sandwiches! The humble sandwich can be made so many tasty ways. I'll stick with my first love though and say cheese is the best filling. Grilled, toasted or open faced.

Thank you for sharing with us Elaine. I totally agree with you about growing your business at a slow and steady rate. It grounds you and make sure that you business is on steady foundations. If this article has wet your appetite then you can see much more of this talented ladies work on Flickr, Etsy, Artfire, and in her collaborative shop with the artisan Carolyn Jordan claychicks.

Written by Lynne of Hyperloop Hoops and PiratePixieCrew.

Yippeee it's my Birthday!

No blogging today because it's Valentines Day and my Birthday so Jon and I are just having fun all day!

Have a fun fill day!
XXXXX

Fabulous Flickr Friends!

Lately there have been some very beautiful and exciting photos posted on out Flickr group. The group has been set up to not only showcase the work of people already in the handmade world, but we wanted to encourage people to have a go at arts and crafts that maybe they hadn't tried or had forgotten that they could already do. At the beginning of March we are going to be running a monthly challenge from this blog and the Flickr group. There will be a topic set and we are inviting anyone and everyone to create something that fits with the topic. We hope this will trigger off peoples imagination and draw out their creativity. All the details of how to join in will be posted at the beginning of March. In the meantime I's like to share some of the photos that have been posted up on the Flickr group.

Lesley Messam created this stunning leaf pendant from silver PMC. When I first saw it I just thought WOW! Check out some more of her work on Flickr. Lesley not only creates she also teaches other how to use their artistic flare and turn their ideas and talents into beautiful pieces of jewellery.

StarPixie is someone I have known for a few years. I met her through poi spinning. These little critters are her fist attempts at sock creatures. Aren't they gorgeous! StarPixie is a fabulous photographer, she sews, crochets and generally turns her hand to most craft skills. A very talented lady!

This photo was another picture that made me want to check out more of the creators work. This piece was made by Chameleon Designs. The lampwork bead is so detailed and beautiful. There are many more eye catching beads to see in her flickr account. Take a look and be delighted and amazed at her skills.

The Rainbow Effect is a lovely lady that I met through Twitter. She has a passion for colour and up-cycling exciting fabrics from the past into useful items that can be used today. Her shops are chock full of bright beautiful pieces that will bring a smile to your day each time you see them. These hot water bottle covers come with a matching French lavender bag, who's scent on warming will be sure to aid you to have a restful sleep.

Jake and Noel created these stylish porcelain pendants. She has many different designs, as you can see in her flickr account. I picked this one to share, because of the word "Hope" on it. We all need hope in these troubled times. Maybe wearing this would remind people that see it to hold onto their hopes even though all that ever seems to get reported these days are the worlds troubles.

Come over and join us on the Flickr group. Share with us all your makes. We would love to see them.

Written by Lynne of PiratePixieCrew and Hyperloop Hoops

CARS! VROOM VROOM!

Today, I had my windscreen replaced as it has had an increasingly lengthening crack running from the bottom passenger side corner towards the middle of the screen for some time now.
Skully and I were starting to worry that if I left it any longer that it would crack even further and the windscreen would eventually fail on me as I was driving down the motorway (the motorway is my road to work and back every day), the results of which could be fatal. So huzzah, it got replaced whilst I was at work, so I now have a lovely clean and crack free windscreen on my car.

Which leads me neatly to today's chosen topic; cars!



The first item is a print of one of my favourite cars ever made. The Lamborghini Murcielago *drooooools onto the keyboard*. This item is either a very large wall sticker, or the artisan ( bombgrafx ) has a very small sofa. The sticker comes in a much wider range of colours, but more importantly, is also 1/11000th the price of a full scale Murcielago! So for those of us who don't have a spare £188,910 ($271,481) laying around, this is the closest we will ever get to owning one!




Next up we have something that I desperatly need. A car bin. My little car's floor is covered in empty Lucozade bottles, used tissues, chocolate bar wrappers, petrol receipts, scrunched up sweet wrappers and other miscellaneous "rubbish". If I had this car bin, ther'd actually be a container for the rubbish, other than the passenger footwell. Big thanks goes out to KustomDesigns for this item.



The next item, made by Bee Smith, caught my eye because I had that exact same toy car when I was a child and I think that I may still have it somewhere in a box. As I'm a boy with the traditional short hair, this product would look rather 'odd' on me to say the least. However we all know at least one of the following: a long haired female, a vain footballer or a hippy, and I'm certain that they would each appreciate it!



This stunning toy box was constructed and then lovingly hand painted by withhugsandkisses and features cars, tractors and fire engines! With an excellent storage capacity, this is an awesome place to hide/ tidy all your (children's) toy cars, which, if yours are anything like I was, will have hundreds, often scattered around the house, but mainly near stairs and anywhere you might walk with a priceless Ming vase on a tray, or when you are carrying a big bowl of tomato soup over a white carpet!




Last up we have these cool alloy wheel cufflinks as made by enthraldesigns. Made from recycled toy parts and guaranteed to never come apart, these would look great on any shirt. The artisan does say that the wheels have done many a mile, so don't expect them to have much tread left!....

Which reminds me.. I need to book an MOT for my car! However, as it was fully serviced just under 20k miles ago, had new tyres under 1k miles ago, and a new windscreen under 25 miles ago, I expect it to sail (drive?) through with no problems. Wish me luck!

Written by Jon of Hyperloop Hoops.