Tag: handmade

Silk Paintings

~ Bess Paper Goods & Gifts ~ 3 Comments

Instead of hanging that painting on your wall, why don’t you wear it around your neck? I love scarves, and these two artists are creating truly beautiful ones.

Angela of Muse Silk Paintings has a self-professed pattern obsession and loves the way the silk allows the ink to move between her resist lines. She has some really great info about her experiences with the craft on her blog. I love the fluid quantity of her work and how she allows the medium to do what it wants.

scarf

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Mary of True so in Love is a full time artist (see her other etsy shop) who recently branched out into painting silk. The lovely line quality shown here carries throughout her work. The name is a play on “trousseau” as a collaboration with a lingerie designer is in the works to create one-of-a-kind hand painted silk lingerie pieces.

Kiln work

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While shopping for housewares on etsy the other day I ran across Alice’s kiln work shop. Alice got her start as a glass artist experimenting with small torchwork beads and marbles. She eventually yearned to move on to bigger and better pieces, so she bought a kiln and taught herself the rest!

First she cuts appropriately sized pieces of glass for the base and decorative elements of the piece. She stacks them and fires them in the kiln to fuse them together. A single piece may be fired several times as design elements are layered on. When the flat blank is complete, the piece is returned to the kiln for shaping. This time the piece is placed across a form. As the temperature rises, the glass slowly slumps to take the shape of the mold.

Of what inspires her, she says, “I think I just enjoy being around glass. It feels good to the hand; it’s cold & smooth sometimes—rough other times; it’s a solid and a fluid . . . . There are so many techniques to learn and styles to dabble in that I find that just playing around with the glass tends to yield more fun projects than I could ever complete.” Keep playing, Alice, your work is beautiful!

Driftless Studio

~ Bess Paper Goods & Gifts ~ 1 Comment
Anne Connor with her award-winning Boy Band
Anne Connor with her award-winning "Boy Band" photograph

622 press cards are now carried at Driftless Studio, which is owned and operated by Anne Connor. Anne is an amazing nature photographer, and the gallery exhibits much of her work as well as that of local and international artists. The shop carries everything from hand-woven rugs to unique jewelry to handmade crayons, and of course Anne’s photography graces coasters, mousepads, canvases and more.

She picked up my vintage owl notecard, plum and silver feathers note card and two colorways of my gone to seed note card. Driftless Studio is located at 2981 Cahill Main in Fitchburg, just behind The Great Dane on Fish Hatchery Rd.

Books and Brew, a delightful coffee shop in my hometown of Milton, WI, also decided to carry my cards full time. They picked up a few holiday designs last year, and the new owner Carla ordered a few of almost all of my notecard designs as well as one of each of the limited edition prints. She’s doing some really exciting things with the store including an expanded menu and earlier hours and giving the whole shop a facelift.

Miltons Old Junction Mill
Milton's Old Junction Mill

Books and Brew is located at 613 W. Madison Ave., in Milton’s recently restored Old Junction Mill, which is also home to The Red Rooster and Peddlar’s Loft. If you’re in the area you should definitely make a point to stop by!

Fruit Fly Pie

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owls

I harbor a small obsession with owls. Luckily, Fruit Fly Pie ceramics has just the fix for me! Wendy’s etsy shop is chock full of planters, vases, dishes and more modeled after this whimsical animal. They’re slip cast from vintage ceramic molds and finished  with non-toxic, lead free & food safe glazes. She also offers a variety of other vessels made from vintage designs — from cupcakes to turtles — including this adorable deer!

Miss Malaprop

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Miss Malaprop, a.k.a. Mallory, hosts a blog of “indie finds for your uncommon life” and today she posted about me! Mallory is a writer living and working in New Orleans who is very much dedicated to supporting her regional community as well as the community of artists, artisans and crafters making beautiful goods by hand. I can’t thank her enough for her lovely words about my work!