Saturday, January 26, 2013

Featured Artist Shop Reef Botanicals



This week I would like to tell you about a couple of very talented people. Eric and Larissa are a husband and wife team with a mutual love for making things from scratch. They cook, bake, brew, pain, photograph, make candles and soaps, knit, work with fabric and list goes on.



Eric and Larissa






They have two shops on Handmade Artists Shop. The first one I am going to tell you about is ReefBotanicals


This is where you will find their high quality, all natural handcrafted soaps and other indulgences. From the finest all natural ingredients and their own recipes they make bath and beauty products to give you a luxurious experience.










These are just a few of the wonderful items they have in this shop. I just want to eat them up.

Now let me tell you about their shop Fabric Of My Mind



Here you will find hand-knitted items, photography and other handmade things that come across the Fabric of their Mind.








And here is some examples of the photography you can find in their shop.








You can find more on this talented couple at the following links.

http://www.reefbotanicals.com/
http://www.fabricofmymind.com/
http://www.reefbotanicals.blogspot.com/
http://www.njfacepainter.blogspot.com/
http://www.njbodyart.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/ReefBotanicals
http://www.twitter.com/ReefBotanicals
http://www.facebook.com/faceandbodyart


Please stop buy and see them at Handmade Artists Shop. And while you are there check out some of the other very talented artists.



Thursday, January 17, 2013

Rasmussen Gems and Jewelry Feature of the Week



This week I would like to tell you about a very talented couple, John and Debora Rasmussen. They have a shop full of lovely jewelry. John does lapidary to cut gemstones, metalsmithing in silver and copper to make jewelry and wire wrapping. Debora does beading to design and fabricate necklaces, anklets, bracelets, ear rings, and key chains. You will find beautiful stones and jewelry in their shop Rasmussen Gems and Jewelry LLC. They can also be found on their Blog and on Facebook.

This Unakite Pendant has beautiful colors.

This Carnelian and Copper Pendant has some lovely wire work



Please take a moment and look around Rasmussen Gems and Jewelry LLC and the other great shops at Handmade Artists' Shop.





Tuesday, January 15, 2013

2013 Wyndwalker Creations Year To Build A Better Creative Business

I have dedicated 2013 as my year to take our creative business to the next level. I have been searching the internet for tools to help with this process. I would like to share some of these with you in this post. But first a little about us and our creative business.

I have always had a love of creating and crafting. My mother taught me to sew when I was 10 years old. Before that I had been playing around with all kinds of crafts, mostly beads and wire. Making clothes and furniture for my Barbie dolls. I learned to crochet while crossing the Atlantic ocean on our way to live in Australia. My mother-in-law and I shared a love of cross stitching and ceramics. I taught myself to weave on the inkle loom and tri loom after having build to looms myself. This love of crafting evolved into a desire to share and teach others.

After working in the Medical field, managing a Land Surveying office, driving a semi truck with my husband and selling flower pots at home and garden shows, I found what I love to do most. Selling the thing I create.
In 2002 my husband and I fell in love with Pre 1840's Living History Events also called Rendezvous. These events demonstrated the way of live during the fur trade time period here in the United States. At these event  we lived as they did during this time period. I made all our clothes, both leather and cloth. We made the wares we sold. This included antler or bone handled knives, antler pipes, atlatls and darts, bows and arrow, leather bags, beaded items, inkle woven sashes and garters, and shawls made on my tri loom. We also demonstrated at these events. My husband demonstrated the use of the atlatl and dart and I demonstrated the inkle loom. We loved sharing with the public.
Inside our tent at one of the events

We are no longer able to travel to these events due to health issues. That brings us to building my creative business. A whole new world, the age of the internet and selling online. For this I needed to learn some new skills, how to use social media, take pictures, write product descriptions and promote my business via the world wide web.

I started this year using Leonie Dawson's Business Workbook and Planner. This has helped me focus, organize and plan for 2013. It has shown me how I can take my Creative Business to the next level.

Andreea at Launch Grow Joy has great information on promoting and getting your product to the market. Handmade Success has all kinds of tips and information on writing shop profiles and tuning up your Etsy shop. Tiffany Han, CPCC  is a life and business coach for highly-creative people who aren't living the highly-creative lives they want. Brendan Baker at Start of Happiness will help you put happiness back into your life, one smile at a time. At Handmade Artist's I have found a community of  handmade artists who have banded together in an effort to support each other and handmade. Lisa Jacobs at Market Your Creativity has a wealth of information on build a handmade business. These are just a few of the wonderful resources I have found and plan to use this year.

To help you get started on building your Better Creative Business Lisa Jacobs at Market Your Creativity has a tremendous Give-Away you should check out. Build A Better Business Give-Away.

My hope for the new years it that all my handmade artist friends will have a successful and creative year.
If you found this post helpful please leave a comment below and follow this blog the see how Wyndwalker Creations grows in 2013.








Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Featured Artist Kris from Handmade Artist's Shop





This week I would like to tell you about Kris from Handmade Artist's Shop. She is a very talented artist with two shops on Handmade Artist's Shop. In her shop lisianblue you will find an assortment of knitted and crochet items. Her well made items include hats, scarves, wash clothes, bibs, baby booties and much more. Through your purchase she able to donate hats and scarves for the less fortunate. In her other shop Reflections you will fins very lovely and unique stained glass creations, painted glass, stained glass and  hand pendants. Her glass wind chimes and hand painted ornaments are one of a kind creations.

You can also find Kris on Twitter and her Blog

I invite your to check out her unique creations in  lisianblue 




And form Reflections





Thank you for stopping by and don't forget to check out all the wonderful shops at Handmade Artist's Shop








Friday, January 4, 2013

Featured Artist Rocky Mountain Ornaments


Today I would like to tell you about Chrissie another talented Arist at Handmade Artist's Shop. Chrissie is a single Mom of two beautiful grown kids. She is originally from Florida. Where she has lived her whole life. She decided to leave the rat race of the big city of Ft. Lauderdale when her husband passed suddenly 5 years ago. She wanted the change of seasons and the see mountains and feel the peacefulness around her and not to feel like she was being rushed to do anything. So she packed up her bags and moved to beautiful Colorado.
So once She got settled there. She brought her mother out for a visit, her mother is a longtime quilter and decided to teach her in the week she was here visiting. Now learning to quilt in a week was a very overwhelming task to learn. After her mother left everything just sat there for at least 2 months sewing machine, fabric all of it. She just didn’t know what to do she was calling her mother everyday asking questions about this and that. She just couldn’t get it. So she went online and started doing some research and discovered rag quilting. It was pretty new to quilters and as she watched YouTube videos and saw pictures of these quilts and saw how they were made and how beautiful they are. She was hooked. So she sat down at her machine and started putting a small one together and fell in love and has been making table runners, blankets, and purses ever since. She sent pictures to her mom and she loved them. 

Here is one of her lovely rag quilts.

Sweet Blossoms Rag Quilt



Candy cane
Then the holidays came around, She had been making ornaments for 15 years and always changing her color theme every year so she went online again and found these beautiful quilted ornaments and as she sawRocky Mountain Ornaments was born. 

how they were made she thought what a bonus she can still use all of the fabric that she had to make these beauties. And that is just what she did. So she pushed my rag quilting to the side and started making these little beauties and she has not stopped making them. Then one night she was taking to a friend of hers on face book and she told her about a show she was having and would love for her to come and be a vendor and that she would be the only quilter there. So she said sure. She wanted to get her ornaments shown to the public now mind you she started making these ornaments on a Tuesday and the show was on that following Saturday. She had only just learned how to make them. She sold one before she could get it out of the box. So when she got home she kept making them a week later she got a wholesale order for her ornaments needless to say she was very excited about this. And has been making them ever since and thus that is how

Her Ornaments a beautiful.

Home of the Brave Kusudama Ornament







Red and Gold












I hope you have enjoyed these beautiful creations.

Have a creative day
Karen