3/31/05 | Starving Artist Bazaar
Jennifer from Starving Artist Bazaar not only has one of the coolest logos I’ve seen for a craft site but also makes some really excellent DIY craft items. Her jewelry, in particular the earrings, seems to be very light, airy and dangly in construction. She also concentrates on hand knitted items like bags, chokers and cuffs, hats, scarves and even baby items. In addition she’s got some of her own prints and paintings for sale.
From her site:
I am a graphic designer living in Chicago(burbs) with a B.F.A. in design from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. I also work in pottery, glass, painting and film. I’ve shown my work at film festivals and sold pieces at charity auctions. In 2003, I made some glass buttons and gave them to my friend Vahn. She suggested I sell my buttons at a craft fair with her. I did that and made some jewelry too. Now I’m addicted to making jewelry. No matter what medium, I’m always experimenting and my designs are constantly evolving. Anything can spark an idea for a design. A painting, a vase full of orchids, a pattern on a piece of cloth. Also, on my site are pieces by other talented artists. They share the same need to create beautiful and unique pieces.
Jennafer Bryan and Michelle Fowler make up the jewelry design team behind The Scarlet Poppy. Many of their pieces are both elegant and airy in composition, though there are a few that are bolder in design as well. They make quite a good selection of necklaces, bracelets and earrings, and they also have a few items for “tots” as well. The focus seems to range from various standard precious stones like chalcedony, jade, turquoise, and quartz to an interesting greenish stone called Prehnite that I’m not familiar with. I believe that the majority of their pieces are unique.
For the past two years, Sue and Kathleen have organized the Renegade Craft Fair a festival of sorts in Chicago that featured DIY crafters and their creations. This year they’ve gone “on tour” for the first time and are planning a Renegade Craft Fair in Brooklyn in addition to their usual Chicago event. Note that they are no longer accepting applications for the New York event so jewelry makers will have to either wait until next year to apply or try out for the one in Chicago which is taking place in September 2005.
I stumbled across some really cool pins from Happy Owl Glassworks the other day. These square pins are about an inch across and are created out of fused glass. Head Owl Tracy offers a good selection of animals on her glass pins so you have quite a few choices including the following: fawn, owl, bunny, squirrel, porcupine, ladybug, damselfly and chess piece. I like how many of the glass pieces aren’t pure white or clear but feature very nice background color choices for the glass like olive green, powder blue and purple.
Kiona from Lucky Accessories uses beads and precious stones to create fun but elegant accessories. Many of her items are limited editions or even one of a kind pieces. She offers both simple and fancy necklaces, earrings, rings, bracelets, brooches and hairpins that seem quite affordable for their complexity.
For those who are currently avoiding sweets like cakes and cupcakes (for various individual reasons of course), you can live vicariously through these delicious looking dessert necklaces from Pancake Meow. Leslie from Pancake Meow site makes miniature cupcakes, cake slices, waffles, doughnuts and ice cream sandwiches and strings them on bead elastic to make delectable treats to wear around your neck.
If you’re running a small jewelry or craft business and are looking for a really fun way to promote your products, you should take a look at The Sampler. Marie from The Sampler started up this service in August of 2004. Basically, every month people sign up for a nominal fee to receive a really fun variety package containing tons of indie craft samples including things like jewelry, handsewn pouches, soap, buttons, stickers, zines, candles, bookmarks, magazines, CDs and more! DIY Craft businesses are the ones that provide the actual samples, which acts as a promotional tool for them to get their name out there. There are different tiers of sample contribution, ranging from people who contribute only a few one-of-a-kind special items, to magazines who contribute 200+ copies.
