About the Try Handmade™ Network
We’re completely enamored of handmade products and want to share this love with you. We understand that it can initially seem intimidating making a purchase from an individual instead of a faceless yet ‘reliable’ corporation, and we’re here to help you find items which will help change your mind using nothing but the sheer power of their incredibleness.
We find it wonderful and awe-inspiring that there really are people out there making so many things which we can choose instead of mass-produced dreck. Whether you buy handmade new items, or upcycled / recycled / repurposed, you’re doing the planet a favor, and you are helping to support an artisan. What could be better than that? New factories will get built with or without our help, but being able to encourage and support artists, artisans, crafters, and hobbyists is a dream come true.
A portion of revenue from this site goes to Kiva to fund microloans to small businesses run by women across the globe. [view loan recipients]
And now on to the…
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
- “Can you feature my work?” Add your favorite pieces to the Try Handmade Gallery, submit a DIY Interview, or upload photos to In My Workspace — I look carefully at everything submitted.
- “Can you recommend other ways to promote my work?” Sure!
- “Can I purchase a review on your site?” Nope. This includes being a ‘featured sponsor’ if you buy an ad on the site. We want our readers to know that everything we post about is something we feel passionately about, not something we were paid to post about.
- “Thank you so much for writing such a nice article about me – I’d love to send you some of my work as a thank you! What’s your address?” We LOVE it when you are happy to be featured, and thank you so much for wanting to give us a gift, but we don’t take thank-you gifts. Ever. Why? Because we never want anyone to imagine that we write features hoping for freebies. Try Handmade doesn’t work that way.
- “What’s with all the ™ symbols??” Look, I’m as surprised as you are, but there really are people out there who try to copy this site. I hope the symbols aren’t too distracting, but I’ve decided to follow my attorney’s advice on this one.
Nice things people have said about this site
“Try Handmade is single-handedly responsible for making me poor. I don’t blame the recession, I blame you Erika! (slinks off to sell children in order to support etsy addiction)” - Procrastamom.
“Lovely site http://tryhandmade.com/” @gwenbell
“RT @gwenbell: Lovely site http://tryhandmade.com/” @CraftyChica, Kathy Cano-Murillo
“Erika over at tryhandmade.com is doing some very important work. She is helping all of us push the handmade resurgence from a micro-trend to a macro social movement. We applaud her work and think her blog is just lovely.” - Artfire.
TryHandmade is “designed in a way that’s super friendly to browsing the handmade items and searching for what you’re looking for.” - ThreadBanger.
“I truly believe it is your life’s goal to make me spend my childrens’ college tuition on hand made goods.” - MammaLoves.
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