Try Handmade

Shopping blog featuring products made by people not factories.

Darling Dioramas

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Dear Reader,

When I was in the third grade we were asked to create a diorama that represented a climate, or geographical setting of some kind. The tropics, perhaps a frozen tundra or a mountainous region. Honestly, I wasn’t paying all that much attention. I had just started reading A Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder and there wasn’t anything more riveting to me than reading about Laura and her Pa having to grind up wheat in the coffee mill. Or Ma Ingalls making ice cream out of some snow and maple syrup. Really, these people were geniuses.

The day before the project was due I decided that I would make a Desert scene. Tents, sheiks and the whole shebang. I would use whatever I had on hand – just like the Ingalls. I took out a rusty cookie sheet and filled it with scoops of sand from our sandbox. [Read more…]

Gift Guide For Sharp People

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While trying to pull together this week’s gift guide I found myself stumbling upon this fantastic peanut knife by Contrary. I wanted to build a theme around it because it amused me so much. It’s a peanut. It’s a knife. It makes no sense and that makes it instantly covetable.

I also found this secret leaf knife necklace in Contrary’s shop and knew I had to include it as well. But what would my theme be? Cuts Like a Knife? Secret Sharp Spyware? Really Clever Cutlery?

I tried to look around at other shops too, I honestly did. But Contrary also has a knife, that’s a pistol, that’s a necklace, that has a vintage patina, that really couldn’t be more perfect.

When I finally tore myself away to look at other jewelry artists I was rewarded with this pretty mermaid knife necklace by Lanyapi.

And these pocketknife earrings by YOU gNeek, for those that like their shiv a little shinier.

Still..the theme? I guess I’ll take a cue from my Dad who would always say, “Now that looks sharp!” when he liked the outfit you had on. So this is the gift guide for sharp people. And people who like bacon.

Don’t let anyone ever tell you that you aren’t the sharpest knife in the drawer,
Lotta

Ice Cube Recipes

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Dear Reader,

I have a huge fondness for ice. The naughty ice cube trick my college roommate taught me. The ice the nurse wrapped up in a diaper for post-birth relief. The Ice I rubbed on my teething baby’s gums. The half melted glass of ice I crunched loudly during my first big fight with my husband. The ice in the water that helped me make a decent pie crust for the first time. The ice that clinks in my glass at the end of the day when the house is quiet and sleepy.

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Gift Guide For Carney Lovers

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Do you know someone who’s favorite book is Like Water For Elephants by Sara Guen? Have they read Geek Love by Katherine Dunn till their paperback has gone soft? Does this friend think it’s a travesty that HBO’s Carnivàle series was canceled? Then you my dear have a true carney lover on your hands.

Chances are one of their favorite sensations is flying weightlessly through the air on a creaky, metal carnival swing. Gift them with this fine art print (above) found in bomobob’s etsy shop, “Summer Dreams”.

The best part of carnivals? The food of course. Corn dogs on a stick, roasted corn, cotton candy and candy apples. Though most of these delicacies are served out of questionable trailer with neon lights, they are impossible to resist. Relive those sticky moments with KcSoapsNmore’s caramel apple soaps. Her shop is filled with other sweet delights like pastel macaroons and brightly colored ice pop soaps.

And keep the taste of that delicious warm funnel cake on your lips with themorbidthemerrier’s lip balm. Best part? You won’t choke inhaling the powdered sugar while you enjoy.

Vintage carnival art is a scrumptious clutter of words and color drawing you into strange and mythical attractions, like YeeHaw’s letterpress poster advertising mule sniffing and Earl the singing chicken.

And while we’re daydreaming of old time carnivals let’s not forget the bearded lady. At last we have access to the secret of her well groomed beard thanks to scodioli’s gorgeously dark Etsy shop.

Don’t leave the fairgrounds without getting your fortune told. I predict a trip, a dark stranger and wealth from a surprising source in your future. These vintage fortune cards from ImagineArt7’s shop were used to fill fortune telling napkin holders. I adore them and often use them myself to tie on top of a gift package.

Always happy to be your sideshow,
Lotta

Gift Guide For Playground Enthusiasts

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I’ve written a few times on my blog about my nostalgia for the playgrounds of my childhood. Those 1970’s parks filled with hot metal slides, death defying merry go rounds and pinchy chain link. They made playing at the park just a bit edgier didn’t they?

This gift guide is for the folks who take their children to the foam and padding parks of today, but secretly wish they were back in the not-so-safe but oh-so-fun playgrounds of yesterday. A collection of photographs and art that take the recipient right back to their memories of squeaky swings, foursquare painted on asphalt and freedom.

Snapco’s shop is filled with a small number of prints, each flooded with color and retro memories. This particular print (above) is called “Recess Is Over”. A perfect gift for the childhood friend that would have been hanging for dear life to those slippery bars with you.

Adorn your gift with this charming Ring Around The Rosie card by StaceyWinters. Her subject is a playground game we all played, and she sets the scene with those retro figurines we all used.

Perhaps you are gifting someone with a playground nostalgia that goes even further back than yours? Someone who scoffs, “Sissies!” at your tales of protruding metal bolts. This is the print for them, a vintage photograph of a death defying double wooden slide fashioned from precariously nailed, leftover lumber scraps.

The next two pieces of giftable art recall recess crushes and how they made our hearts race a little faster. A knowing nod to when we counted down the minutes till the bell on the wall would ring, letting us play hopscotch with the object of our affection.

A beautiful pen and ink drawing by bluebicicletta.

And a limited edition lino cut print by Stephanie Mercado called, “Me Without You”.

Race you to the slides!
Lotta