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Shopping blog featuring products made by people not factories.

What Does Home Mean to You

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The image above is from Gbrosseau Photo

I’m writing this at the end of a wonderful long weekend, and as the title suggests, I’m pondering the meaning of the word home. Why now? It’s been on my mind for months really… We currently live right downtown – and while many of our friends have found this to be an ideal environment for raising kids, for me personally, I’m not sure that it feels right.

Both my husband and I fondly remember childhood days spent frolicking in the forests near our homes, building forts, exploring, and having “adventures”. For me time spent in the forest feels as natural as eating or sleeping – despite having lived in cities of various sizes from the age of 11.

The city we live in and the surrounding countryside have an increasing problem of affordability – and many people are forced to move further and further out into the suburbs.

While the suburbs are an option – my husband will continue to work in the city for the foreseeable future, and many of the suburban areas that appeal to us involve an hour and a half commute. And I think it’s tough to know on the outset what kind of experience you’ll have in the suburb you choose. Some neighbourhoods are certainly more community minded and friendlier than others.

This past Tuesday I was busy planning our hike for this weekend and thought it’d be fun to go a bit further afield than usual, to Bowen Island (a 30 minute ferry ride from downtown). I started reading about this jewel of an island on the Pacific and I really liked what I read. I was actually so distracted by everything that I read that it made it tough to work that evening. We decided we ought to go for the weekend as perhaps this is just the type of place we want to call home. Bowen is a heavily forested island with a year round population of 3,000 people that swells to over 4,000 in the summer. It has a quaint downtown with shops, restaurants and a vibrant artisan community. There are no chain stores of any kind. Instead you’ll find miles and miles of trees and hiking trails, hemmed in by rocky bluffs and sandy beaches. The island has a strong history as a place of deep community ties and its populace is very involved in civic affairs.


The image above is from Spread the Love

After this weekend I’ve fallen in love with the island and I know my husband has warmed to it too. As city folks we aren’t that involved in our community right now. It’s easy not to be in the city. I volunteer as much as I can for a local social enterprise, and we make time to see our close friends – but other than that we often find ourselves working long hours, which often seems necessary to keep our entrepreneurial ventures healthy. Now as we ponder the next stage of our lives, thinking about our future children and putting down roots, we’re forced to ask ourselves just what home means to us, and what we should prioritize. We’re planning to visit Bowen again in September to learn more about the island, and we’re considering giving it a test run as renters, perhaps next spring. So for now, things are up in the air – but in the meantime, it’s given us plenty of food for thought as we plan for the future.

I’d love to hear some of your experiences as you were looking to settle down and have kids!

Inspired by Nature Spirits

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There is something about a bluebell wood with dappled sunlight streaming through the leaves that makes me believe in nature spirits. They’re there, I know they are. I just wish I could see them. I imagine them often though, wearing clothes made from their surroundings; woven grasses, leaf skirts, flower petal dresses and crowns made from dew drops. They are in fact, just the sort of clothes I’d like to wear myself. Fortunately, talented people are out there making them in actual human adult sizes!

The above outfit by Spiralina from her shop Fractal Wings is made from raw silk with beautiful embellishments and I just love the way the shapes emulate summer leaves. I’m a big fan of her work and actively encourage you all to take a look at her shop. In fact I will show another one of her items because I love them so much. Her philosophy is to offer unique and beautiful clothing that brings out the goddess in us and it is clear that nature inspires her.

Another great item of human-sized clothing is this fantastically cool skirt with a sort-of leaf tail. Yes, I did indeed say a leaf tail. Unusual yes, but I love it! By Nature Reworked.

Nuno felting is like a mysterious magical technique that I will never understand no matter how many you tube tutorials I may watch. This butterfly top by FeuerundWasser utilises this wonder brilliantly. The colours are beautiful too, especially the way the greens and yellows blend into each other.

A Drop to Drink – Local Wines

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I liked Diana Prichard’s guest post on berries so much that I invited her to be a regular columnist on Try Handmade — she loves food made by real people, and I hope you enjoy her weekly Handmade Food offerings.

“She is a freelance writer and wanna-be homesteader living in rural Michigan with her husband, two daughters, two dogs, three horses, a small flock of chickens and an ever-changing menagerie of other farm animals large and small. She is a self-proclaimed homegrown and artisan food junkie, who in the year 2009 set the goal to grow most of her family’s food in their own garden. She didn’t succeed, but she did make a lot of progress. And there’s always next year.” (more)

I think she’s the right person for this job ;)

:: Erika

A few years ago my husband came home from work with a dark green, unmarked wine bottle in his hand. “Its boysenberry” was the only description I got as he thrust the bottle at me through the front door when I greeted him.

Wine Bottle Cooler in Rose Wool Felt by NestleAndSoar

That night after the kids were tucked into bed, the house quiet I settled on the sofa with the bottle, a glass, and a trashy T.V. show. There, I fell in love. The boysenberry wine, it turned out, was a homemade creation by one of the husband’s colleagues from fruit grown in his backyard. Since then we’ve been lucky enough to be the recipients of many bottles of his wine. A few more boysenberry, a handful of bottles of blueberry, a coveted bottle of some of the best strawberry I’ve ever tasted and yes, even a few traditional grape wines. Never will he accept payment, only the promise that we’ll return the empty bottles – and that we do.

Still, I love wine and loving sharing wine even more. His generous gifts are hardly enough to keep me in drinks the year through. Enter: my complete and utter obsession with local wines. An obsession spurred by a lone unmarked bottle of Boysenberry those years ago and encouraged by a bottle of Michigan made wine I received as a gift from my sister-in-law for Christmas in 2007.

Re-Created Sweater Wine Cozy by ReCreateIt

I look back now on my quaint naivete with humor. How I had, even if it had only been briefly in the very infancy of my wine sampling journey, eschewed wines not from the wine regions. How I had assumed anything made locally would be subpar. I don’t live in Napa Valley, after all.

Now, I cannot get enough of the stuff. But more importantly cannot believe I spent so much time not knowing how many local wineries there really are. Here and every where. Across the United States, from Pennsylvania’s ninety-nine plus wineries to Arkansas’ well-established Post Familie winery and vineyard, the country is ripe with local drinks made of local produce. Even North Dakota has an established winery. Pointe of View Winery was the state’s first and was federally bonded in 2002. And while I’m no wine connoisseur, their Rhubarb wine sounds delicious.

To find local wineries near you search for wine + your state’s abbreviation in Google. Most states have websites like the one linked above for Pennsylvania that are dedicated to helping consumers locate wineries in the area. Happy sampling!

Diana Fayt Ceramics

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Diana Fayt: Diana is both a traveler and a lover of home. She gleans inspiration from nature, the mundane and life’s stories. Her ceramic pieces are often narrative with marks of time, events and images seen and experienced and then drawn into the surface of her clay platters bowls and vases. By doing this she hopes to leave a permanent mark that expresses her vision of what she experiences in the world around her.

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[via Bazaar Bizarre’s Maker Faire vendor list]

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Miss Malaprop

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Of course you know Mallory from her blog, but have you seen her clothing line?

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MissMalaprop.com is where modern handmade meets sustainable design. On my website, I spotlight the best in independent designers & artists, eco-friendly and sustainable products, New Orleans & Gulf Coast based businesses and issues, and people & organizations who are working to make the world a better place.

My own creations reflect those same principals. I began selling my creations under the name “dismantled designs” in 2004, after arriving home from a study abroad program in London where I saw the amazing artists at Portobello Market and where I was inspired to begin selling my own reconstructed clothing & accessories.

My designs are all one-of-a-kind, handmade and original. Most are made from used or vintage clothing, or remnant fabrics and trims. Each piece is meant to have a slightly unfinished, rough-hewn, well-loved look about it. I hope you enjoy!