Try Handmade

Shopping blog featuring products made by people not factories.

White Earth Studio

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Look who I found in the Gallery!

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White Earth Studio: White Earth, a series of porcelain vessels, is a homage to my childhood in the Dakotas, its visual images and memories. It is a deep respect, a bowing down to the earth where I have experienced it.

Walking the freshly plowed fields as a child, I would find fossils, shells and arrowheads heads. I have renewed and extended my fascination with these shapes. I have discovered new connections between the prairie (once an inland sea) and the ocean. Like the prairie and the sea, my pieces display hues against large neutral backgrounds – a touch of pink or a glint of pearl – finding a prairie rose in a otherwise green meadow, or a single shell on a stretch of sand.

White Earth comes from some part of me that works unconsciously, a part that reaches down into my memories. White Earth comes from that private part of me, and I hope it will touch that part in others.

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Organization for the Little Artist

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Teaching children about the techniques and pleasure of art is a truly wonderful thing. Finding ways go keep their own art supplies in order…not so much. Here are a few handy items to keep their paints, pencils, tools, and even their completed projects in order.

The bright and cheery art clips pictured above are handmade with child and earth in mind and are available in a variety of colors and themes. These wooden clips, created by Wanda at Maple Shade Kids are eco-friendly and can be used to display inspirational pictures in a creative workspace, hang projects to dry, organize papers, and so on. Take a look at their shop for additional designs and other adorable items for your child’s room.

In whatever area you choose to designate as your child’s creative space be prepared to have containers around to sort supplies that will be used on a regular basis. The art bucket shown above features a convenient handle for easy transportation and individual side pockets to hold up to twelve markers. Mom N Mia Quilts designs these handy little buckets for your creative toddler. Don’t worry about spills – they’re machine washable!

If you already have designated buckets for your supplies, don’t forget to add labels. Created by the graphic designers at The Sticker Hut, these mini chalkboard labels give you the freedom to erase and re-label over and over. Let the kids get creative and write out the labels themselves. They add a little personalization and simple creativity to your space.

Share some of your idea with us!
Link to photos of your child’s creative workspace below.

Washington, DC, USA

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[hTara]

DC Love Print by Art Shark Designs

Megan Nolton, of Art Shark Designs, created this awesome print representing her hometown – but her shop also includes many prints representing other cities, including Philly, Venice, and Portland. Trained in graphic design, Megan also fancies printmaking and painting. Her “city love” prints are created using a Gocco printer and the red umbrellas are delicately added with watercolor. [Read more…]

Delaware, USA

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[hTara]

I’m in the first state, for the first time, for vacation. So I thought it fitting that I should bring you the best of Delaware for this week’s shop local post!

On our first night here, we stopped in a tiny little building set just off the main boulevard of Rehoboth Beach. Heidi Lowe Gallery is an “Innovative Jewelry Studio” that houses small exhibitions of jewelry art throughout the year. I got to see a display made up exclusively of earrings!

The inside of the gallery is quite simple and the displays change with each exhibition. For the jewelry exhibition, Heidi had affixed black silhouettes to the cream colored walls. Each silhouette displayed a single earring.

Heidi Lowe Jewelry Gallery

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Organize Your Pretties: Jewelry Displays

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I find that one of the most difficult things to organize is my never-ending pile of jewelry. A jewelry box is functional, however, I have found that openly displaying your jewelry can be even more beautiful and can even serve as a piece of artwork within your home.

The handmade jewelry organizer pictured above is from a wonderful shop called BlueBirdHeaven based in Louisville, Kentucky. The artist, Jessica, is a sustainable architectural designer who is the original creator of these jewelry displays made from vintage printer’s drawers. She is passionate about finding ways to reuse the distinctive and beautiful things that surround us. Visit her shop to see all of the different colors and styles available to fit any decorating scheme.

This whimsical little butterfly jewelry display can be found at Hook and Line. The idea for the artist’s designs came from her daughter’s growing love for jewelry and the need for a place to store it all. You can display all sorts of earrings styles on this simple picture frame style organizer. What I love about pieces like this is that you can see all of your earrings at once, so it makes selecting a pair that matches your outfit incredibly simple. No more digging through jewelry boxes, no more searching for that missing earring.

This last jewelry display helps you to organize not only your earrings, but your necklaces as well! Frank and Marla of New Dimension Wood Design have a jewelry display line called Jewelry Holders For You where they specialize in their one of a kind, elegant displays suitable for home use or in a boutique setting. Frank is a professional wood craftsman with forty years of architectural woodworking experience and creates truly beautiful works of art.

Find these and many other jewelry display ideas online, or have fun coming up with your own unique designs! As always, feel free to share your ideas with us!