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featured artists



Meet April McCrumb of a.i. paper design in Berkley, Michigan.  She creates stylish and savvy handmade paper goods.  Her favorite part of designing is mixing and matching vibrant colors, rich textures, interesting findings and subtle graphics.  She loves taking everyday items and looking at them in a different light.  A lot of her ideas are fairly simple concepts that are usually functional.  "I didn't want a white plastic dry erase board hanging in my kitchen so I thought... I could come up with something much prettier and ta-da -our stylish message boards were born." 




Meet Jo-Anne Warren, owner of Amaranth Stoneware in Kingston, Ontario.  She creates many clever things with clay in a variety of genres.  Jo-Anne named her business after the Amaranth plant which is a cosmopolitan genus of herbs, offering high quality natural goodness.  This all encompassing plant provides dye, paper, nutritional rich grain and vegetable, as well as unfading beautiful blooms.  Amaranth is a unique, varied and valuable plant that is so hardy it is deemed never to wither or fade.  All of Jo-Anne's products are made from stoneware clay that has been fired to over 2000 degree F.  All materials used in their products are lead-free, safe and natural with FDA approval on any item that comes in contact with skin or food.  We're glad to offer a nice selection of Jo-Anne's designs.



Meet Amy Peters of Avila Beach, California.  She credits her love of inscribed jewelry to a good luck token machine at the local Woolworth's store during her childhood. It was called the Harvard Metal Stamper and for 25 cents you could put your own special message on a good luck coin that you could put on a keyring or wear on a necklace chain.  It is important for Peters' that her jewelry be affordable and accessible to everyone. "I want the designs to be inspirational and to be keepsakes and talismans for everyday life" states Peters. "I especially love the time in a girl's life when she is just finding her voice, My hope is that my designs can help them along their voyage"



Meet Anita Crook of Simpsonville, South Carolina.  Four years ago she received a trendy handbag from her oldest son and even though she loved it, she knew she would never use it because it had no pockets inside.  She thought, "If only I had a way to stay organized and change purses"  She looked in stores and websites but found nothing that satisfied her and that's when the pouchee idea was born. 

Before long, she was discussing her idea with a friend who introduced her to a purse designer who shared a name of a manufacturer and pretty soon she had 2000 pouchees coming from China.  Once they arrived she didn't know where to begin.  She thought, "Why am I doing this?  I could be home ironing, cleaning toilets... I'm way too old for this stress"  But over time more and more stores bought them and business was booming.  Now Anita's 60+ years old, marketing, selling, shipping and having a ball... organizing women, one purse at a time.



Meet Anne Taintor of Coyote, New Mexico.  Her savvy one-liners mixed with vintage imaging always guarantees a good grin or giggle. Anne graduated from Harvard in 1977 with a degree in Visual and Environmental Studies. After college, she focused on collage, and her work always incorporated a subtle humor and playfulness. For years, Anne's art was more of a sideline than a full-time occupation. But in the late 1980s, she was a single mother searching for a way to spend more time at home with her daughter than her job in cartography permitted, and she began to concentrate on a new line of designs. The new collages combined vintage images with Anne's own interpretation of what these men and women might really be thinking. 



Meet Bonnie Bond of Basic Spirit in Pugwash, Nova Scotia Canada.  She and her husband make wonderful handcrafted pewter goods.  They love to design and create products that touch the heart and delight the spirit. They believe in supporting actions that are socially responsible, that help to sustain our planet and that enable the human spirit to thrive. 10% of their profits help to fund environmental and charitable organizations.



Meet Pam Mitchell and Gracie Exline, a mother & daughter team from Milton, Florida.  They are the self-taught artists behind Blackwater Folk Art.  Their small cottage industry began with a few paint brushes and some reclaimed hurricane debris.  Pretty soon they were turning tin trash into whimsical decor that can be used inside or outside.  Every sign is one of a kind and painted by hand.  The rust, random nail holes and dents are all part of the charm of these recycled sayings.



Meet Susan & Connie.  These are friends, colleagues, moms, volunteers, optimistically active members of our global community and the creators of the Blessing Bowl.  Their business began with a simple holiday gift eight years ago.  Susan, mom of four children, created the original Blessings Bowl for friends and teachers who had touched her life during the past year.  Starting with beautiful, unique bowls, special paper and ribbon tailored to the bowl and the friend, she wrote poems expressing her gratitude for the special gifts these people had given to her life. 

And then she asked each recipient to think about and write down the blessings they had in their own lives, furthering the spread of awareness and gratitude.  The response from her children’s teachers and many friends convinced her that others in the world wanted to give ~ and receive ~ this kind of gift, also.




Meet Leigh Standley of Curly Girl Design in Boston, Massachusetts.  Leigh's whimsical and witty work has been in the making for the better part of her twenty-nine years.  Born and raised in St. Louis, Leigh began designing in seventh grade where she got poor marks in Math class for doodling.  She went on to attend University of Kansas School of Design and holds a BFA in Visual Communications.  Her work has been featured in national design publications and regional art shows and is inspired by her incredible friends and family.  Leigh enjoys traveling, old movies and singing.  She can't live without yoga, her family, Snickers and Lucy the Wonder Dog.  She has strong feelings about education, believes in magic and is quite certain that given a cape and a nice tiara, she could save the world.



Meet Duane Scherer of Royal Oak Michigan.  He is a talented local artist that makes telling time a little sweeter. He designs time pieces that are truly eclectic by combining many different elements and styles to create a wonderfully inspiring collection of work. Duane connects and finds joy in a variety of materials. He loves to explore the endless expression hidden within them.



Meet Brian and Christa of the green glass company in Weston, Wisconsin.  They take discarded wine and beer bottles to an environmentally friendly and elegant level.   By simply adding a twist, they produce two separate drinking glasses from one bottle without any waste glass.  The bottom portion of the bottle becomes a tumbler and the top portion a goblet.  All of their bottles come from the waste stream and are sorted and supplied by a partner network of wineries and wine festivals.  We are excited to carry two of their gorgeous wine glasses.



Meet Jonathan and Julia Simons.  They reside in rural Pennsylvania and create wonderful wooden utensils from beautiful cherry wood.  They gained fame recently when their lazy spoons were featured in O Magazine and the Rachel Ray show.  His father encouraged him to establish his own business. He taught him that God's creation operates from a principle of individual freedom, with power from God, given as if it is our own power, from which we freely create our own lives. This philosophy remains a major inspiration for Jonathan in creating and growing his work and business. His father also taught him that ideas come from the desire for, and activity of usefulness. In all of his work he strives for a balance of the use in the tactile and esthetic qualities, with the use of utility and purpose.




Meet Laini Taylor of Portland, Oregon.  She is the talented gal who breathes life into her oh-so-whimsical Laini's Ladies.  Laini majored in illustration at art school with the hope of working on children's books.  In her spare time, she began selling her paintings at the Portland Saturday Market.  In addition to painting, she really enjoyed playing around with collage and creating mixed media pieces.  One Christmas season, she put out some of her paper doll ornaments and ended up selling out in hours and that's when her ladies were born.



Meet Kaycee Binns of Metal Morphosis in Atlanta, Georgia.  She creates whimsical pewter goods like no other.  It all started in 1993 when she was waiting tables at a café with a dream of someday pursuing her passion for metalsmithing. After being invited to a friend's baby shower and having no money for a gift, she melted down some left over sterling silver and created a rabbit-themed baby spoon. To her surprise, the spoon was a hit! During the shower, she was approached by a giftware representative about the prospect of creating and selling her little spoons. She was so thrilled with the idea that she took her Honda Civic to the bank, got a loan for $8,000.00, and began Metal Morphosis, Inc.



Meet Michael Macone of Spooner Creek in Shell Lake, Wisconsin.  He creates inspiring (and sometimes humorous) clay wall art.  Michael grew up in a very creative environment. His mother was an artist and she encouraged his gift at an early age, teaching him to oil paint in 4th grade. He always kept busy with art and sold his first paintings to neighbors and family friends.  Later on in life he developed a unique engraving technique that allows him to etch his designs right into the clay, rather than placing them only on the surface. This gives the work a dimensional quality that can be appreciated with the hand as well as the eye.



Meet Michelle Allen of Battleground, Washington.  She is the whimsy women behind these fun clocks and containers.  She loves the imperfect, slightly eccentric, witty quality of the world around her. Her hope is that her art will never become so serious that she betrays the uniqueness of the life that inspires her. Often if something seems too perfect in her art, she will skew it towards the unrealistic to capture the essence of a whim.



Meet Michelle Rubin of Chicago, Illinois.  She creates stylish personalized sterling silver necklaces.  Michelle’s love of jewelry began when she was a young girl rummaging through her grandmothers jewelry box. She began to reassemble the pieces and mix and match the old with the new to create fabulous and unique treasures. With this spirit of creativity she created her first jewelry line. A special education teacher by trade, Michelle began to sell her jewelry to her co-workers and friends. Eventually her jewelry caught the eye of several boutique owners and Michelle Rubin jewelry was born in 1999.  Today Michelle combines traditional designs with modern and trendy materials and gemstones to bring you unique and affordable pieces.



Meet Mina Lee of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  She is a collage artist that specializes in mixing old family photos with her funny bone.  When she was a young mom raising three kids, she started doing original paintings and mixed media collages between Spaghettios and soccer games.  As her kids grew so did her commitment to bring a unique kind of art to people who would relish the idea of sharing it with a friend or putting a piece on their wall in just the right place.  The reason she believes you can relate to her artwork is because she has been through a lot of the same experiences you have. "Just like you, I'm trying to keep smiling and endeavoring to find the wonder through the every day. It's our job to enjoy the journey!"  You can't help but smile when you see some of her delightful items.



Meet Pamela Barsky.  She is a native of Metro Detroit and quite a funny gal.  She currently lives in LA and designs a fine number of stylish yet humorous things.  A clip from her bio reads, " In 2000, Pamela opened "front" a small store in front of her new factory located in an up and coming, but seedy, part of Hollywood. Tired of having to compete for customers with transvestite hookers, in may 2002, the store and factory moved to third street. More tired of being asked what her business was a front for, Pamela changed the name back to Pamela Barsky. Today, Pamela spends her time designing new products, practicing yoga, and watching the plants in her backyard grow.



Meet Anahata Katkin of Ashland, Oregon.  She is the inspiration behind a lovely line of uplifting goods called Papaya!.  A portion of her bio reads,  "To me the beauty of so much of the mixed media and journal arts movement is the personal quality of it.  I try very hard to create artwork for myself and nothing more. And when I succeed in getting out of my own way- I share it with the rest of the world. That's my formula."



Meet Peter Hill of Pink Cloud Gallery located in Sharon, CT.  He is one half of the creative duo that makes these whimsical tail-waggin' dog & kitty clocks. His wife, Tara Cafiero received her BFA in printmaking at the San Francisco Art Institute.  Tara's artwork is inspired by the dream-like style reminiscent of artists such as Klee and Chagall.  Peter received his MFA from the Yale School of Art and his BFA at the Philadelphia College of Art -- both majors in painting.  Peter enjoys focusing on architectural elements and emphasis on design and color format.