Featured Artist: Purrfectlydevine

1. Tell me a bit about yourself (name, location, affiliations, personal stuff).

Donna....York, PA.....etsyBEAD, BBEST (Boomers and Beyond Etsy Street Team)....Married with a 27 year old daughter. I am a special education teacher and alsso work part-time in a deli and make jewelry and am thinking about expanding by adding small crochet items like ponytail holders.

2. What is the first thing you can remember making by hand? How and why did you make it?

The first thing I made was a crocheted granny square large enough to be a baby blanket. I'd graduated from college and had only a part-time job and time on my hands. My late grandmother had crocheted, so I bought a hook, yarn, and a 35 cent book and taught myself how to crochet.

3. What inspires you? Where do your ideas come from?

Everywhere and anywhere. Bead books, bead magazines, and the beads themselves. Often I will take an element from one piece and an element from another piece and yet add something not in either piece to come up with a unique piece. My Crystals and Swirls Necklace http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=7441288 is one such piece. Purple and Teal Sensation http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=6566661 is a piece where the focal bead seemed to speak to me.

4. Why should people buy handmade?

Uniqueness is one reason. You can purchase inexpensive jewelry from a company that sells make-up etc. nationwide. In the course of a week you might see 15 women wearing the exact same piece. Even if handmade items are not OOAK [one of a kind], it is unlikely that you will see too many people wearing the same piece. Most people who make items to sell care about their reputation and take care to make a quality item.

5. Creatively where do you think you'll be in five years?

I hope that I'll have increased to number of skills that I will be proficient in, therefore my creativity will take off because I won't be as limited by my skill set.

Etsy Shop: http://purrfectlydevine.etsy.com
Blog: http://purrfectlydevine.blogspot.com/

Featured Artist: Berry Beads

My name is Rosi Berry and I'm a 50-something divorcee from Long Island, NY. By day I am a supervisor for a defense electronics firm and by night I craft, whether it's making jewelry, sewing, embroidering, drawing. I also play flute and love celtic music. Many different things interest me. I suppose I inherited the crafty gene from my parents. Both of them valued things made by hand and they encouraged me and my sisters from an early age to create with our hands. The earliest thing I remember making was a wooden dish that I painted and drew designs on for mother's day in kindergarten. I was supposed to put my mother's initial U (for Ursula) but I put an A instead because that is what the teacher put. My mother never got rid of that dish.

Many things inspire me. I love animals so I am always looking to incorporate them into my designs. Color also, especially natural, earthy tones and celtic designs. I've only been making jewelry for a few years so I am still experimenting and trying to find my own style but I especially like working with wire. It's hard to say what my most favorite thing is in my shop. I love all my things that I put there, otherwise I wouldn't want to sell it to others. But thinking about it, I guess my absolute favorite item are the fishy earrings right now because it incorporates both an animal design and wirework.

The best homemade item that I bought is a hard question to answer. I have so many handmade things from family that were given as gifts. For example my sister is a deocrative painter and she makes amazing nutcrackers. I have quite a collection of her work. Hopefully soon she will open up an Etsy store herself. Anyway, a few years ago I bought a hand-painted fruit bowl at a craft fair of a strawberry man. It is my favorite bowl since I love strawberries and Berry is my last name. At that same craft fair I bought a beaded badge lanyard and that person's design inspired me to start making lanyards myself since all my coworkers wanted to know where I had gotten mine. That is how I got started making lanyards and jewelry.

Etsy Shop: http://berrybeads.etsy.com
Blog: http://blog.berrybeady.com