Writing for HandmadeNews.org

I highly recommend HandmadeNews.org as a great resource for both buyers and sellers in the world of handmade. It's a comprehensive site, with a dynamic staff of columnists and editors writing for 14 sections or departments including:

Main Feature
Craft Techniques
Guild & Teams
Just for Fun
Craft Trends
Marketing
Business Tips
Inspiration
Green Wise
Featured Artisan
Item of the Day
Crafty Kids
Front Page
Most Popular

This site was launched on June 8th and is quickly growing in popularity. Some of the articles I've found most interesting include:

Create Your Own Seed Paper
An article about making seed paper that you can write a note on and
then the recipient can plant it rather that put it in the trash

Vetrazzo-The Ultimate Example of Trash to Treasure
An article about a company who makes gorgeous counter tops out of recycled glass
that competing as an elegant alternative to more expensive granite

Snow Globes For Any Occasion
These would be a great craft project for kids--even teens, a fabulous table decoration for a fundraiser or as a wedding favor or a get well present for someone stuck in bed.

Sock Coffee Cozy: A Craft Supply Challenge Project
You don't even have to be crafty to do this project. All you need are a stash of lonely socks who lost their partner to the hungry monster in the washing machine or dryer.

Recrafting Yourself in the Second Half of Life

Some of you may not be there, but at 50+ and in the second half of my life, all I can say is, "Amen!"

That's a sampling just to whet your appetite. New articles are published every day in each department. Now that I'm a columnist in the Guild & Teams department, I don't have as much time for perusing. So, why don't you go to HandmadeNews.org and read an article for me. If you really like it, use the comments below to recommend it to the rest of us.

Enjoy!

Artists are Explorers and Pioneers

Never thought I’d have anything in common with Picasso, but I too can say, “I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.”

Today’s Art Quote

I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.
Pablo Picasso

Some of the people I’m closest to have referred to it as a disorder. I can’t tell you how many times throughout my life I’ve fielded the question, “When are you going to settle into one art form?” But I somehow manage to brush off their comments because little brings me as much satisfaction as learning how to do something new.

Pablo Picasso is probably best known for his paintings and his sculpture, though he also left the world with a collection of ceramics, drawings, prints, tapestries, and rugs. Right now, I specialize in stained glass and Bauernmalerei from different regions. Over the years, I’ve also caned chairs, made cut and carve candles, sewn clothes and home décor, refinished furniture, laid tile, sculpted figures out of both salt dough and polymer clay, dabbled in ceramics and photography, and recently have been learning taxidermy. I may even have forgotten a few…

What about you…

Leave a comment and tell us what you’ve dabbled in and what you specialize in and leave a link to your online store if you have one.

A Two Penny Post

Today’s Art quote is credited to Wilson (“Bill”) Mizner, who was quite the character and dilettante. Born in 1876, he was one of 8 children and spent part of his childhood in Guatemala. As an adult, he covered a lot of ground from Alaska, to New York, to Florida to California often taking advantage of the unsuspecting in his varied entrepreneurial endeavors. One might even consider him a scoundrel. However he is best known as a playwright and for his clever sayings and witticisms.
Today, Mr. Mizner is cited as having said, “It is not in life, but in art that self-fulfillment is to be found.” Immediately, I want to disagree because I find self-fulfillment in my close relationships with family and friends, and in and through living a faith-filled and faithful life. So, my experience tells me that self-fulfillment can indeed be found in the everyday living of life.
However, after reflecting on his sentiment a little longer, I have to say that creating something artistic in my shop does make me come alive inside in a way that nothing else does. Even being able to gaze at a particularly appealing work of art from another artist can cause a joy to bubble up in my soul that satisfies a longing I didn’t even know I had. So there is most definitely a special type of fulfillment that comes from both the creation and appreciation of art.
I dare say that our ability as humans to create art and to appreciate its creation by others is a distinctive human quality, much like our free will, that separates us from the other animals and connects us in a special way with the divine.
Well that’s my two cents worth. I look forward to hearing your thoughts on this subject in the comment section below.