handmade products – Cynthia Reyes

My blogging community is brimming with ultra-creative people.

They’re remarkable. They make beautiful things with their hands, hearts and minds.

Or support projects that help talented artisans to make a living.

So today I’m celebrating these creative types and highlighting some of their products/projects that would make great gifts for loved ones.

LOTUS WONDERS, made by women in a Cambodian village, in partnership with other women in Canada. Order products and read their story at: http://www.lotuswonders.com/collections/all

Thanks to consultant Stephanie MacKendrick, former head of Canadian Women in Communications, for bringing Lotus Wonders to my attention.

2. MICHAEL’S WOODCRAFT. Michael lives on a mountainside in S. Carolina. He carefully chooses the wood and makes each beautiful object himself: cutting boards, ice cream scoops, and other useful items.

Visit his blog and online shop at: http://michaelswoodcraft.wordpress.com/shop/

3. JEAN LONG AND JESSICA CHARNOCK’S CREATIONS. In their gorgeous log cabin east of Toronto, this couple is always creating beautiful objects.

The Log House - Photo by H. Grange — The Log House – Photo by H. Grange

Jessica hooks original wall-hangings using recycled wool, and makes large teddy bears using recycled fur.

Jean works with wood. He creates large pieces of furniture and unusual birdhouses and feeders.

See: https://cynthiasreyes.com/2014/01/11/youve-never-seen-birdhouses-like-jean-longs/ – or email: jenjes@mac.com

4. SIMPLY SPLENDID VICTORIAN AFTERNOON TEAS by Marilyn Mirabelli. Check out the gift packages including the Tea and Cookie of the Month Club.

http://www.splendidafternoonteas.com/services/TeaAndCookie.html

5. SARAH VERNON’S FIRST NIGHT DESIGN. Blogger Sarah produces beautiful art prints.

See Sarah’s website at: http://www.firstnightdesign.co.uk/

6. BOOKS BY GIFTED AUTHORS:

MT McGUIRE’s award-winning K’Barthan Trilogy series isn’t just for young people. She’s a very good writer, with a wicked sense of humour. Who else would write a trilogy made up four books? For more about her new release and the series, visit her blog: http://mtmcguire.co.uk/

You can also read about MT at: https://cynthiasreyes.com/2014/04/02/author-mt-mcguire-at-home/

SK NICHOLLS’ writing has also been highly praised. Her new novel, a roman-a-clef, is titled Red Clay and Roses.

Visit her blog for more: http://redclayandroses1.wordpress.com/redclayandrose/

WHEN CONCHI BLOWS, by Omar Sheriffe Vernon El Halawani. It’s an interesting book, based on the author’s own interracial family history in Jamaica. He died before the book was published, and asked that proceeds from it be used for a worthy cause. His cousin Robert Vernon carried out his wishes.

http://www.amazon.ca/Conchi-Blows-Sheriffe-Vernon-Halawani/dp/1463712235/ref=pd_sim_b_1?ie=UTF8&refRID=1382PA7Z0Y7T30Z9AWZ3

7. And, finally, from New Zealand, Quarter Acre Lifestyle has just launched their online store of handmade soaps and other products. I know this couple is still setting up some payment options, but thought I’d give their products a mention now. Visit: http://www.tumbledowns.co.nz/for-sale

As my blogger friend Gallivanta (whom I’ve never met in person) did for my book, A Good Home, I’m shining a little light on the good work of others.

**Dedicated to everyone who creates something, hoping that someone else will value it.**

Imagine yourself a talented creator of furniture, wood furniture made mainly of pine and cedar. Beautiful benches, chests, cupboards and armoires furnish your home.

You end up with smaller pieces of wood, left-overs from those bigger items.

If you’re Jean Long, you use these pieces to make birdhouses and feeders.

An astonishing variety of birdhouses and bird feeders – most of them whimsical, each of them well-made, each unique in some way.

Although I’ve known Jean for years, and have been lucky enough to own a Jean Long birdhouse, I start to smile the moment he opens his studio door for the latest tour: I never know what to expect, but I know it will be fun – a journey of discovery!

Over the years, Jean has built hundreds of birdhouses.

Roughly half of them were given to friends or donated to organizations for fundraising purposes.

Many are scattered over his 10-acre property.

A former educator in a demanding leadership role, Jean found building birdhouses a form of stress relief. Retired now, he still has birdhouses on the brain.

Since each creation is an original, the challenge (and joy) is to keep creating new designs.

Some ideas come to Jean in his dreams. Some come from the sheer drive to find out how many objects he can use in his birdhouse designs.

“I use old rubber boots, watering cans, old lamps parts, hub caps, old metal roofing , scrap metal, old nails, old frames, old windows, barn wood, etc…. to build my birdhouses,“ Jean says.

Today, Jean is working on his 867th birdhouse. It’s a large, very complex one that takes much time and patience – he calls this kind his ‘’Xtreme Birdhouses’’.