Holiday Ornaments Hand-Crafted by Women Artisans

Craftspring is a unique business based in Brooklyn, NY that works with women artisans in Kyrgyzstan. The idea behind the brand is to preserve traditional crafts once passed on from mother to daughter as well as creating employment to support local communities. 

The artists design and handmake gift items and ornaments using wet-felting and embroidery techniques. Each hand crafted piece is made with locally sourced materials and have lots of delightful personalities. The holiday collection offers adorable ornaments featuring snowy owl, mouse king, nutcracker, mermaid santa, angels, peace dove and more. These one-of-a-kind ornaments are available in many more designs in their online store.

Brooches and Everyday Ceramic Pieces That Tell Stories

I recently stumbled across this profile on Instagram called "Pulheriya_shop". Nadya Ivkova and Olga Gritsenko are the two talented designers and creators behind the brand. They make unique and whimsical ceramic pieces that are prefect to decorate the house with or to give as a gift to someone special. Their everyday use pieces like bowls, mugs, and plates are decorated with human figures and birds perched on the edge. The ceramic pieces are crafted by hand and glazed with bright colors that are sure to bring smile to anyone's face. Besides tableware they make narrative vases, jewelry and cute brooches.

You can contact them if you have any question related to their work or want to buy one of their ceramics.

Noriko Matsubara "Paints" With Torn Paper Inspired by Japanese Technique

Noriko Matsubara is an artist and a children's book author. She studied visual arts at Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada and then finished a MA in Fine Art at Central St Martin’s College of Art and Design, UK.

She creates nature inspired illustrations using the traditional Japanese art form called chigiri-e. Chigiri-e is an art form in which images are "painted" from hand-torn Japanese washi paper. Artist's work is clearly influenced by her Japanese heritage with a hint of contemporary flavor. Instead of washi paper, Noriko uses newspaper to paint, there is no use of glue, paint and scissors. Her work can be found in local galleries and cafes. Her work has be turned into limited edition art prints, available for purchase here.

Paper Mache Birds by Jane Tomlinson

Jane Tomlinson is an artist based in Witney, Oxfordshire. She studied Art and Art History in Oxford learning the workings of drawing and dry media, printmaking and paperworks. She is a self-taught painter whose work is inspired by the natural world. She creates paper mache birds, or as she calls them "folk art sculptures", with corrugated board and other objects. Each bird is carefully formed out of paper after which the artist spends hours painting details that sparks life into them. Jane observes the anatomy of a bird closely to get the shape and colors accurately.

"I make art inspired by wondrous things from the natural world - birds, animals, trees, even plankton! I love colour and careful drawing."

Her sculptures are painted in bright acrylics, and acrylic inks. She is influenced by Van Gogh, Gauguin, Hockney, Matisse, and 17th century Dutch and Flemish artists. You can contact her if would like her to create a paper mache bird for you. More information about the birds are given on her website.