How did you come up with a product that is valuable, useable, and almost totally green? Being a bookbinder, I was well aware of the piles of paper in the production process that just goes to waste. I had been saving this waste for years and trying to think of a use. When I discovered the huge supply of books that libraries have no choice but to discard, I was able to put the two things together. Although I am pleased that my journals are almost 100% made from reclaimed materials, I really can’t take that much credit. It just happened that way.

How did you get started in the D.I.Y movement? After I created the journals I struggled to find a venue to sell them. Book stores wanted too much of “a cut.”  I tried street fairs and flea markets, but I really didn’t know what I was doing. When I was introduced to Darcy at Feria Urbana my life changed. Not only did I find the exact crowd to sell my journals too, I soon learned how much I enjoyed being a vendor.

What affect does retail products being sold affect the integrity of craft fairs? You don’t see much of that in San Francisco, but just a short ways away, it is a huge issue. I guess to be fair, as long as everyone knows the source, I would hate to get involved in this dispute. It bothers me when something is sold as handmade and it really isn’t. Or maybe worse, if it is hand made and imported, and the vendor implies that it was made by themself.

What advice can you give new crafters that are entering the market place? If nothing else, just have fun. It is more important to make friends then to make money. There have been many times I’ve come home from a day of miserable sales, but I can honestly say I still managed to enjoy myself.

info@recoveryourthoughts.com

www.recoveryourthoughts.com

I make lifestyle accessories that are a blend of cute, charming, cheeky & quirky. Think Audrey Hepburn meets Hello Kitty with a saucy attitude for tea and finger sandwiches. At the moment my shop is filled with handmade linen bags inspired by little red riding hoods picnic basket, fun home decor items like toilet roll cozy’s, plushies in the shape of poop dollops and rotten teeth, coffee cup cozy’s that double as wrist cuffs, utensil burritos that hold your utensils for lunch on the go, pin cushions in the shape of egg. Many things I make are embellished or adorned with cute creatures, have satirical messages which are appliquéd or hand screen-printed, stenciled or stamped. For example the toilet roll cozy’s are hand printed with an anthropomorphic poop dollop and a translation of the word “CACA” in other languages. I have Japanese and French so far. My travel utensil holders are screen printed with animal kingdom feeding behaviors and their definitions such as Carnivore, Omnivore, Herbivore and Fungivore. My poop dollop plushy, well it’s just cute. I’m just starting out so in the future I hope to have even more.

What inspired you to go into the craft business, do you still have a day job? I’ve always dreamed of working for myself. Having a quirky sense of style I noticed that there were a lot of crafters out there making things and selling them. It just seemed like people were making really unique and interesting things that were functional, and artistic. Things you would never find in the main stream. That kind of got my mind going and I just decided that I wanted to make things that reflected my own sense of style. Voila here I am.

I don’t have a day job anymore. I was once a corporate financial analyst, then I became an advertising and marketing analyst. Now, I employ my business and finance knowledge to my own business. I’m enjoying working on my crafts, spending time and being home with my kids and making my own schedule.

What do you like best, coming up with ideas or executing them? I love coming up with the ideas for my design. I can get as crazy as I want. My ideas don’t always work out at the execution stage. But executing is still fun. It’s just icing on the cake when one of my executed designs works as planned and I make it available to the public.

What are your creative influences? My inspiration comes from my travels but mainly my travels through France and Japan. I lived in Japan for 3 years. Japanese culture is heavily laden with cute things known as Kawaii. My father is French Canadian and we spend month long family vacations in France so naturally I’m a Francophile and love that classic French aesthetics that the French are so famous for. My work is really an attempt to blend the demure charm of French aesthetics with the cute attitude (Kawaii) found in Japanese culture. The quirky twist often found in my designs is just a way for me to express myself and my personality.

How do you stay inspired? When we travel, I do a lot of window shopping and look at all the latest styles and think how I would do it differently and throw my own twisted style into the mix. I look through Japanese craft books. I dream of designs. Sometimes necessity is my mother of invention.

I really love that my family is getting involved with the business. My husband helps with the photos and serves as my sanity sounding board. He is so supportive. Even my 2 sons get involved. Everyone comes with me craft shows. My 2 year old daughter sweeps up the thread clippings while I’m sewing. So it’s a family affair.

I’m often asked about how I came to name my business. The name Le Neko Noir, pronounced “Luh Necko nwohr” is simply a play on words taken from the two cultures that most heavily influence my designs. French and Japanese. “Neko” means cat in Japanese and “Noir” means black in French.. Hence the name “LE NEKO NOIR”

www.lenekonoir.com

I design greeting cards, magnets, fine art prints and other miscellaneous items. My fiancé, The Mincing Mockingbird, and I share a studio in the foothills above Los Angeles where we’re frequently fighting for clear tabletops from which to work.

What inspired you to go into the craft business, do you still have a day job? I majored in art in college and have mostly worked as a graphic designer while painting in oils in my free time. My fiancé started an etsy shop three years ago and that inspired me to start my own shop designing greeting cards. I still have a day job as a web administrator maintaining press sites for movie studios, which is fun and interesting, and gives us a steady income while the businesses grow. But, sadly, I no longer have time to paint in oils.

What do you like best, coming up with ideas or executing them? Both! I love flipping through clip art books and old books and magazines for inspiration. The best part of that is that it can be done anywhere. A lot of my best selling cards were thought up on cross-country flights. Executing the cards is fun as well. They’re designed digitally so I get to play around in Photoshop and often lose track of time.

What’s the best thing about what you do? And the worst? The best thing is the total control you have over your designs. I started designing cards just to amuse my fiancé and myself, so when people started connecting with them, it was great. The worst would be all the paperwork involved in running a business…oh yeah…and taxes…definitely not fun.

What are your creative influences? I’m influenced by vintage illustrations and writing styles from old books, as well as magazines from the 50s, 60s and 70s. It was so much fun going to Australia and looking through antique shops for old magazines and books.

What’s the best advice you have been given about your business or craft practices? Don’t try to create what you think will sell, just make something that you would buy.

How do you stay inspired? We go out to galleries, book stores, movies, thrift  stores and flea markets. I love going to home décor stores for inspiration, too.

Anything else you would like to tell us about your business? My business has grown a lot over the past two years – from an etsy shop to being carried in over 50 stores as well as being licensed in the UK. But as much as my business has expanded, the best part is still connecting with customers. It’s so much fun to go to a craft show and hear people laugh at my cards. Which is how the cards are designed to begin with – I design them mostly to make my fiancé laugh.

www.franticmeerkat.com

www.kimbagwill.blogspot.com

What inspired you to go into the craft business, do you still have a day job? At some point post college, I got really sick of pushing paper around and having nothing to show for it. I realized that I wanted to start doing something that let me be creative and offer people a tangible useful product at the same time. Around the same time, I had started making soap after I told my mother I needed a hobby and she gave me a book on soap making. I fell in love with the process and found a way to tap into my creativity. I love making products! I still have a day job right now but hope that sometime in the future I will be able to do my business full time.

What do you like best, coming up with ideas or executing them? This is a really hard question because I love them both!!! I find inspiration in so many different ways, I feel as though I come up with ideas all the time. I started keeping a notebook with me so I could jot down my ideas. Execution is fun too because I get to play the mad scientist.

What’s the best thing about what you do? And the worst? Creating something that is beautiful and smells great. Having repeat customers who have nothing but fabulous things to say about my products. The worst part is the clean up!!!

What are your creative influences? I am highly influenced by food and nature. I am a huge foodie and have been ever since I was young. I love all sorts of cuisines and I find cooking gives me so many ideas for scents and additives for soap. Right now I am obsessed with Cardamom so I put it in my oatmeal, baked goods and of course my products. I am also inspired by nature and the city, I find the colors and scents spark my creativity (not the nasty sewage smell of course but the smell of the ocean or the way it smells after it rains). Scent has always been incredibly important to me and I love natural scents, that’s why all my soaps are scented with essential oils (steam extracted plant oils). I don’t want fake smelling perfumy Lavender products, I want products that smell like Lavender I would find in my garden.

What’s the best advice you have been given about your business or craft practices? Mistakes are bound to happen, the key is to learn something from your mistakes and move on.

How do you stay inspired? Taking walks in the park or in my neighborhood. Checking out new cookbooks or tastespotting.com. Reading blogs and trade magazines.

www.ettaandbillie.etsy.com

I live in a small old house in Oakland, Ca with my two funny little dogs and my very tall boyfriend.  I have a peculiar propensity for things in miniature, as evidenced by my car (Mini), my dogs (Shi Tzu and Llasa Ahpso) and my curio shelf.

Eristotle is about fun and funky ways to decorate your pad and your life with reduce-reuse-recycle front and center to every design. All of my wares  – mostly pillows at this point – are handmade and sewn by me using vintage, up-cycled, thrifted or eco-friendly materials whenever possible.

I was raised with a recycling bin under the kitchen sink and a compost pile in the backyard, with “put your scraps in the compost bin like a good little hippy child” from my ever-facetious step-dad. He was kind of kidding about us being hippy children, but not about the composting!  So it is important to me to continue that line of eco-thinking with my business as much as I can.

What inspired you to go into the craft business, do you still have a day job? This seems to be a recurring theme amongst the crafty set; I’ve been crafting since I was a wee tot.  I love how it seems like so many crafters started with paste, big fat crayons and plastic lanyard, and just kept that going into adulthood.  I’ve always loved to make things, and turned it into a professional career when I finally figured out how.  I went to school for Interior Design, and worked for a couple different architecture offices after.  I had never really sold anything I made as a legitimate business, though.  When I lost my job in February, I took a few months of wondering where to go next, looked for a new job unsuccessfully, and decided crafting as a business was my next big adventure.

What do you like best, coming up with ideas or executing them? Oo, tough question.  I like both, really.  Coming up with ideas is fun and happens in different ways.  Sometimes its a “problem” that needs to be solved – such as “oh these pillows on my couch are atrocious, what can I put on here instead?”  Or someone has an idea they’d like me to implement for them.  I just did a custom pillow for a local seller that was a replica of her avatar on Etsy.  But then putting the idea to reality is fun too, because I love the process of construction and figuring out how to make things go together so they come out like it looks in my head.

What’s the best thing about what you do? And the worst? I love playing with the fabrics, figuring out which ones go best with others for the best visual impact.  And I love when people get excited about one of my pieces they bought.  It’s so nice to get that appreciation from a customer on a piece I’m proud of.  The worst? I feel like I’m not the greatest time-manager in the world.  And I really feel that’s a key element to success in one’s business.  Sometimes I get down on myself for it, but I try to see it as an opportunity to grow.

Anything else you would like to tell us about your business? I like custom work as I like relationships it can build and the ideas that come from a colaborative effort that I don’t get when coming up with things on my own.  I would love to do more avatar-as-pillow designs.  I am stoked, stoked I tell you, to have Eristotle’s Not Your Granny’s Craft Fair debut at San Francisco Bazaar.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/eristotle

I print all my own designs and textiles by hand. Each one begins as cut paper, which is then burned into a screen and printed on everything I can think up. I handprint fabrics and organic clothing. I sew home wares (tea towels, cloth napkins, pillows), book bags, and plushes (menders and cubed animals.) I also use my scrap paper to make mini cut paper art to adhere to bamboo pendants. I try my best to use the most sustainable materials I can get my hands on from paper to fabrics including: eco-fills, bamboo, organic cottons, water based inks, rescued fabrics, and found paper like vintage maps and ledger paper from my mother’s garage.

What inspired you to go into the craft business, do you still have a day job? I have always had a DIY mindset. As far back as I can remember when I needed and/or wanted something my first thought was “How could I make that?” And though I also love making fine art, crafting was a never natural step for me.

I suppose I don’t have a “day job.” Fulltime I balance motherhood, fine art and crafting. And each part of my life inspires me in the other areas.

What do you like best, coming up with ideas or executing them? I don’t think I could choose. I feel like the entire process is like one fluid movement.

How do you stay inspired? I am lucky enough to work in a studio with a handful of other artist, and we always have interesting people coming through our space. And when that atmosphere doesn’t work for me I have traveling, hiking, my husband and daughters. I don’t feel like I have to find inspiration, it seems to find me.

Anything else you would like to tell us about your business? I just settled on my company name. “Bird Mafia” came from the title I gave to a set of bird prints I did this past year and has inspired the construction of the largest cubed owl I have

http://www.birdmafia.com/

Cara Lyndon is a designer who believes in expressing ones unique style, beauty, and vibrancy independent of culturally prescribed ideas of fashion. Her desire is to design jewelry reflecting her own taste in vintage form. Her jewelry is primarily created by reworking vintage Japanese and American deadstock materials and existing vintage adornments into original modern styles. Most of her vintage materials are from the 1940s and 1950s like a broach that partly inspired some of her post earrings. Currently she lives in Oakland, California.

What inspired you to go into the craft business, do you still have a day job? I am full time Vintage re crafted jewelry, a venture that took 5 years to build bit by bit, I’m proud of that.

What do you like best, coming up with ideas or executing them? I’m 50/50 on this question, I often wake up early with a picture in my mind about something I wish to try and create, and its an extra high executing it……it works out about 40% of the time that it results in something I bring to the public

What’s the best thing about what you do? And the worst? It’s all me I created every inch of my hobby/business….on the flip side that’s a whole lot of pressure…the trick for me is turning that pressure into motivation….some days that does not work and that then is a day meant for jewelry making, something that is repetitious and does not require as much of my innovative or executive skills

What are your creative influences? color…..everything color…..nature….vintage…….old design…and most of all what ever turns me on visually

What’s the best advice you have been given about your business or craft practices? Don’t exhaust yourself, stay connected to what inspires you

How do you stay inspired? Rest relaxation and strangely enough organizing my workshop….touching everything and cleaning out the old does me wonders

Anything else you would like to tell us about your business? I was recently featured in the crave San Francisco book, its a great book of women entrepreneurs in SF, there are some amazing business owners in there….check it out:-)

Hello, my name is Elizabeth Buenrostro and my Business is called Applesauce. I started Applesauce about a year ago. After being inspired by my new born niece to created fun one of a kind clothing pieces for her, I decided to pursue the passion that I had for her into my own clothing line, for children. After a slow six month process of just me I asked my creative sister Monica to join me in helping Applesauce grow and now we are two sisters that  like to create fun and whimsical one of a kind children’s clothing that is made with vintage fabrics, and inspired my vintage clothing.

What inspired you to go into the craft business, do you still have a day job? I have always been into anything that has do with art whether it be painting, drawing or sewing. After being inspired by all things art, I realized that I have a real knack for sewing. Discovering the art of clothing really inspired me to create one of a kind clothing pieces. Yes unfortunately we both have a day job I (Elizabeth) am a merchandiser at a retail store and my sister (Monica) is a dental technician.

What do you like best, coming up with ideas or executing them? Executing them is the best because while making the garment I will sometimes change things here and there, as I start to see it develop I get inspired to do more things like mix different colors add something there take away something etc.

What’s the best thing about what you do? And the worst? The best thing about what we do is that we use vintage fabrics, buttons, trim, etc which is being eco friendly to the environment by not buying newly produced fabrics. The worse thing about us is that we do- is that we generally only go up to a size 5, because after that age kids tend to want general retail store clothing, we can to custom orders in those rare cases of bigger sizes.

What are your creative influences? Vintage fabrics, vintage shops, sea creatures, kids, mythology, textures, buttons, vintage prints, nursery rhymes

What’s the best advice you have been given about your business or craft practices? to market ourselves in many different ways, like craft fairs, and the internet and to research about events and internet media

How do you stay inspired? The more we create the more we are able to have new ideas, and whenever we do fairs it is always an inspiration to keep creating.

www.applesaucedesigns.etsy.com

I design and create casual and unique products with a touch of cuteness. The goal is to inspire the creativity buried deep inside everyone as people play around with my product.

What inspired you to go into the craft business, do you still have a day job? Just fell into it naturally, from when I was a kid.

What do you like best, coming up with ideas or executing them? Both. I love the sensation I get when coming up with a very unique  idea, but I also like the process of experimenting and going through  trial and errors in bringing those ideas to a real product I can  physically touch.

What’s the best thing about what you do? Best – using scissors And the worst? Worst – using glue

What are your creative influences? Ukiyo-e and textile/fabric art from Edo-period (1602AD-1868AD) in Japan

What’s the best advice you have been given about your business or craft practices? “What do you want to be remembered for?” by Peter Drucker

How do you stay inspired? By keep questioning the world we live in and not being satisfied with the current world/surroundings.

Anything else you would like to tell us about your business? Any product we as humans create are made of finite resources from  mother Earth. Therefore the value of the product must be worth the  sacrifice we are making in consuming the resource it is made of. On  top of that, ideally it should have a positive impact to the world we live in. That is the kind of product I strive to create.

PIPEROID paper robots was just a start. Check out the following new products I have been working on lately.

• KAMISABI (www.kamisabi.com) – paper ghosts revived from the dead (recycled from trimmings from paper factory)
• PNEUMA-BLOCK (www.pneumablock.com) – fine art wooden blocks for philosophers
• PNEUMA-BOX (www.pneumabox.com) – paper version of PNEUMA-BLOCK coming in variety of colors and prints

Our designs start with an original photograph or illustration, which is then edited with Photoshop and created into a rubber stamp. Everything bookplate, card, and piece of stationery is stamped by hand. I have an art degree from University of California, Santa Cruz and graduated in 2007. Paper Pastries is a family business we really appreciate your support!

What inspired you to go into the craft business, do you still have a day job? I started my business when I couldn’t find a ‘real’ job, in May 2008. This feels more real than any other job I’ve had. I never stop thinking about Paper Pastries.

What do you like best, coming up with ideas or executing them? I like coming up with ideas, hearing feedback, and being really happy with the way the rubber stamp turns out. Executing the ideas is physically exhausting, but also satisfying in seeing an idea come to life.

What’s the best thing about what you do? best: I love hearing people’s comments and questions about the line and designs. And the worst? worst: the hand cramps I get after I’ve stamped all day.

What’s the best advice you have been given about your business or craft practices? It’s going to be hard for what seems like forever, but then one day it will get easier.

How do you stay inspired? By traveling, reading blogs, browsing flickr, and shopping.

Anything else you would like to tell us about your business? What I really love about this business is that my whole family is involved. They help me with designs, travel with me to craft fairs, help me package orders and have always been a continuous support. They know this is what I’ve always wanted to do.

All my designs are original and a labor of love. I miss being in my college art classes and being able to hear feedback on my work, I’d love any comments or questions.  AND  I am about to launch a big cartel shop: http://paperpastries.bigcartel.com/

I think the website is easy to maneuver for shoppers and I really like the layout options. Another plus is that I can give out discount codes.