About the Artist: SToNZ - organically elegant silver jewelry inspired by nature

Susan has been making art as long as she can remember. She is grateful to have grown up with arts loving parents who encouraged my artistic exploration from a young age. Fortunately her awesome husband also appreciates and supports her artistic pursuits.
Her creative passions led her to art school where she earned a BFA in graphic design and illustration.
She worked as a professional illustrator at American Greetings for almost a decade and continued to do design work for a variety of clients from her home-based graphic design studio (SmARTwork Studio, Inc.) while raising her identical twin daughters.

professional greeting card illustrator in the 1980's

Spending all that time on the computer, made her really miss the hands-on act of actually MAKING things. So, she revisted her passion for metal and stone.

As a child she spent most of her summers at the beach. The sea glass and beach stones she collected over the years were filling bowls throughout her studio and home.

collecting beach stones in Maine, circa 1970

Then she realized she could creatively combine her two passions: making beautiful jewelry and beach combing for natural treasures. (Oh, and foraging at garage sales and flea markets for old keys, tokens and old sterling silver jewelry parts.) The result is SToNZ.

if she can't be at the beach, she might as well be at the bench

one way to make use of an old mission oak desk

She found a perfect home on Etsy and love how it has enabled her to connect with many wonderful people around the world - both customers and fellow artists.

She has recently added a vintage section to her shop.... This will be growing, so check back often for new and unusual finds from her garage sale adventures.



• Click here to visit the SToNZ store: http://www.stonz.etsy.com
• Visit the stonzblog: http://beachstonz.blogspot.com/
• On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/stonzjewelry
• On Instagram: http://instagram.com/stonzcle

About the Artist: Krize by Kristina Sabaite - Happy smiling shop

Kristina Sabaite is a children´s book illustrator and a dreamer for sure.
She was born in Lithuania, but now she is living in the north of Spain with her husband, their dog Chino and cat Bjork. 

When destiny brought her to Galicia she had a lot of free time for creating. She felt absolutely in love with the green forests, culture and people, so she thinks it was a big influence for her work. Her husband is a composer and pianist, so they have created a little cozy home studio to work together and be surrounded by art, music and colors!

She has opened her shop on Etsy in 2008 with the advice of her friend Claudia Moya (from Mundogominola) and since then she is very happy to create and to spread her positive point of view towards illustration. She loves creating happy and funny things and imagine people smiling while wearing her creations.

Handmade means something warm and very personal for her. It means something that is unique and made with care and with calm. A handmade object is a thing with a soul. It is very important to her.
You can find illustration, wall art, prints, original paintings, jewelry, toys, happy animal brooches and lot of funny art in her shop. So many colorful gifts for adults and children, for animal lovers, gifts for cat ladies and vegan friends. All her work has some hint of whimsical and cute.
 

Her shop: krize.etsy.com
Her Facebook page

About the Artist: Paula. From found objects to functional art

Paula is a self taught full time artist who lives and works in a small city in Texas. She has been making art since 2004. Paula loves giving useless junk a 2nd life. Found objects have a patina and a texture about them that is unique and intriguing. The unknown use or history of the objects is what excites her and commands her attention. It's like a game waiting to see what will fit with what and how to make it useful.

Paula's work station

Tea Light Candle Holders

Initially she began making wall art and was exhibiting in local Vermont Galleries. When she moved to Texas everything changed! In Texas the materials available to here were different, soon her PaulaArt shop was filled with utilitarian objects and so, when she started making flowers she opened the other shop so it could be filled with found object flowers - IndustrialBloom

Her days are spent looking for lost, tossed and abandoned objects. It always surprises her the things she finds when she rides her bike or walk on the roads, peering into dumpsters or visiting the small recycle/scrap yard within the confines of town. The flowers she makes are an expression of her delight and fascination with found objects, particularly the minutia that truly seems unusable and sometimes ugly. She loves how they enliven her own loft! They are like little animals wafting odd personalities.

Upcycled Found Object Clock

About the Artist: atiliay by Olivia

Olivia is a designer and artist born and raised in Southern California with a background in fashion design. She is passionate about creating products that give back.

A thank you from The EEC, the first recipients of Cards For A Cards' proceeds!

atiliay was born out of a desire to create a way for everyone to easily spread the love!
It started out as a fundraising idea Olivia had for Valentine's Day 2013. That January and February, she spent many days and late nights stamping cards, hand writing messages, and hand addressing envelopes in order to make over 300 Valentine's Day cards. It was so amazing to see the support and enthusiasm for the project and through these efforts, together they raised enough funds to provide meals for 60 children at The Ebongalethu Educare Center in SA with nutritious food for over a year.

Olivia  knew she wanted to keep that project going. It also helped her reconnect with her love for visual arts and showed her a way to present her art while supporting various non-profits in the USA and across the world.

Proceeds from every item in her shop goes to help support the work of groups that are relieving hunger, fighting poverty, providing education, assisting our furry friends, and much more.



Through atiliay, Olivia hopes to make a lasting and meaningful impact through community, compassion, sustainability, and love.
Find her on:
[ Etsy] atiliay.etsy.com
[ instagram ] instagram.com/olivial902
[ pinterest ] pinterest.com/olivial902

About th Artist: Aroluna - Artisan Jewelry

                                                         Creating jewelry is Irene's reward.

She was young when she realized that her hands would be her tools. Transforming materials, fabric, leather and clay into something beautiful always thrilled her. She got hooked to metal, learning from two friends who are metal smiths, later attended jewelry school, and since then jewelry making became a great and pleasant aspect of her life.

She is the only maker of everything @ aroluna, needless to say the bench is what she loves most, and where she does her best to originate timeless adornments, often rustic and organic, sturdy but smooth, which will last for many a moon.

Her intention is to create perfectly wearable jewelry which bends and molds to the body in a comfortable way. She loves asymmetry, circular forms and making pieces that are sensual and bold, almost with lives of their own… you can feel their subtle weight, their sound, their touch.

 At present Irene is leaning towards wire in its many forms, using simple ancient techniques to achieve original work. She is also having great fun recycling her own material, gathering and transforming previously unfinished or set aside pieces and parts into new unique and amusing designs.
Irene's work is available @ aroluna  & lunamora

About the Artist: Vaida's World

Vaida Petrikis
 felt artist, designer, photographer.

Vaida lives in the middle of Europe, in a small country near the Baltic Sea – in Lithuania. Felt came into her life in 2006, at first just as a hobby, but, step by step, this evolved into something else. It’s  now her passion and self-expression. She felts various shawls, ruffle scarfs, arm warmers, fingerless gloves, slippers, even dresses. She makes jewelry with handmade felt, various interior items from diverse materials, combining different techniques. Felt, metal, wood, stone, even photography - all in one. 
She loves diversity.

Vaida has a Bachelor’s degree in Art and Art’s History,  a Master’s degree in Applied Sociology and a  Master’s degree in Information Technologies plus seven-year studies at the Music school, she also studied at Textile Art school. All things she did and does in her life are closely related. It's a lifestyle. And art is an inherent part of her life.

Vaida lives in the very center of Kaunas and she loves it! Living there allows her  to feel the very essence of the city, to participate in its life, to be in it and… To maintain her  privacy at the same time.  For now she works in her family apartment - the felting takes place in her living room, however,  this year she will have a new studio in an old 19th century building in the main street of Kaunas, so if you ever go to Lithuania, you are welcome in her place!  Otherwise, Vaida's amazing work can be found through her two Etsy shops - VaidaPhoto  & Vart .

    

About the Artist: Pey

Pey, a native of Taiwan, came to Toronto shortly after her father's death. Her father, who influenced her greatly in many ways, was an avid collector of antiques and beautiful things. Pey grew up fascinated by all his treasures and learned at a very young age to appreciate the unique, which later propelled her interest in interior design. She received her BA from Ryerson, and practised interior design for nearly two decades.

The Furniture Collection - mixed media on canvas

As a designer, restoring order to chaos and making sense of space was satisfying and challenging at first, but it began to wane as a career path. During a moment of lucidity and inspiration, Pey chose to leave her lucrative design job ( to the horror of her poor husband Anatol) and return to her first love - artistic endeavours and pursuits.

Always fascinated by textures, Pey chose clay as her main painting surface, which she gently layers with different paint media to achieve the finish and patina which so typifies her unique style and themes. The clay adds texture, crackle and a " well worn look" to a wide range of subject matter, mostly folk art based but with an urban twist.

The White Horse - acrylic on clay on canvas.

Pey's wide ranging influences include Rennie Macintosh, Michael Sowa, Man Ray, Botero, Bill Traylor ..., but perhaps Pey's true inspiration comes from things closer to home, her husband's folk art collection, her animals, her garden, the wonder of simple joys and moments in time and her deep seeded memories from her childhood.

Pey loves what she does and hopes to express that sense of joy and gentleness in her work. She is truly humbled and grateful that she can follow her calling. She now paints and plays happily at her Parkdale home in Toronto.

Pey's work has been purchased and shipped internationally and sold in prominent Canadian shops and galleries.

Life' is a banquet, EAT ! - acrylic on clay slab

Don't forget to check her shop: http://PeyLu.etsy.com
Meet her on Facebook: FoundStyleHabitat