I recently put a call out on Twitter to find out if there were any artists/crafters here in PA that would like to share a day in their life. Alicia of Weezawear nominated her friend Erin of Krug’s Eco-Logic and I’m glad she did! Erin creates amazing bath and body products, all while being a mom. Enjoy a day in her life!

6 am – kids are both up

6:15-7:15 – make breakfast and get both kids ready to head out the door to drop my son off at school

7:30 – drop son off at school

7:45 – (about 3-4 times a week) hit up the gym for a quick run while my daughter is in child watch (a great time for her to get some child-child interaction).

8:00 – daughter and I head home, change, organize everything for the day

8:30 – with two year old in tow, run errands (post office to deliver packages, grocery store, doctor’s offices, etc…). If no running needs completed, this is the time I get to play with my little angel.

9:45 – 2 year old gymnastics class once a week.

10:15 – head home

10:30 – make lunch for myself and the little one, clean up lunch

11:00 – daughter lays down for nap (if I’m lucky) and now it’s time for some work! I take a quick scan of the house and pick up toys, or vacuum, and then throw some laundry in the washer quickly.

11:30/45 – 2:15 – make soap, lotions, labels, send newseletters, update website and blog, respond to customer emails, and package up any orders from the day before.

2:15 – get daughter ready to pick son up at school

2:30 – pick up son and head to the post office to deliver packages I packed earlier in the day

3:00 – arrive at home and review son’s homework and papers from school, get children snacks

3:30 – clean up snack time, read books with kids

4:15 – start dinner

4:45 – eat dinner and clean up (quickly update facebook fan page, or twitter)

5:30 – take son to Tae Kwon Do (answer some quick customer emails while watching son)

6:45/7:00 – head home

7:00 – quickly toss kids into the bath and get snack (quickly update facebook fan page, and twitter)

7:30 – start laying kids down for the night (reading, singing, story time)

8:00 pm – time for more work! Continue soaping, taking inventory (making sure # of products in online shop are available for purchase), answering more customer Q’s, updating twitter and FB fan page. In between while I’m waiting for oils to melt I throw in more laundry, fold laundry,  and do little odds and ends. If I ever have to sit and wait for something, I’m finding something else to do in the mean-time.

11:00 pm- on a GOOD day I get to lay down now and watch my FAVORITE show – The Office, and have a quick snack before I fall asleep.

Michelle is a graduate of Albright College with a B.A. in Visual & Apparel Merchandising. After years in the fashion/ retail industry, she is now a WAHM. Michelle is a self-taught jewelry designer and owner of Michabella Creations.

Wanna submit your own handmade stops in a county or town or region of PA?  Just send links to nick@pacrafts.org. This one comes from Michael Dittman, a writer, professor, and photographer living in Northwestern Pennsylvania.  He is a contributor to The Savvy Grouse.

The Oil Heritage Region is an area in Northwestern Pennsylvania that includes Titusville, eastern Crawford County, and Venango County.  While a name like the Oil Heritage Region may conjure up images of abandoned Rust Belt refineries, there’s a vital arts and crafts scene supported largely by the Oil City Arts Revitalization project headed by Joann Wheeler.

1 – National Transit Building – Part of the Oil City Arts Revitalization project is the remaking of the historic Transit Building into a studio for visual artists, filmmakers, musicians, and fine artisans with open studios every second Saturday from noon to 5:00 pm. The building is also host to Arts in the Transit, a concert series on the second Friday of the month. 206-210 Seneca Street, Oil City.

2 –  Campbell Pottery Store & Gallery - Just north of Titusville (and, strictly speaking, not in the Oil Heritage Region, but too good to miss) is the Campbell Pottery Store & Gallery.  Bill Campbell has been elbow deep in clay for more than 25 years.  Today his is the largest art pottery gallery in Pennsylvania.  Walking into the gallery is to be overwhelmed by the color and crisp perfect shapes.  The gallery also sponsors annual glassblowing demonstrations with Herb Thomas, a Day Lily festival, and more.  25579 Plank Rd., Cambridge Springs, 814-734-8800

3 – Finally, at the southern edge of the Region is DiVani Chocolate.  I first went into this chocolatier’s retail storefront on a hillside just 50 yards off Foxburg’s Main Street on a whim and found an oasis of designer chocolate, chai tea, truffles, fudges, marshmallows, caramels, and seasonal specialties.  Now they have a branch at the Liberty Galleria (Liberty St, Franklin)  in my town which makes getting my fix a lot quicker. 22 N Palmer Ave, Foxburg, 888.763.4826

4 - Alice Walkowski is a metal clay artist working out of the Transit Building.  I hadn’t even heard of the medium before I dropped by her studio, but by the time I left, I had signed up for one of her workshops to create my own pathetic piece of jewelry.  Walkowski ’s work, however, shines with technique and narrative – each piece it seems has an extensive backstory which adds the charm of these, well, charms (and rings, and pendants).

Where would you go from here? Share your favorite handmade stops in the Oil Heritage region in the comment section below.

Next stop? Philly! Send in your favorite stops today.

Let’s get some fresh! Subtle, worn, and neutral fabrics and vintage images can be so fresh! stay tuned for more fresh {did someone say “fresh?”}

1. handmade denim cuff bracelet by bbbellezza $10

2. organic canvas fabric- LULU by daisyjanie  $64

3. vintage doily and button pillow by brandeye  $32

4. recycled OZARKelopes from vintage historical book by Sanguinaria  $12.50

Kate, along with her husband, bring together farm, food and design at The Steel Fork. They also design and create sculptural metalworks using recycled farm machinery – Gatski Metal. Kate is also the mother of two busy little children.

I’ve been feeling particularly scattered lately. I think its a combination of spring fever and planning out trips and adventures over the summer months. Clearly I need to make a list. If you need to make some lists too then here are some styling ways to store them.

vibrant color and flowers inducing a state of spring fever.

barefoot hippie print by stephanie corfee

paper collage print by 111 collage design

art quilt by andrus gardens quilt

all handmade in pennsylvania and found through the HiP flickr pool.

The most frequent question I get related to this blog is: Where can I find and buy handmade crafts at a brick and mortar store in my hometown?

Buying from a a brick and mortar does three things immediately:

1. You support your local community (3/50 Project for how it works)
2. You support your neighbor artist
3. It just feels good – and that’s important

To help everyone accomplish this task of handmade shopping nirvana, I’m pulling together a Google map of shops, galleries, museum stores, gift shops, consignment shops and everything in between that sell Pennsylvania-made art & craft in Pennsylvania.

I need your help. So what makes sense for inclusion on this handmade map? Only physical locations that sell Pennsylvania-made craft (no restaurants or coffee shops). Please leave your favorites below in the comments section or email me (nick@pacrafts.org) if you’re feeling particularly helpful. All I need is the name, street address and city.

If you want to help more closely on this project, shoot me an email. Setting up a Google Map is way easy and I can share it with a group of contributors. Happy shopping.

Editor’s Note: I made a few updates to this post. I added the links to the map, which wasn’t ready to show at the time of the original post.

The work of artist Brooke Hine (Philadelphia) stopped me in my tracks. Something so refreshing about it- I was particularly drawn to her Growth & Deterioration series.

As a ceramic artist, my work is influenced by qualities observed in nature: the negative space created by naked branches in winter, the path traced by insects in a hollow log, or fossils found in the ground.

Connection Between

Growth/Deterioration

These are a Few of my Favorite Things

Kate, along with her husband, bring together farm, food and design at The Steel Fork. They also design and create sculptural metalworks using recycled farm machinery – Gatski Metal. Kate is also the mother of two busy little children.

After the Buyers Market of American Craft, I’ve had a renewed eye for glass.  The section devoted to glass is huge. When I started working for the Pennsylvania Guild of Craftsmen, my first day on the job was attending the Buyers Market. What a crazy first day. And what an amazing introduction to the craft community. I both thought I was in over my head and in art heaven.

Glass has a way of grabbing your attention. Maybe its the shine or the colors or the patterns and texture. It demands your eye. Here are a few choice works from Pennsylvania glassblowers.

This week I am excited to feature Lynn of UnaOdd. Lynn makes resin, clay and acrylic jewelry which features her love of nature. Lynn is also a busy mom involved with her children’s school. Enjoy a day in her life!

6:30 a.m.  The alarm clock goes off.  Today I only hit the snooze button twice so I’m up at 6:38.  I quickly check my e-mail for any overnight sales or conversations from my Etsy shop, UnaOdd.  Nothing  this morning.  While my children are getting ready for school I shower and dress, then wash up the morning dishes.

8:30 a.m.  I drive my children to the school bus stop, then do a quick grocery store run.  I am home by 9:00.

Tonight is a fundraiser at my children’s school.  The Arts Day Committee that I am on is running a talent show, bake sale and art sale.  We are raising funds for our Arts Day Program which brings artists into the school to demonstrate their artwork to the students.  Our PTA informed us that there is no extra money in the budget this year, so it’s up to us to raise all the money we need.  I’m donating my time, artwork and two loaves of banana chocolate chip bread so I  need to start baking!

9:45 a.m. Banana bread is baking so I take a break for breakfast - finally.  While eating I check my shop and read up on a few blogs and  Twitter.  After breakfast I clean up the kitchen.  The bread is baking and the house smells heavenly.  Too bad both loaves are going to the  sale.

10:30 a.m.  I start painting some posters for tonight’s show and sale.  Good old potato stamp technique comes to the rescue!  While the  posters are drying I realize that the light is wonderful so I do some  product photography for later listing.  I have a very simple set-up,  but it relies heavily on good natural light.  When the light is favorable I try to be ready to shoot.  A gauzy curtain, sunshine and a  home-made multi-colored board backdrop are what I use the most.  I  made the backdrop in different color blocks so I can move my pieces  around to the color that suits them the best.

12:00 noon  Lunch!  I take a half hour to eat and check on my accounts, answering a few conversations that have come in. After lunch I work on a submission of some photos for Lark books, do some photo editing and a few loads of laundry.  The mail arrives with a supply delivery -always exciting!  Everything is as ordered and I spend a little time playing with the supplies, planning out what I’m going to make with them.

3:30 p.m. I’m off to my children’s school to help set up for the evening’s event.  The team works hard and well together and we have  the show set up by 5:00 p.m.  It doesn’t officially start until 7:00 so I run home to make dinner, then back to the school by 6:15. The Talent Show is wonderful.  The kids do a great job and really seemed to have a great time.  The art and bake sale does really well too.  We bring in almost $1,200 for our Arts Day program!  Breaking down and cleaning up takes a little while.

10:30 p.m. I just got home from the sale.  I have a glass of wine and check my shop.  No sales on Etsy today, but I feel really good about the hard work we all put in and the great artists we can now bring in to inspire our children.  I visit and comment on some blogs.

12:06 a.m.  Finally off to bed.

Michelle is a graduate of Albright College with a B.A. in Visual & Apparel Merchandising. After years in the fashion/ retail industry, she is now a WAHM. Michelle is a self-taught jewelry designer and owner of Michabella Creations.

Wanna submit your own handmade stops in a county or town or region of PA?  Just send links to nick@pacrafts.org. This one comes from Maggie Frank-Pascoe from the Perry County Council of the Arts.

1 - Arts @ 510 – a destination arts gallery in downtown Harrisburg, located on the first floor of a 100-year-old building across 3^rd Street from PA’s beautiful State Capitol. Inside it is brimming with oils, watercolors, pastels, mixed media, pottery, glass, jewelry, wood and metal by PA artists. Also within the gallery is a full-service custom frame shop. 510 North 3^rd Street, Harrisburg, 717-724-0364

2 – Village Artisans Gallery – Housed in a light filled 1875 former church, Village Artisans Gallery offers a distinctive selection of fine American craft and art ranging from Colonial reproductions to contemporary art and jewelry. PA artists are prominently featured among more than two hundred that are represented. 321 Walnut Street, Boiling Springs, 888-258-0256

3 - PCCA Gallery – Nestled in the gentle hills of Perry County, the PCCA Gallery offers its visitors a unique experience, with original paintings, woven rugs, stained glass, pottery and jewelry that is hand-crafted by artists throughout the Central PA region. It is an ideal stop when looking for that unique, handmade gift. One S. Second Street, Newport, 717-567-7023

4 - Espresso Yourself Café – Okay, time for lunch or to recharge. At Espresso Yourself Café, one can enjoy an excellent cappuccino or latte while delighting in the expressions of local artists or enjoying a conversation with friends and locals. The dining experience will include artistic culinary creations made from carefully selected local, organic products. The café also has a variety of choices for vegetarians/vegans. Check out the web site for weekly specials. 8 South Second Street, Newport, 717-567-9882

5 – Individual Artists along Rt15 ByWay of the Arts - Rt15 ByWay of the Arts also highlights individual artists. Some have open studio hours and others are by appointment only. Enjoy a truly unique experience by visiting a studio to see a master at his craft. The ByWay has member artists who work in a variety of mediums, from pottery, watercolor, or photography to weaving, jewelry design and glass.

Looking for a place to stay on this trip? Pheasant Field Bed & Breakfast – The B&B is just east of Carlisle. They offer pet friendly lodging, overnight horse boarding, and extended stay lodging in their one-bedroom apartment. 150 Hickorytown Road, Carlisle, 877-258-0717

Where would you go from here? Share your favorite handmade stops along Route 15 in the comment section below.