See update at bottom of page for current information.

Last week, I put out a call for stores, shops and galleries in PA that carry handmade crafts for sale. With thanks to the HiP community, there’s now nearly 100 listings on the Handmade in PA Google Map.

I’m ecstatic! But I know there’s many, many more than 100 galleries, shops and stores in PA selling handmade crafts. Lets make this something bigger and tap into the power of the collective. I think we can easily double or triple this list. What do you think? You wanna help? Its easy. Here’s how…

1. Think of your neighborhood brick & mortar store carrying handmade.
2. Go to the Handmade in PA Google Map.
3. Type the gallery name and/or street address, city in the search bar.

Once you find the shop or the address, you can add it to the Handmade in PA Google Map by doing the following steps:

1. Click ‘Save To…’ under the map listing (see image). You may need to make a Google account if you don’t have one already.

2. Then make sure ‘Handmade in PA – Map’ is selected from the dropdown and click ‘Save’ (see image)

3. You’re done! I’ll take it from there and add the special shopping bag icon and then sort it into the bigger HiP map listing. And it’ll look like this:

If the above is just too much work, I still love love love receiving emails about shops at nick@pacrafts.org, tweets to @handmadeinpa or comments below with name and address, city.

And by all means, rate the map and leave reviews for the shops and galleries. Go to the HiP Google Map and click ‘Rate this map‘ in the top left corner.

Thanks everyone.

Update: I’m still accepting addresses (leave them in the comments below), but due to a Google Map error the map is replicating information over each of the 100+ listings on the HiP map. I had to remove open collaboration for the time being. I’ll update everyone once its back online. Thanks for the dozens of submissions today. And cross your fingers this gets resolved or we’ll have to start over. Sigh.

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.

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.

The name Jibby and Juna comes from the names of two imaginary friends. That playfulness and creative fancy is evident in the polymer clay jewelry made by Genevieve Williamson, of Southern York county.  Textures and muted earthtones  are a delight for the eye.

Want to see more? Where can you find Jibby and Juna? She’ll be the artist of the month starting in March at Radius Gallery at the State Museum in Harrisburg. She’ll be there in person on the first Sunday of the month (the 7th). If you need to see more right now (like I did), here’s her etsy shop, Flickr photostream and blog.

Work by Angela Davidson (Philly).

I first spotted Tannei’s work on the front page of Etsy. I loved the bag and once I clicked on it and found out she was from PA, I knew I had to showcase her! Tannei is a native of Canada, but moved to a suburb of Philadelphia with her family about 3 years ago. I hope you will love her work as much as I do! Enjoy a day in her life:

6:30 am:  My husband Brian wakes me up so we can get our son, Andrew, off to middle school. I get ready while Brian is getting the coffee going and making breakfast for Andrew. I get into the kitchen just in time to pack Andrew’s lunch and rush him out the door so he doesn’t miss the school bus.

7:20 am:  I get the newspaper from the driveway and spend the next hour or so perusing through it. I look forward to doing puzzles like Jumble, Cryptoquote and Sudoku while enjoying my coffee.

8:30 am:  Time to get on the computer. I check and respond to email. I go to my favorite sites and blogs. This is how I keep up to date on things such as new fabric lines, crafting supplies, upcoming crafting books and gadgets that will make my crafting life easier. It is usually during this time that I find inspiration and ideas for my projects.

10:00 am:  The skies are clear today. We are going to take advantage of that and take pictures of some new bags outside. Brian is the photographer and he is setting up the tripod and camera while I get the bags propped and ready. When pictures are done, I upload them, crop them, and make sure the colors are as accurate as possible. Then I list the bags on my Etsy shop.

Noon:  Brian and I sit down for a quick lunch and then it’s downstairs to my workroom. I start by making a to-do list. I check to see if I need to replenish any supplies. Before I work on a couple of custom orders for bags, I look through my fabrics and decide on making a couple more bags in similar colors so I can sew them all at once using the same color thread. This will save me a bit of time. There is a TV next to my cutting table and it’s usually on when I am in my workroom. I think I have seen (or heard) every episode of the Law & Order and CSI franchises at least 3 times!

6:00 pm:  I start on making dinner (Italian sausage in tomato sauce with pasta tonight), and hover over Andrew while he is doing his homework and studying for a test. After dinner, Brian and Andrew are off to a Boy Scout meeting. I go back down to my workroom and start planning on a quilt design that I want to work on in the next few days.

9:00 pm:  We are in the family room watching some TV. Our current favorite show that we love to watch together is Glee. I also have my laptop on and am perusing at different fabric sites to shop for new fabrics.

10:00 pm:  Andrew goes to bed. I stay up and work on my knitting and catch up on some TV shows that I have on DVR. I am a night owl. This is the only time I get to knit so depending on waht I am working on, it might be 1am before I get to bed. Brian tries to stay up with me, but usually heads up before I do.

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.

The recent illustrations sprouting from Stephanie Corfee made me smile.  Thought I would share.

Adam Rung furniture. photo credit Patrick R. Ward

Want to see more? Adam Rung Woodworking (Philly).

January is our design time. We spend a few weeks brainstorming, sketching, discussing and believe it or not- getting incredibly frustrated. Good design is hard [an understatement, I know]. Needless to say, I am in awe of Mio (Philadelphia). Have a look at these incredible designs- gorgeous, green and made with locally sourced materials. Awesome.

MIO is a design company dedicated to creating the most sustainable and innovative design experiences in the market.

The Bendant Lamp is a flat-packed chandelier composed of a series of leaf-like shades surrounding a central fixture. Bend the shades up or down and create unique light and shadow arrangements.

Made from recycled, double-wall cardboard, Nomad is a modular architectural system that can be assembled into free-standing, sculptural screens, temporary partitions, rooms or even displays without hardware, tools or damage to existing structures.

I love it. Inspired yet again by the creative talent in the keystone state.

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.