www.laurenandemira.com
Lauren is a veteran Web designer, who co-founded Raised Eyebrow Web Studio, Inc. with her business partner, co-author and all-around right-hand woman, Emira Mears. The two have been in business together for eight years, and during that time have developed a reputation for designing elegant and highly user-friendly Web sites for nonprofit organizations and small businesses.
www.designspongeonline.com
Design*Sponge editor Grace Bonney has been a contributing editor at CRAFT magazine. The Brooklyn-based writer launched Design*Sponge, a Web site devoted to home and product design, in August 2004. Grace also runs the D*S Biz Lady Series, a national series of meetups for women running design-based businesses, which have been held in Brooklyn, Chicago, Philadelphia, Portland, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Boston. Grace hosts and speaks at these events designed to connect local designers and provide free advice on the subjects of PR/marketing, legal concerns, business/financial decisions and wholesaling.
www.whollycraft.net
Olivera is a part-time community health educator and full-time owner of Wholly Craft! in Columbus, Ohio. Her background is in feminist activism and academia, but she couldn’t resist the call of craft and entrepreneurship. She’s thrilled to be in a position to help support other crafters and build a community of resistance to mass-production. Outside of crafting and “shop talk,” her interests include documentary film, gender performance, rabble-rousing and karaoke. She resides in Ohio with her partner and their two beautiful kitty cats. She believes that craft may not save the world, but it can only help.
jezzeblog.blogspot.com
Jesse Breytenbach has a master’s degree in printmaking and works as a freelance illustrator. In her spare time, she draws comics and recently published a graphic novel. One of her Etsy shops, jezzeprints.etsy.com, is for work on paper, both linocuts and comics. The other shop, jezze.etsy.com, is for handprinted textiles and screenprinted ceramics. She tries out new ideas and documents her works in progress on her blog.
www.imogene.org
Annie Chau lives and works in Baltimore (known to locals as Charm City) with her boyfriend and two darling and hilarious pit bulls. She grew up in Florida, and studied jewelry and metalsmithing at Towson University in the Baltimore suburbs. After graduating in 2005, she decided to stick around. She’s also a proud member of the Charm City Craft Mafia.
www.poise.cc
Cinnamon Cooper is a proud Chicagoan, righteous craftivist, and is convinced the revolution will be crafted. As a co-creator of the DIY Trunk Show and a founding member of the Chicago Craft Mafia, she’s convinced that her little bit of work has made Chicago a city more accepting of small creative businesses and more interested in handmade quality. Her political and activist interests influenced the direction of her Poise.cc business, and have inspired her more popular bags. She’s fortunate to like her day job, but looks forward to the day when her craftivism pays her mortgage.
www.boygirlparty.com
Susie Ghahremani is a 2002 graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) with a BFA in illustration. Her artwork combines her love of nature, animals, music and patterns. Born and raised in Chicago, Susie now happily spends her time painting, drawing, crafting and tending to her pet finches and cat in San Diego, California.
www.oddballpress.com
Kati Hanimägi launched Oddball Press in July 2007, but was crafting for many years before she encountered her first letterpress. Kati studied printmaking at the Atlanta College of Art and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago before moving to Cleveland. She spends about three-quarters of her time on Oddball stuff and the other quarter as a museum employee.
www.jennyharada.com
Jenny Harada’s mom taught her how to sew when she was 7 years old, and she’s been making stuff ever since. Most of the time she makes wacky stuffed animals, but she likes making all sorts of other things too. She lives in New Jersey with her cute husband, two cute little babies and a cute doggie.
www.sublimestitcher.com
Jenny Hart is the founder and creative director of Texas-based embroidery design company Sublime Stitching. Jenny is an internationally published artist and illustrator, and an award-winning author of multiple titles for Chronicle Books. Jenny lives and works in Austin, Texas, where she is a founding member of the infamous Austin Craft Mafia. Despite a hectic schedule, Jenny still finds plenty of time for embroidering.
www.mymy.us
Taryn Hipp is a lady from Doylestown, Pennsylvania. In 2004 Taryn started MY MY, an online shop for handmade awesomeness, after years of making and hoarding items. In June 2007 she opened a retail store under the same name; nine months later she closed the store and started rethinking her goals. Taryn is all about crafting, writing, re-arranging furniture, and is currently organizing a punk rock flea market in Doylestown.
www.anneholman.com
Anne Holman received her BFA from the Columbus College of Art and Design in Columbus, Ohio. She’s currently a full-time studio artist. Her jewelry can be found at boutiques across the country as well as online and at various art festivals and gallery exhibitions throughout the year.
www.meancards.com
Julianna Holowka was born in Detroit, Michigan, to a family of artists and crafters. Always drawing and creating, she went on to earn a degree in industrial design. Chicago was the proving ground where she defined her style—working to create stage productions, album covers, and poster art for various artists and musicians. Julianna now lives in Philadelphia with her fiancé, photographer Chris Crisman, where she designs and constructs a line of homewares and is the principal and creator of Mean Cards for Many Occasions.
www.lizziesweet.com
Hannah Howard is an artist based in New York City. She’s the creative whirlwind behind Lizzie Sweet, a handmade boutique label inspired by burlesque, pin-up art and the glamour of yesteryear. An avid crafter, her work has appeared in Stitch and Bitch Nation, The Crafter’s Handbook and Not Another Teen Knitting Book. She writes about the fabulous side of life and all things crafty at her blog, Superlovelyful (www.superlovelyful.com).
www.extremecraft.com
Garth Johnson was born and raised on a farm in Nebraska, attended art school at the University of Nebraska and then got his MFA in ceramics at Alfred University. He’s currently a designer at Perkins+Will architects in Atlanta, as well as an adjunct faculty member at Columbus State University in Columbus, Georgia.
www.mypapercrane.com
Heidi Kenney creates happy and sometimes very sad anthropomorphic plush from her home studio in Pennsylvania. She is self-taught and has been running My Paper Crane for almost seven years. The name of her company came from her first attempt at origami, making a paper crane, because she was so amazed that a simple square of paper could be turned into something so beautiful. She has participated in group exhibitions across the globe, including Plush You in Seattle, TINA (This Is Not Art) in Newcastle, Australia, and Plush Week in Los Angeles. Heidi’s very first book will be published in 2010.
www.misshawklet.com
Holly Klump has been a crafter her whole life and has been spinning animal-friendly fibers since misshawklet’s birth in 2004. Despite her love of yarn and fibers, Holly is not much of a knitter. Her day job for the past eight years has been working in the library field. She lives in Nashua, New Hampshire, with her man and her pets. In her spare time she plants things.
faythelevine.blogspot.com
Seattle-native Faythe Levine has been based in Milwaukee since 2001. She is the founder of Art vs. Craft, an alternative market for handmade goods and was the co-owner of Paper Boat Boutique & Gallery. She is also the director of Handmade Nation a feature-length documentary about the rise of DIY art, craft and design as well as the co-author of a book of the same title, published by Princeton Architectural Press in 2008.
www.knotstudio.com
Samantha A. Lopez was born in Mexico City but spent most of her time as a child in the countryside of the state of Morelos. She moved to New York City to study at Pratt Institute of Art and Design, where she received her degree in fine art with a concentration in sculpture. Her work has been exhibited at the Rubelle and Norman Schafler Gallery and Object Image Gallery in Brooklyn. Her book, Knitted Wire Jewelry: Techniques, Projects, Inspiration was published by North Light Books in 2009. The Knotstudio line of jewelry can be found online at www.knotstudio.com as well as in select boutiques in the New York City area.
www.misschiefshop.com
Her college roommate introduced her to the wonders of button making, and Jessica Manack has never looked back. She’s been crafting since 2001 as half of Miss Chief Productions. After trying to sell her wares at ladyfests, flea markets and zine festivals, she was thrilled when a network of indie craft shows suddenly sprung up around the country. Jessica has been on the organizing committee of Pittsburgh’s Handmade Arcade since its inception. While she loves living in the Steel City, her hometown, she is always ready to hop in the car, plastic tarps and a stack of singles in tow, to check out the next fair.
www.rebound-designs.com
Caitlin Phillips has been a book lover since before she could read. As a young child, she devoured books with an intensity matched only by her passion for craft. Inspired by her mother—a quilter, crafter and Girl Scout leader—Caitlin began creating recycled art almost as soon as she could hold scissors. Caitlin’s first job after high school was working at the Book Alcove in Gaithersburg, Maryland, and her love for books followed her to Tufts University, where she graduated with a double major in English and drama. In 2004, Rebound Designs was born, and Caitlin began selling her crafty creations full time at the historic Eastern Market in Washington, D.C. Caitlin also exhibits at a variety of shows, from the funky Crafty Bastards in D.C. to the prestigious American Craft Council Show in Baltimore.
www.schmancytoys.com
Kristen Rask was born in Cleveland, Ohio. In 1998, she landed in Seattle, which she has made her home. In 2004, she opened a small store in downtown Seattle called Schmancy, where she sells vinyl and plush toys and other crafty goods. Since her opening, she has been invited to curate art shows from New York City to San Francisco. She curates an annual show, Plush You!, at her store (and a few others), which received so much attention that North Light Books published the book Plush You! in 2007. She is also the author of Button and Stitch (North Light Books, 2009). She is the director of PR and marketing for Urban Craft Uprising and continues to enjoy the art of making stuff as much as she can.