What Was The Last Handmade Thing You Bought?

Tara Vaughn of Pennsylvania, USA, who is a crafts artist herself, working with felt and selling her wares online at Project Felt, answers the question first:

Tara's latest buy.

What Was The Last Handmade Thing You Bought?
"A clay sculpture made by LoopyBooby on Etsy. She does amazing work and it's actually the second piece I have purchased from her. I paid US$40 for it and it's worth every penny."

What made you buy it?
"Impulse. I really didn't have a 'need' for it. But I can't help myself sometimes! If you check out her shop you'll see what I mean."

What are you looking to buy next?
"Right now I'm in the market for some promotional materials for my shop. I'm having someone design a post card for me and I'm working on getting some buttons made too."

Now have a look at Tara's stuff! Click here to go to her online shop: Yes, here!

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NOTE FROM THE BLOG AUTHOR: One of the first handmade objects I ever bought was this suggestive flower made by the Filipino artist Jenny Cortes. It was sculpted from wood and then dyed. I got it when I was fresh out of university, and have brought it everywhere with me through the many times I moved from one apartment to another while living in Manila, the Philippines, and up to now as I type away from my home in France, the flower looks down at me from where I've hung it on a salmon-painted wall. This, I think, is testament to just how much I am fond of surrounding myself with the works of artists and craftspeople. So I came up with the idea of every week on this blog having people share with me their love for handmade stuff, by asking them the question, "What was the last handmade thing you bought?"

The Beginning

Once upon a time, there were four girls locked up in a room...

It all began because my parents were quite paranoid about the security of their four daughters growing up in the big bad city of Manila that aside from to go to school they rarely allowed us out of the house. I remember I would have to sneak out to enjoy rides on a bicycle borrowed from a playmate; and that we had a neighbor who thought my parents were childless because he never did see us out.

Children must play, however, and us sisters found an outlet in arts and crafts. One of our favorite games involved the paper dolls we ourselves would make from thick cardboard. We would draw, cut, and color numerous dresses for them; would fashion for them complicated lives that included apartments whose floor spaces were defined by hardcover Time-Life books and cars that in real life were rubber Spartan flipflops.

We loved those dolls so much that we wouldn't just throw them away with the trash when they got too old. One got her head torn off at the neck, so we staged her death as a shark attack during a vacation near the sea. She was buried in our backyard, complete with a matchbox coffin and holy collected rain water sprinkled on the mound.

Nowadays, I can ride my bicycle wherever I want to, although I prefer my car that I drive often to the not-so-big, not-at-all bad, actually-quite-tame city of Montpellier to hang out with friends. But to be honest, I am rarely more calm and more content than when I am alone in my room, making fabric jewelry surrounded by my sewn-up dolls.