Welcome to Heart Handmade Blog, a crafting website focusing on handmade crafts and uniting artists across the world.
First things first, I’m Mandie. I am a web developing, Pit Bull rescuing, VW Beetle driving pescetarian vegetarian that sometimes crochets. Like most of us, I am a work in progress.
I grew up in a small Pennsylvania town about 50 miles northwest of Philadelphia called Boyertown. My weekends were often spent tagging along with my Mom and Nana to various craft shows and bazaars around Pennsylvania Dutch Country. After being directly warned to not touch anything with more than my eyes, I would spend hours taking in all the scenes a grassroots handmade craft show could provide. I loved browsing the eclectic, unique crafts and watching the different artists create, often staring in awe at the focus these artists displayed while making their creations. There really are few other places on earth outside of a Berks County crafts fair where you can find both a man resembling Santa Claus delicately forming a snowflake out of tin, and a table surrounded by Penna Dutch women working together on a quilt, and it still makes me smile to think back upon those crafting weekends.
As a kid, I remember leaving these handmade craft shows just feeling “good”. Lacking the capacity to fully analyze what exactly it was about these hand made craft events that made me feel so uplifted and energized, I simply figured, “It will come to me one day…”. And what do you know? A few years ago when I decided to start crocheting, everything started to make sense.
I was somewhat astounded at how basic it all really is the day it clicked. As I rhythmically looped through the motions of crocheting a scarf, I found myself wondering why I was sitting uncomfortably in a chair inside the house on a perfectly sunny San Diego “winter” day having arts and crafts time. It’s the love. It is the feeling from the heart that you put into each and every inch of your handmade craft. It is the feeling of love you get to pass on when giving something you have dreamt up and made. It is knowing that every time that person wears, uses or looks at your creation they will think of you. When someone truly loves what they do and what they are creating, that love is passed on through the craft.
When someone truly loves what they do, and what they are creating, that love is passed on through the craft.
With the advent of the Internet we have the ability to traverse any number of websites and discover unique, handmade crafts. Never before have artisans and craftsman been able to impact such a large number of people with their visions. I think this is a beautiful thing, but it also has a downside. There is a certain amount of intimacy that is lost in a nameless, faceless, practically anonymous web transaction, and often it’s hard to keep sight of the heart of the artist behind the work.
According to String Theory, love is the strongest vibration we have access to as human beings. But no matter what your beliefs, we can all agree that there is never such a thing as too much love. I want to bring the heart back to handmade crafts. I want each and every person that takes pride in creating and buying handmade crafts to have the same feeling I had as a child at my local craft fair. I want this site to be a place where anyone interested in handmade crafts can find help, information, products, and have a voice. I want handmade crafters to be able to connect both virtually and locally, and I want to bring a face to the online crafting marketplace.
As you can see, I have big dreams for this site, so be patient with me as I take it one day at a time!
Thanks for visiting,
Mandie (and Tucker)
