Q&A with Jonathon Wye

What is your craft all about?

I make graphic leather belts using a process for imbedding images into leather that I have spent the last four years developing. As for the art that goes on the belts... Everything from Zombies, to Dinosaurs eating Toast, to kick-ass plaid patterns. Basically whatever odd stories I tell myself at night.

What inspires you to make what you make?

I love love love the technical stuff. I love figuring out how to do new things, new processes. And I enjoy the process of making things by hand. Oh, and if I didn’t express my the art I have trapped in my brain-hole I think I might explode... Literally, gray-matter everywhere.

What is your favorite piece/product you will have with you at the Handmade Mart?

Currently it's my pirate chefs series. A whole line of things with the pirate chefs insignia on it... Tees, belts, aprons, CHEFS HATS!!!

Where can folks find your craft outside the Handmade Mart?

Dekka on U St. and the Denim Bar at Pentagon Row, and dog collars at Chateau Animaux in Capitol Hill.

Find me at booth #22!

Q&A with babus

What is your craft all about?

Mostly I make baby toys with felted wool that I knit and felt myself. I love bold colors and basic shapes, soft rattle sounds, making babies happy, while using natural components in the process.

What inspires you to make what you make?

Absolutely, my son Nicholas. babus was his nickname before we decided on a name. I've always followed or tried to anticipate his interests and needs.

What is your favorite piece/product you will have with you at the Handmade Mart?

I love my felted bee rattles and rainbow colored Baby Chain toys.

Where can folks find your craft outside the Handmade Mart?

Online at my Etsy shop (http://babus.etsy.com), as well as Palumba.com and The Natural Toy Box.com. I'm at these Bricks and Mortar shops, too: Pyramid Atlantic's retail store, Wildflower Organics in Austin, TX, the Outfit in Long Beach, CA and Wholly Craft in Columbus, OH.

Find me at booth #17!

Q&A with Biggs & Featherbelle

What is your craft all about?

We make all natural body care products free from synthetic fragrances, dyes and additives. They are purposeful, fun and full of quality ingredients. Our line of body care products include soaps, lip balm, bath soak, belly balm, body butter bars, body scrubs, gift sets and a lot more in the works!

What inspires you to make what you make?

Natural ingredients from Mother Nature inspire us. There are so many wonderful ingredients right in front of our nose. We are inspired to make natural products that are truly clean, beneficial and exciting to use. Customers inspire us too. We love to make people happy when they smell our body care goodies! The thought of brightening someone's day with a good bar of soap in their morning shower keeps us creating.

What is your favorite piece/product you will have with you at the Handmade Mart?

Kasey's favorite products are Handle Bar soap, Muscle Soak and Eskimo Kiss lip balm. Kelly's favorite products are Barlesque soap and Soul Kiss lip balm.

Where can folks find your craft outside the Handmade Mart?
Locally (close to Silver Spring) our products can be found at Whole Foods Market, Pyramid Atlantic store, The Still Point. Our products can also be purchased from our website where there is also a store listing.

Find us at booth #55!

Q&A with The Painted Lily

What is your craft all about?

I am a collage artist and I work with vintage pieces of ephemera... antique advertisments, vintage wall paper designs, old personal letters and sheet music and my own handpainted pieces and photographs. I intricately shape these pieces together to create a finished piece of art that is romantic, poetic and exotic with a vintage flair.

What inspires you to make what you make?

I am inspired by both the past and the future. I love old images... photographs, letters, ads, anything that gives me clues to what life was like many years ago. Antique stores are some of my favorite places!I am also greatly inspired by music and song lyrics. Often times, a specific short lyric will stick in my head for weeks and, one day, something will "click." I'll suddenly be able to feel like I can capture the beauty of the words in images.

What is your favorite piece/product you will have with you at the Handmade Mart?

The pieces that I am most excited about showing at the Handmade Mart will be my newest line of stone tile drink coasters. I have developed a special transparent technique to apply my images to these naturally beautiful pieces of stone tile. This technique allows for the texture and character of the stone to be featured. I am proud to have created a line of home decor products that are beautiful, useful and durable.

Where can folks find your craft outside the Handmade Mart?

My work can be found in my online shop at http://www.thepaintedlily.etsy.com and more info can be found on my website at http://www.paintedlily.com.

Find me at booth #12!

Q&A with Kutchicoo

What is your craft all about?

I make random items that expresses an ongoing dialog between myself and the world around me. I create things that arouse the memory of journeys and making them tangible through the different crafts that i make... i call it my personal apothecary for the soul.

What inspires you to make what you make?

A whole lot of things. Just the opportunity to make is inspiration in itself. I also create to honor my grandmother and great grandmother. They introduced me to the world of crafts at a very young age. The experience of it is sheer joy.

What is your favorite piece/product you will have with you at the Handmade Mart?

My favorite piece the is plush lori with hand cut plastic plume and henna inspired design.

Where can folks find your craft outside the Handmade Mart?

They can find me at www.charmaine-panares.com.

Find me at booth #6!

Q&A with Elizabeth Graeber Illustration

What is your craft all about?

Illustration

What inspires you to make what you make?
Drawing everything

What is your favorite piece/product you will have with you at the Handmade Mart?

A coloring book of birds.

Where can folks find your craft outside the Handmade Mart?

www.elizabethgraeber.com.

Find me at booth #7!

Q&A with DC Craft Mafia

What is your craft all about?

DC Craft Mafia seeks to strengthen the independent artist community in directly supporting each member in the promotion of their business and promoting venues for other artists and crafts to showcase their work.

What inspires you to make what you make?

Herban Lifestyle-I love all things herbal and aromatherapeutic, and my craft allows me to be surrounded by them. It's a multi-sensorial experience -- sight, smell, touch and taste. And it's a lot like cooking, coming up with new recipes, but without any calories!

BeadJewelry by ShopGirl-I find inspiration in the creative process itself. The construction of a piece, what colors to play with, materials to use, techniques to combine, complex or simple, what textures to create especially if there is a visual and tactile contrast, all turn me on. Like a bracelet that may look stiff and heavy but is actually light, soft and drapes well on your wrist. I never know what my final piece will look like when I start something, so it’s like going on a journey every time I create.

Erica Burns Designs- I find inspiration in my lifestyle. I am a social worker by day, which can be very demanding & emotionally exhausting. After long days at work I find going home and pounding on metal or sewing is very relaxing.

What is your favorite piece/product you will have with you at the Handmade Mart?

Peyote Bracelets- BeadJewelry by Shopgirl

Silkscreened Pillow covers- Erica Burns Designs

Body Butter- Herban Lifestyle

Where can folks find your craft outside the Handmade Mart?

You can find Herban Lifestyle at Pyramid Atlantic Retail Store, Holeco Wellness Medi Spa in Falls Church, The Muse in Frederick, and Baltimore Chop as well as online at http://herbanlifestyle.com and http://herbanlifestyle.etsy.com.

Erica Burns Designs at http://ericaburnsdesigns.etsy.com, http://ericaburnsdesigns.com

The Muse 19 N Market StFrederick, MD 21701(301)6633632

http://heyprettycupcake.com, http://hellagoodproducts.com, http://circlecircledotdot.com

BeadJewelry by ShopGirl can be found at http://www.BeadJewelryShopgirl.com

Find us at booth #58!

Q&A with Woolarina

What is your craft all about?

Our yarns and fibers are all about having supplies to make really cool stuff that you'll enjoy wearing! We love bright colors and think everyone should have bright lime green socks! Well, maybe not, but I do think you should try our soft merino yarns to make some comfy mitts!

What inspires you to make what you make?

Seeing people making amazing garments out of my yarns and telling me how much they love my colors is what keeps me dyeing! I've met so many awesome people just from hanging out at craft fairs and having my stuff out there - it's pretty neat!

What is your favorite piece/product you will have with you at the Handmade Mart?

My favorite product we have now is out Lux Sock yarn - it's a squooshy soft superwash merino / cashmere / nylon blend that I love to use for mitts, baby sweaters, and scarves!

Where can folks find your craft outside the Handmade Mart?

We're online at: http://woolarina.com.

Find me at booth #45!

Q&A with The Aquarium!

Explain your band's name and how you formed.

I used to play just the black keys on the Wurlitzer and watch the fish in an aquarium in my room. When we first started it was more like dreamy "watching fish" music.

What are your influences and worst equipment experiences?

I like melodies. My first record was Sousa marches played by a calliope. We were at a skate park and it was dark setting up and I couldn't find any of my cords. I finally got one keyboard to work and Laura played beats while skaters were flying off a half pipe about 2 inches from my face.

What's your favorite local hangout and best stage you've played?

This time of year I hang out on my porch with some iced tea. I also love the Botanical Garden. I would love to play a show in the jungle room there.

Where can the adoring public see you next?

We just recorded two songs and hope to have them available very soon. Excited to play Handmade Mart! Hopefully we will get on a bill at Fort Reno this summer and a tour in August.

http://www.dischord.com/band/aquarium

See The Aquarium play on the music stage at 3:00pm!

Q&A with The Devil Made Me Do It Clothing

What is your craft all about?

I started re-making clothes from vintage finds when I was a teenager and couldn’t find anything I wanted to wear at the mall. Back then, I loved looking through Vogue magazine and seeing all the crazy avant-guard hairdos and couture outfits. I thought regular people should look more like that. But I certainly couldn’t afford those kinds of clothes (I hadn’t ever even seen anyone real wear those kinds of clothes). So I started making (and wearing) my own “versions” from things I found at thrift stores. This certainly didn’t help me fit in at my small-town high school. Then, I went to college in NYC and (I’ll admit) became kind of a Clubkid. My friends and I used to make these crazy getups and go out dancing. Everyone stared and we loved it. It was all about exploring different personas and having fun with it. There’s definitely a flavor of that in my work now. It’s definitely for people who don’t mind being stared at. Not that I want to make things that are costume-y. But I still love the idea of dressing up and looking fabulous, while not taking any of it too seriously.

What inspires you to make what you make?
This is a BIG question. I think what inspires me to “make” is different from what inspires what I make (which is easier). I’ll admit my inspirations come much less from what’s in fashion and more from art, design, culture, and nature. Like all artists, everything I see during the day gets absorbed and added to the process. For instance, I absolutely love Hitchock films. Not just because they’re wonderful thrillers, but because they’re so carefully styled, especially the leading ladies (check out Kim Novak in Vertigo). I like to bring a touch of this vintage elegance to my work. But then that crashes into something like Steampunk. I just love it. Not that anything I design is meant to be specifically Steampunk, but I think many of my pieces have those sorts of flavors and influences. Victorian, alt. reality/fantasy, a bit tongue-and-cheek, and punk. What could be better?

What inspires me to “make”—in a larger sense—is wanting to be part of an alternative to mass-consumption (I could go on all day about the Handmade Movement), and wanting to go easy on the environment, which is why I use only reclaimed materials. But at the end of the day, it’s really about the sheer satisfaction of making something unique and wonderful, and putting it out into the world.

What is your favorite piece/product you will have with you at the Handmade Mart?
I just designed this crazy-beautiful (if I do say so myself) cashmere dress that I just adore (can you tell?). It’s a real showpiece and looks great on everyone. I hope to have one with me. I’m also doing some sweet little summer-weight embellished shirts. Just for fun.

Where can folks find your craft outside the Handmade Mart?
At the Fiberworks Studio in The Torpedo Factory Art Center in Alexandria Virginia. My work can be found there all the time, and on certain days you can find me there answering questions and making it (come on down!). I also do quite a few shows in the DC metro area. And, of course, I can always be found through my website and my Etsy store thedevilmademedoitclothing.com and www.devilmademedoit.etsy.com

Find me at booth #44!