Featured artist – picotee

Name: Agnese
Shop name: picotee.etsy.com

What do you create?
At the moment I’m keen on making flower brooches – head pins, but I also crochet different jewellery, skirts and knit scarves for my Etsy shop. For my family and myself I knit sweaters, scarves, hats, socks, skirts etc.

How did craft came into your life?
My grandmother together with my mom thought me the basics of knitting and crocheting. And I was so fascinated, that how long I can remember I’ve always crafted – knitted, crocheted, sewed embroidered – constantly improving my skills and learning something new.

When you`re not creating what do you do?
I have day job and my free time is filled with care about my family and household. I’ve three years old daughter. We have little flower and vegetable garden which takes up much time. However seldom is the day when I don’t take up my craft )

What inspires you?
I’m inspired by beautiful things, seeing other crafters’ work inspires me too. I’m also inspired by the process of creation itself, because I never know what the end result will be like. I like nature very much! It helps to organize oneself and inspires a lot!

What are your favourite materials and techniques?
It depends on the item I want to make. I like natural materials – linen, cotton. For knitting I use yarns from different materials, colour and texture play bigger role here. During summer I crochet more, but when it gets cooler I start to knit.

Featured artist – Lynx007

Shop name: Lynx007.etsy.com

What do you create?
clothes, jewelry, accessories, toys.

How did craft came into your life?
it was very long ago, since childhood i guess, i was always making something for myself cause i don`t wanted to look like everyone else.

When you’re not creating, what do you do?
am also a tattoo artist and musician, so when i have some free time, i make tattoos and make music or write songs.

What inspires you?
mostly music and some images, that i have seen on the internet or somewhere else, also my inspiration is nature.

What are your favourite materials and techniques?
sometime ago it was polymer clay and paint, but now it`s all kinds of fabrics, beads and all kinds of yarn.

Thank you!

Featured artist – binkaminka

Name: Inta
Shop name: binkaminka.etsy.com
Blog: binkaminka.blogspot.com

What do you create?
I am very eclectic lately. I do saw, bead, knit, crochet and have fun mixing techniques. You can find beadwoven and beaded jewelry, bags and pouches, corsets and pincushions in my etsy shop.

How did craft came into your life?
When I was younger, I liked to draw a lot. Then somehow I started to turn my drawings into real things. I was amazed by giving second experience chance to things that are worn out and forgotten. Upcycling, recycling, renewing and using pieces in different ways. Then came sawing, fashion design studies, and my last obsession – beading.

When you’re not creating, what do you do?
I have two kids – superhero and red riding hood, and I spend all the time with them and family. Love country, peaceful garden works.

What inspires you?
Mostly – love.

Question from previous featured artist alatvian: Do you have a pet?
I had blue aquarium fish Zorro, but he passed away two months ago and I’m still in sorrow.

What question would you ask to the next featured artist?
Your favorite season?

What else would you like to share?
I am a member of Etsy Beadweavers Team. Every month we have themed challenge. June theme is Humor. You are welcome to check out mine and other entries by searching “ebwc” on etsy and by visiting the Beadweavers Team Blog. To vote for your favorite, please visit our blog http://etsy-beadweavers.blogspot.com between June 9 and 15! Thank You!

Featured artist – alatvian

Name: Rita
Shop name: alatvian.etsy.com
Blog: alatvianrita.blogspot.com

What do you create?
Currently I mostly create jewelry from natural materials: gemstones, pearls, glass, clay and metals.

How did craft came into your life?
My mom taught me knitting first only than – reading.

When you’re not creating, what do you do?
I do lots of things and love to be creative in everything I do. I dance, sing, translate, cook, take care of my youngest kids, our place and garden, read, surf and chat in web etc. etc.

What inspires you?
I have to say “everything”, because it’s true, but mostly it would be the nature.

What question would you ask to the next featured artist?
Do you have a pet?

Question from previous featured artist MadeByOlga: What do you get if you multiply six by nine?
54.

Featured artist – MadeByOlga

Name: Olga
Shop name: MadeByOlga.etsy.com
Blog: mamma-foxan.blogspot.com

What do you create?
All my creations are beaded or beadwoven pieces of jewelry. Most of the pieces that I have made so far have a story behind. Beading is a perfect way of relaxing my brain from daily problems. Watching hundreds of tiny seed beads gathering into a pattern is a great type of a meditation. It is the same feeling as flying.

How did craft came into your life?
Well, my mother and my grandma tough me how to knit and make embroideries when I was around 5-7 years old, and I’ve been doing traditional crafts ever since.
However, I got an extremely powerful urge to express myself in art after a miscarried pregnancy in summer 2007. This urge grew stronger and stronger, and, finally, I started beading while 6 months pregnant with my second child in spring 2008. Got hooked on beadweaving and bead embroidery in August’08 and now not a single day passes without me doing some sort of beading. That’s how one becomes a beadaholic…

When you’re not creating, what do you do?
Taking care of my little rascals and making career in science.

What inspires you?
My inspiration comes from many different sources. Sometimes, I watch other people’s work and get ideas about how to use the concept or materials in a different way. Or, if I work with precious stones or designer’s beads, they usually tell me their wishes for shapes and colors. Jaspers are such a talkative stones, you cannot imagine! Often inspiration comes from nature: living creatures, different natural textures and structures, sunsets, ocean, fire, snow – everything goes! The last, but certainly not the least, is good music.

What question would you ask to the next featured artist?
What do you get if you multiply six by nine?

Question from previous featured artist LivaRutmane: what do giant pandas eat?
Giant pandas enjoy bamboo diet. Primitive creatures, I’d go for chocolate!

Featured artist – LivaRutmane

Name: Liva
Shop name: LivaRutmane.etsy.com

What do you create?
art. prints, photos, drawing and paintings. everything 2D. usually it’s art and sometimes everything else what’s pops in my mind, like earrings and t shirts, but they are mostly based on my art.

How did art came into your life?
I don’t know, it’s a strange question. I just had an interest in colors basically, and what I can do with them. I liked to paint circles when I was a little, and no one could ever imagine that I will want to be an artist, but surprise, surprise out of the blue I decided that I want to seriously be one, well I still want to do that I hope it will happen soon. well since then, I haven’t done anything else, everything I do, is just that.

When you’re not creating, what do you do?
there’s no room for anything else, creating is better than … well, everything! if I am not drawing, I am thinking about compositions and stuff. I am boring otherwise.

What inspires you?
the order in society, the human brain, and it’s function, the beliefs, and things around me, situations, me, my reaction to them. drawing from real life. shiny, colorful things right now.

What question would you ask to the next featured artist?
what do giant pandas eat?