Homemade Harvest 2013 Artist - Thea Starr

Today you are going to meet Thea Starr, who will be selling her beautiful reclaimed vintage kimono fabric turned into precisely folded kanzashi flowers at the 7th Annual Handmade Harvest Open House.  Thea and I go way back, first meeting as Ben Franklin Crafts and Frames teachers and then at an EtsyRain Crafting at Crossroads gathering (which happen every first Wednesday in front of BubbleTea, hint hint).  I have always loved her work and get so excited when I see it in craft books (yes, I actually accidentally screamed once in a library, a la Will Ferrell as Elf, "I know her!").  I hope you are one of the lucky ones that can come by this Saturday to see her work in person!

Tell us a bit about yourself? Apart from being ‘creative’ what do you do?

My creative business is what I do for a full time job. My other full time job is being a mother to my four children. In a different life I was a tax auditor. I lead a much more exciting life these days.

What inspires you to do the kind of work you do?

I love sharing a small bit of history of my heritage with others.  I also love work created by hand. It's amazing what can be made by hand.

What other passions do you have in your life?

I am passionate about organic gardening. I believe in chemical free foods and urban gardening. My dad always kept a garden when I was growing up. I do the same now for my own children. Nothing has been more educational to me than learning about growing my own food.

How do you promote your work?

Over the years most of my business has been from word of mouth.  I have been lucky enough to have had press on my work on a large scale, but the most exciting work I get has been from customer to customer.

In the future I’d like to be…

Doing what I do now. :)

Homemade Harvest 2013 Artist - re.Served

Continuing our exploration of the fantastic vendors that will be selling at the 7the Annual Homemade Harvest Open House, today we talk to another Victoria, this time from re.Served.  I am so excited to see her wares in person on Saturday.  Plus I just found out that she can do personalizing!  Her beautiful items might make a wonderful Eid or Diwali or Hannukah gift for those of us that aren't represented well in the holiday gift guides.

Tell us a bit about yourself? Apart from being ‘creative’ what do you do?
I am a stay-at-home mom to Bella (age almost-7) and Nilah (age 3).I try to volunteer as much as I can in their classrooms, but this little business makes it tough to commit regularly. Nilah is home Tue/Thurs and only goes to school until 1:30 the other three days of the week. So aside from being a stay-at-home mom and small business owner, I DRIVE. A lot.

What inspires you to do the kind of work you do?

Trends, beautiful designs, style niches that have room for my ideas.  But I am mostly inspired by the customers who like and buy my stuff.  I've gotten some of my best ideas from customers.  And if they give me a winning idea that ends up in my shop on Etsy, I name the line after them.

Do you look up to anyone? Who? Why?

I look up to many people, friends and family and public figures.  But I would say the person who impacts me the most in regards to my business is my husband.  He is a hard worker, extremely smart and beautifully humble.  He is Brazilian and was educated in Porto Alegre receiving master's degrees in things I can't begin to understand.  We met in Michigan at a tech job and eventually moved to Seattle after he survived the terrifying Amazon interview process.  He's always investing in our future and is wise about money, selfless with us, and constantly looking for that one idea that will change lives for the better.  I am so impressed with him on a daily basis.  Did I mention he's incredibly hot?

What other passions do you have in your life?

I'm passionate about family.  Passionate about making a better world for my children.  Passionate about teaching my children how to be kind humans full of empathy and selfless to a fault.  I'm passionate about writing and creating and wish I could spend my days lost in a cloud of creativity.

How do you promote your work?

I don't spend a lot on this business.  By nature of the business (reclaiming and repurposing unwanted items), cost savings and sustainable resourcing are key aspects to making this both a business and conceptual success.  So I rely solely on social networking for any promotions.  You can find me on Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest with some occasional Twitter posts thrown in for good measure.

In the future I’d like to be…

Financially independent, healthy and traveling the world with my husband.  Oh, and with spare time to write That Novel.

Homemade Harvest 2013 Artist - Natural Goodness Skin

This upcoming weekend is my 7th Annual Handmade Harvest Open House. I'll have three returning women business owners and three new entrepreneurs joining me in a makeshift pop-up shop in my living room. I thought it might be fun this year if you got to know the ladies that will be sharing their handmade harvest with you, so I've asked them all interview questions. Today we will get to know Victoria from Natural Goodness Skin.

Tell us a bit about yourself? Apart from being ‘creative’ what do you do?
Aside from Natural Goodness, I work full time at Boeing in the Finance organization. I started creating my own skin care products around the time I was pregnant with my son. I became a health-nut, because I wanted to give my son the best start possible. I started learning about skin care products and all of the awful chemicals in the products that we put not only on our own skin, but on our kids skin, too.

I started researching, taking classes and making my own products out of frustration. I couldn’t find a product that was moisturizing enough, or rejuvenating (without costing hundreds of dollars). What amazed me the most was that once I started making my own skin care, I could immediately see an improvement in my skin. After a while I began giving my products to family and friends as gifts; I decided to start sharing them with other people, too, and I opened my etsy shop.

My new love is really aromatherapy. I started taking classes at Bastyr last year and this year hope to finish up their aromatherapy certificate program by the end of 2014. Essential oils are really awesome and so versatile. Using essential oils has really transformed how I deal with every day things such as a simple cold (which can be miserable with a sick 3 year old) or how to deal with “monsters under the bed” (check out monster blaster aromatherapy room spray).

What inspires you to do the kind of work you do?
I really had my “a-ha” moment on a cruise to Alaska with my family. I didn’t have time to get a mani/pedi before the cruise, so I thought I’d just get one on the ship. The woman doing my nails was an early 20’s eastern European girl who clearly spent a lot of time on her makeup based up on the strategic placement of the false eye lashes.

My mani/pedi was spent with the nail tech/esthetician belittling me. I had spent the morning outside (sans makeup) with my kids, looking for whales and seals. The nail tech was quick to point out my skin has slight rosacea and my big pores… and, oh, don’t my big pores bother me… it was an hour and a half of criticism. I left feeling really low.

Afterwards I was sitting on the top deck of the ship with my kids, drinking hot chocolate, looking at an incredible glacier and I saw a woman… she was by no means attractive. She had a long pointy noise, narrow face and hardly had a chin. She was with her daughters, playing with them, hugging them and it hit me… this woman is beautiful, from the inside out. By conventional standards she would not be considered attractive, but there she was, a beautiful, loving mother who was showering her kids with love.

It hit me…every beautiful woman out there may not know she’s beautiful. Most women I know are busy. They’re someone’s mother, daughter, caretaker, cook, confident. They keep the house running and the kids happy. Or maybe they’re the career woman, blazing trails and moving up the ladder. By offering skin care products that work naturally, I want to inspire women to become the best version of themselves. To wake up every day thinking that today they will be the person that they’ve always wanted to be: brave, confident, self-reliant and own their own beauty 

Do you look up to anyone? Who? Why?
I look up to lots of people. The first of which is my Mom. I lost her almost a decade ago, but she still continues to inspire me. She always told me I could be anything I wanted, choose any path for my life and to dream big. I try hard to be the same kind of inspiration to my son that she was to me

What other passions do you have in your life?
Aside from my family, I really enjoy a good glass of wine and just spending time with family and friends. My husband and I like to travel, but honestly traveling is different once you have kids. It’s more about comfort and less about traveling to far off, exotic destinations.

How do you promote your work?
Right now I’m just promoting my work through my etsy shop and by talking with people directly about their skin care needs. Before the 1^st of the year I hope to launch my web page.

In the future I’d like to be...
I would like to continue to grow my business and see where it takes me.

Islamic Cultures: Foundations, Women & Political Islam

Recently, I had the honor of presenting a resource table at an all day workshop designed for middle and high school teacher to promote cultural competency in teaching on Arab and Islamic Cultures.  This all day workshop was held at Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA and was held on September 21st, the International Day of Peace.  Dr. Therese Saliba lead the workshops.

I had provided Dr. Saliba with my comprehensive list of Arab Children's Books and she gave it to a research assistant, who did wonders with it.  The list is now categorized by age and has a description of each book.  While I would love to share it with you, it has gone from my original list that fit on a double sided page, to a double sided eighteen page list of amazement.  Since most of the descriptions of the books can be found online, I hope to at least re-publish my list soon to include the age categories for the books.

In the meantime, please enjoy these photos of my resource table and the other tables that were provided.  I did not take any photos of the teachers or the conference to honor their privacy.

This is the binder that all the teachers received full of fantastic information, and my table assignment sheet:

 

Here I am standing behind my booth, ready for those teachers and their questions:

This is my dear friend Beryl Cheal, who also had a resource table, and I talking about the Arabic Alphabet Game Cards and how they work.

Here is a close up of my table.  I didn't bring very much products because I was there to speak mostly about resources.

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Here are more photos of the other resources table courtesy of my new friend Linda Bevis, who was there promoting her newly formed Palestine Information Project.

 

 And here is Beryl, giving us the story of that silly Goha from her table of resource books:

 

It was a great event and I hope more are done soon.

New Arabesque Hamsa Earrings

I needed a break from all the clocks and signs I've been making for the 2013 Arab Festival (to be held a the Seattle Center on October 12th & 14th).  So today I took some time off and designed these earrings.  And with a bit of Seattle sun coming through my studio window, I was able to capture the sunshine from outside.

After I finished all four pairs, I also designed another set with a different hamsa hand.  But the bead isn't looking like how I want it to look, so I put it aside to work on it a different day.

I'm not sure if I'll be bringing to the Festival yet, as there appears to be another jeweler selling, so I thought I would try them out on my Zibbet site first.

Children's Arabic Clocks Sneak Peek

On October 12th & 13th, at the Seattle Center, the 2013 Arab Festival will occur.  This event is every other year and one of the biggest gatherings of the Arab community in the Northwest. 

This will be my third time with a booth, so I've been having fun in my studio coming up with new products for my clients to come find.

For the last few days, I've been making these Arabic clocks for kids.  I'm still in the middle of the process of creating them (in fact they are drying from their third coat of sealant as I type), but I wanted to give you a sneak peek.

I will not be posting these to my shop until after the Festival, as I want to first see how they do in person.  If you'd like to see some of my other clocks, please visit my Clock section of my shop.  Of course you can always email me directly if you'd like a custom clock.

I can't wait for you to come see them in person!

The Muslims are Coming...and Coming...and Coming....

This last weekend, I had the privilege of seeing a sneak peak of the comedy documentary, The Muslims are Coming, directed by Negin Farsad and Dean Obeidallah.  I am huge fans of these two, especially on twitter, where their daily dealings with bigotry are an amusing, yet horrifying, peek into America's vastly emerging intolerance for the freedom of religion.



The Muslims Are Coming Theater lobby before both sold out shows.

A short synopsis from the official website:
THE MUSLIMS ARE COMING! follows a band of Muslim-American comedians as they visit big cities, small towns, rural villages, and everything in between to combat Islamophobia! These Muzzies not only perform standup at each tour stop but create ridiculous interventions in unsuspecting town squares, like the ol’ classic, “Ask a Muslim Booth.” Rest assured, you’ve never laughed this hard at a Muslim!

So I gathered my friends and family (most of whole I had taken to see Dean last time he was here) and we headed down to sharia law a theater...oops, I mean sit with our neighbors and share some popcorn.  Stopping before hand at Shawarma King for some eats, of course.

The documentary was hilarious, and often times painful, to watch as a Muslim.  Because I have been where these comedians stopped.  As a map of their mid American was reveled, I sat in horror as I realized that I have set foot in every single city.  And now, for the next 128 minutes, I would have to relive it again.

A few years after we came to the US, my parents took us on a RV trip from Michigan to California and I fell in love with America.  When I was older, I made it my mission to finish this trip and visit the rest of the United States.  I wanted to learn all I could about this country that my parents uprooted me to.  At last count, I have seen about 45 states, including Hawaii, Alaska and Puerto Rico.

But this time, on the screen, I was traveling as a bystander, and with me in the car are famous people like the Daily Show’s Jon Stewart, David Cross, Janeane Garofalo, Colin Quinn, Lewis Black, Rachel Maddow, CNN’s Soledad O’Brien, Ali Velshi and the Young Turk’s Cenk Uygur as well as business tycoon Russell Simmons and even US Representative Keith Ellison, all telling me that you know what? It's a-okay to be a Muslim.

It shouldn't be a crime. 

What would be a crime?  For you to miss this movie.

If I did have to pick one thing that I didn't like about the documentary, I would say the title is misleading in that it implies the Muslims are currently arriving.  In fact, we've been a part of the American quilt since the earliest Muslim immigrants came as slaves from Africa beginning in 1501.  But I can't really complain about it that much.  The title also makes for a off the charts funny theme song that I had stuck in my head the entire evening.