Artisan-Made Lovelies

While vintage stuff is a passion of mine, fabulous artisan-made items are a close second. Finding handmade quilts, paintings, jewelry and pottery make my heart pitter patter. In fact my oldest daughter and I have a standing date for our city’s annual clay and glass festival which is a feast for the eyes. Last year I couldn’t resist buying this little pottery bird from one of the 170+ vendors.

So a few days ago when I was cruising through my small local thrift store, I smiled when I spotted these two charming handmade pottery boxes. Fashioned from clay slabs, one features a dragonfly and the other two gingko leaves. These immediately went in my shopping basket.

These would look great anywhere–on a bookshelf, mantel, nightstand–even next to my vintage thrift store globe and Craigslist dog painting!

I wasn’t sure I would be able to find out who made them, but within 15 minutes I discovered they were made by local potter Joy Imai. She’s been making lovely things for over 35 years. (I won’t be able to sell them in my Etsy store as they are not vintage, but you can buy them here on my blog. You may also want to check out Joy’s Etsy store for other delightful boxes.)

While I’ve had a couple of duds in the “handmade find” category, most have sold with a reasonable-to-good profit, including some unique finds that had my family shaking their heads. Yes, the the ugly bird sculpture sold, as did the alien vase and the cockroach dish!

In the past six months about 40% of my sold items have been vintage hand crafted items…from crocheted afghans to pottery vases to quilts to rustic twig doll chairs. Cool stuff! That’s why I always keep my eyes peeled for artisan-made things…of any era!

Here are a few more in my store…

• Native American drum
• Pottery vase
• Handmade acrylic baby afghan
• 1955 Irvin Herbein carved box
• 1962 Jerusalem sampler

Fighting off a bit of a cold, but wishing you happy hunting!

Karen