Meet Annette Brag from Just Soap...
I have always like to make crafts and enjoy making soaps as a hobby. I have been making soaps for about a year now.
This is my first Avant-Garde show and I am looking forward to it! I like learning new things - it challenges me and I enjoy the unlimited blending of colors, scents and shapes when it comes to making soap.
For some reason I have always wanted to learn to make soap. I have made my own laundry detergent for years and thought it would be fun to make my own hand soap as well.
I'm a Libra - apparently it's a requirement to be artistic and creative for your entire life! lol.
You can view more of my work at - https://www.facebook.com/
Meet Cindy Bloyd from Percy Homestead...
We didn’t foresee our love for honeybees and beekeeping. A few years ago, our son recommended we get some bees. After some long thought and a garden that was suffering from lack of pollination, we decided to give it a try. This opened a world of fascination, learning and challenge! We also have learned that there is a wonderful fellowship of beekeepers that meet regularly and seriously strive to help each other be successful. In addition, we have discovered an amazing excitement and appreciation in the public for honeybees and the products they produce. We love our bees, and love seeing people smile just talking about them and how much they love honey!
Our apiary at Percy Homestead continues to grow as we endeavor to raise healthy and productive colonies that can explore the fruitful landscape around us in Geauga County, Ohio. Honeybees are nothing short of amazing! We love to talk about them and spend time with them. Is it weird that we have two lawn chairs in the bee yard where we sit and sip some honey wine (mead) and just watch our bees work, while we talk about bees? If so, we are weird!
We have been in the business for seven years, but this is actually our first year participating in Avant-Garde Art & Craft Shows.
So often, a comment from a customer sends me on a journey of creating the product they are looking for. Our son had a hive and we were fascinated and decided to start our own 2 colony apiary. We now have 25 hives and are looking to expand again this year.
Meet Lynne Provance from Provances Pieces...
Lynne Provance, from Bristolville, Ohio, has been an international stained-glass artist since 2005. She has working studios in both Ohio (USA) and Prince Edward Island (Canada) [PEI] and employs exclusively the foiling method (Tiffany style). Window paneled stained glass art became a favorite art medium in which to express
one of her artistic abilities.
She is fascinated by how the light is reflected through the different colors, textures, and opacities of the glass. Light is her canvas. She enjoys both designing and constructing original art pieces & she finds “painting” with the colored glass interesting and challenging.
Her work can be viewed on her Facebook Page: Lynne Badger Provance.
Meet Gayle Hammer from Whimsical Wire Gifts...
I have always been creative myself and have loved to purchase colorful artsy products. I just recently decided this past September to become an entrepreneur out of my own need.
After recently retiring, I decided to be creative and design my own whimsical, one-of-a-kind, colorful aluminum wire eyeglass chains so that I never misplace my reading glasses or sunglasses again!
I really look forward to watching my business grow and to expand my products based on the needs of my customers.
I hope you find a design that represents your personality and enjoy wearing your purchase as much as I loved making it for you.
Meet Marianne Carroll from M|C Pottery Studio...
I am a ceramic artist in Chagrin Falls inspired by Nature and its beauty. I've been in the business for 5 years. This is my first time participating in the Avant-Garde Art & Craft Shows.
As a child, I would always turn to art as an important process in my life. I love the act of playing with clay. I write down a lot of ideas, set goals for production and just go for it.
The message behind my work is that beauty is everywhere!
Meet Jen Ertle from Honeybee Hobby...
My name is Jen and I am a nurse by trade; I currently work part time as a nurse educator and I also have two little ones at home! My husband recognized that I needed a little get away/a hobby so he got me a Cricut a little over a year ago and I have been creating ever since!
I have been working on my items for a little over a year. I started out making ornaments and now I don’t make those at all! I have transitioned to wooden gift tags (which I love creating and making!), wooden wine charms for all four seasons, and now small felt flower pots to go with little memory jars and journals- the perfect gift for anyone!
This will be my first Avant-Garde show! When I feel stressed, I work on this hobby. It helps me calm my mind and focus on something. It also gives me a quick getaway from the busy hustle and bustle of family life.
I got into this because I needed a hobby/something to do :)
I worked through many different phases of what I wanted to create! I actually found the gift tags by accident when trying to create ornaments and decided it would be cool to create these gift tags. The best part about them is that you can write on the back- no need for searching endlessly for a card anymore and they are perfect for any occasion.
I tend to have ideas here and there; I look up inspiration and images and work to create things I would use and what I think others can use. I also love that the things I make are different from what most people make.
In five years, I hope I'm continuing to create crafts and enjoy this hobby. I would love to continue sharing my craft with others!
I love using my crafting/creating to work through stressful situations. I feel that mental health is incredibly important yet often stigmatized in the world today. That is one of the reasons I created my gift baskets- a great little gift idea which includes a handmade journal with fun stickers to help people keep track of whatever they want (gratitude, vacations, baby’s milestones, new home ideas, etc.) while having a little flower pot to brighten their day, and the tiny memory jars can be used to write down memories and pull them back out during stressful times. I like to think of it as a mood booster pack! Nothing beats paper and pen and a little fun color :)
