NY Handmade Collective Member, Andi B O'Connor shares her responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. Andi crochets silver jewelry. The NYHC is a team of almost 200 small businesses hand making goods in the New York City Area. We’ll be sharing our how this developing pandemic is affecting our lives and business here.
Read MoreOur theme for the 2019 Holiday Handmade Cavalcade is “coming together.” In the age of the Internet, this notion has undergone a radical readjustment. Even when we are oceans apart, we can communicate with an immediacy that was unimaginable not so long ago.
For the members of the NY Handmade Collective, togetherness takes many forms. We interact with and support each other in both real and virtual spaces. In fact, we came into being as a team of sellers on Etsy, the online headquarters for all things craft, and we’re thrilled to have them as a presenting sponsor for this year’s Cavalcade.
As the world’s most vibrant online marketplace for handmade, Etsy is the ultimate gathering cyber-place for people who make things and people who love things that are made by hand. Its platform plays an important role in creating opportunities for Internet shoppers everywhere to find and support independent makers. In the case of the NY Handmade Collective, it allowed us to find each other!
As the seasons change, temperatures fall, and daylight shortens, our friends in the animal kingdom prepare to face the cold by drawing on an impressive range of survival adaptations. Those not designed for an enviable migration to warmer climates or hibernation in a cozy den must embrace the third option: go about their lives using the special skills with which nature has blessed them. We marvel at their resilience and their ability to adjust their habits and bodies to ensure their safety and warmth. Their indomitable spirit and their innate understanding of the value of working together inspire us, so we have chosen winter animals as the visual theme of our 2019 Holiday Handmade Cavalcade.
Like the animals who stick around, we are also busy getting ready for the season using our own specialized skills. Our members are so talented and resourceful, but one challenge we as New Yorkers, and especially makers, regularly face is limited access to space, funding, and large or expensive equipment. That’s why we’re so thrilled to share with you the offerings of NYDesigns, joining us as a first-time sponsor for this year’s Cavalcade.
NYDesigns is a hardware and design incubator and makerspace in Long Island City, Queens. Since launching in 2006, it has helped more than 100 startup companies raise over $120 million (!). Its 5,000-square-foot FabLab gives artists, inventors, and designers access to the tools they need to bring their ideas to life, including 3D printers, laser cutters, CNC routers, and a full woodworking shop. Its facilities are open to the community through memberships and workshops designed for makers of all levels – from beginners just getting started on their projects to seasoned professionals.
If you’d got a great design idea but would rather leave the making to someone else, you’re in luck! The FabLab also offers custom fabrication services; just submit a design and NYDesigns can manufacture it for you. As part of LaGuardia Community College, NYDesigns reflects that institution’s commitment to enhancing communities across New York City through job creation and innovation. That’s absolutely something the NY Handmade Collective wants to celebrate, and we’re so glad to welcome them aboard the Cavalcade!
The winter animals we are featuring in our Holiday Handmade Cavalcade visuals and decorations have the instinctive ability to resist or tolerate the cold weather. They fluff their feathers, tuck their tails, and grow thicker coats to protect them from exposure to freezing temperatures. We, on the other hand, must pile on the layers.
Choosing between comfort and fashion is always a challenge, as are the radical shifts in temperature one encounters during the average NYC commute. Fortunately, special places like Purl Soho have everything you need to create something warm and fabulous using the finest natural fibers, high quality supplies, and sophisticated designs and patterns.
This December, the NY Handmade Collective is bringing its highly anticipated annual holiday shopping event to Brooklyn and Manhattan for the 12th time!
Join us at Brooklyn Historical Society on Pierrepont St. in Brooklyn Heights, December 7-8, 11am-6pm
And then Chelsea Market in Manhattan, December 9-15, 10:30am-7:30pm.
For more details, go to nyhandmadecollective.org/hhc-2019
As our group’s name suggests, we are local, we are dedicated to making the things we sell, and we place value in working together to achieve our creative and professional goals. This spirit infuses our events, which we think of as a chance to share not only what we create and the community we’ve built, but also how and why we do what we do and why it matters.
We love spending time with our team at the holidays, and this camaraderie creates a warm and inviting atmosphere in which shopping can be a festive experience shared with neighbors, friends, and family, rather than a hectic chore. Celebrate with us and each other as you to see, feel, touch, smell, and fall in love with a carefully crafted selection of unique jewelry, greeting cards, art, beauty products, clothing, baby items, and more! Find meaningful gifts, learn directly from their creators about what inspired them, and establish relationships with the people who make what you love to give (and get!) - future shopping made even easier and more fun!
More than 40,000 people visited us last year, and we’re confident that the special qualities of our members, their products, and our mission will allow us to continue to grow.
Unsurprisingly, as the world’s most vibrant online marketplace for handmade, presenting sponsor Etsy appreciates the work of the NY Handmade Collective. In fact, we were originally founded as an Etsy team, any many of us have successfully used their platform to build our own businesses!
Also stepping up to show us they support our community are Purl Soho and NYDesigns. We adore Purl Soho’s fresh approach to traditional fiber arts, and those not able to visit its very special flagship store in NYC can still access this much-loved resource for natural fibers, high quality supplies, and modern design from anywhere in the world through its beautiful website.
NYDesigns, joining us as a sponsor for the first time this year, is a hardware and design incubator and makerspace that is part of LaGuardia Community College in Long Island City. Its 5,000-square-foot FabLab includes 3D printers, laser cutters, CNC routers, and a full woodworking shop. Open to community members through memberships and workshops for makers of all levels, it also offers custom fabrication services.
Fine & Raw checks off all the boxes an informed shopper with exquisite taste could want - high-quality products, dynamic packaging, a sustainable business model, and a company that cares about its community. And speaking of taste, we know anyone lucky enough to receive a gift of this exceptionally crafted chocolate will be begging to know more about it!
Founder Daniel Sklaar started out by making small batches of raw chocolate in his Williamsburg loft in 2008. He shared the fruits of his labor with friends and offered delivery to local purveyors via bicycle. The enthusiastic response he received, combined with his research into the science of the health benefits associated with raw chocolate, motivated him to hone his craft and expand his flavor offerings. Since then, Fine & Raw has grown into a collaborative team of makers (kind of like the NY Handmade Collective!) that produces its mouth-watering confections right here in Bushwick.
An absolute dedication to quality and flavor is immediately apparent with your first taste of any of Fine & Raw’s delicious line of bars, truffles, and spreads. We especially love the smoothness and unexpectedly rich complexity of the chocolate. Even better, it’s dairy free (great for vegan friends!) and sweetened with coconut sugar, which lets the deep flavors of the un-roasted cacao shine through and maximizes the nutritional and health benefits of raw chocolate.
Stop by Fine & Raw’s table at Chelsea Market (December 3-9) and the Brooklyn Historical Society (December 15-16) to see for yourself what dedication to crafting the finest chocolates in the world looks - and more importantly TASTES - like!
