1. Tell us a bit about yourself.
We are a christian family of 10. We homeschool and try to be the best stewards we can of the things we have. Rob and I have been married for 14 1/2 years. We live in Ohio, USA out in the country. We love the life God's blessed us with, and the children he's given. Children bring such a spot of sunlight to life! We've learned and laughed so much over the years.
2. What made you decide to open your shop and why Etsy?
We have 8 children and we found our house becoming full of cheap plastic toys that were broken. We also learned what went into those toys to make them. We decided we wanted fewer, and more natural toys that were beautiful and durable. On a search one day we found Etsy and were so excited that there were so many handmade, wholesome things out there and a whole site devoted to these stores!
3. How did you choose your shop name?
"The Craggy Moor" means "the rocky field". Its a loving tribute to our little homestead here :0) We bought this beautiful field to put our house on. When we went to put our lawn in, we discovered this beautiful field was full of ROCKS!! We spent an entire summer picking. up. rocks. Endless hours of rocks. We look back on it now and laugh but it was a lot of hard work! Very worth it though.
4. What are your other favourite things to do?
We are God and family centered folks. We love getting together with family, friends, and our church fam. We also love gourmet cooking, and make a pretty awesome stone baked pizza. We also love sci fi and you can often find us eating said pizza and watching something sci fi on Friday nights.
5. What inspires you?
Art is all about perspective. A child's sweet smiling face and their joy as they hug something dear to them is definitely our inspiration. When a child truly loves a stuffed friend, they just glow.
6. Of all the items you make for your shop, what do you enjoy making the most?
I have to say I enjoy making the lambs the most, though I dearly love each thing we make. My grandmother made me a lamb when I was little which became my best friend for many years. The lambs hold a special place in my heart, but every animal we make is a very close second.
7. What are your most popular items?
I have to say our most popular items right now are our Waldorf animals and our collectible sweater bears.
8. You use alot of repurposed natural materials in your items, what made you decide to use these types of materials?
We try to make the best use of the beautiful resources God gives us. We aren't immersed in the "green" movement per se, but we do believe God wants us to be the best stewards we can be. We started to notice all these lovely "forgotten" wool, angora, cashmere etc. clothes at thrift stores that were hardly used. These beautiful fibers would make lovely animals that would be too expensive for us to buy for our children if we bought the material brand new. Carefully chosen, these repurposed natural materials can be reused responsibly, and they are just as high in quality as they were brand new.
9. What handmade possession do you cherish?
We love the handmade blankets our mothers make for each new baby. Its so heartwarming to see the love put into the blankets, as well as the love each child has for them. And of course we love the old lamb that got my own personal love for handmade animals started.
10. Name 3 other Etsy shops you love to visit?
We have a hard time choosing just three! There are so many beautiful shops. If we had to choose however we'd have to say we love Forest Blue Factory (Katarzyna's Misio Bears captured our heart!!), Woolies (we love their adorable sheep softies!), and Bamboletta Dolls (her beautiful Waldorf style dolls inspired us to give doll making a try!).
I would like to thank The Craggy Moor Store for taking part in my Favourite Etsy Shop Feature. This Etsy shop has been a favourite for a while now and every time they add new items I just love it more and more. I have collected handmade bears on and off for many years now. I love how they use repurposed materials as that is something that I like to do in my crafts as well. It makes your items totally unique and extra lovable. I hope to own at least one of their bears, bunnies and lambs some day.
I hope you enjoyed this weeks feature and you hop on over to The Craggy Moor Store and look at their wonderful shop. Check out the sold items as well to get a good idea of each unique critter, Im sure you'll find one that you'll fall in love with.
Very cute! I love that first bear!
ReplyDeleteThese are so cute!!
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