Hi. I’m Christy.
I created Christy’s Handcrafts to integrate my own livelihood and being at home with my young children. Building a business in alignment with our eclectic approach to life learning, I began to sell handcrafting kits and supplies designed to ignite the creative spirit of children.
As my children’s primary educator, I’m inspired to facilitate learning opportunities through art, culture and real world experience. Project-based learning is a highly important component to their education.
Beginning as a website business selling beginner handcrafting kits and supplies, Christy’s Handcrafts soon bridged into the global handcrafting community, offering fair trade children’s clothing, puppets, dolls and toys made by indigenous people worldwide. It was the concept of igniting children’s natural inclinations to learn-by-doing, through thoughtfully selected handcrafting kits, that I found greatly appealing.
Through the experience of knitting, basket weaving, paper-making and other handcrafting arts, we not only provide an avenue for our children’s own inner-connectedness, but open the young people of our world to the interconnectedness of all.
Handcrafting is meditative, inwardly connecting and outwardly expressive.
It was Joseph Chilton Pearce who I first heard emphasize the imperative that children recognize their own internal capacity for creativity, the awareness of which can greatly modify their external world. He continued on to say that creative children are less prone to violence because they have the resourcefulness to choose an alternate mode of response instead of being subject to their immediate sensory environment without alternatives.
A year into it, Christy’s Handcrafts continues to evolve, always unfolding into that which best serves the ideals of creating. Each shipment of inventory that arrives becomes a journey into a distant land. As we unearth the treasures made by far away people, our hands grasp that which their hands have made and we feel richly connected.
My son runs to his globe as we search for each treasure’s country of origin. The endearing faces and woven clothing of dolls made in Bolivia and Guatemala invite my children to know more.
Inspired by the handiwork of others, my son begs to begin back strap weaving a leash for his ukulele. We open up a back strap loom and begin our creative process.
Initially, bridging out into the global handcrafting community was a very natural extension of this vision. The potential for local community-building workshops and classes materialized more recently as I began to recognize a niche that aligned seamlessly with the culture I strive to create in my own home.
Based in San Diego, California, I am available to lead handcrafting workshops and activities for schools, clubs and birthday parties.
Happy Handcrafting!
Warmly,
Christy
If you would like to receive my bi-monthly newsletter, offering insights, tips and resources for learning at the heart of art and nature as well as pre-released information on special promotions, sales and events, please sign up below.