Artist to Watch: Bonnie Macallister

I recently found this blog for a fellow Handmade Philly member, Bonnie Macallister. It was amazing to see all of the shows and arts orgs. in Philly she is connected with, people I'd never heard of before. Where is the Germ Bookstore?

SWAPTASTIC HOLIDAY

I made it a goal to swap as many gifts as I could this year because there's just no need to be broke the whole month because you overdid it on the gift giving. I asked my friends to go easy on the gifts as well.

So I started by asking Etsy sellers who had items that my familyand friends would like if they would be up for a swap. AMAZINGLY, three different sellers I've never talked with before said YES!

One was James Steeno who runs jsteeno on Etsy. I saw the listing for the cards below and asked him if I could get an 8 x 10 of just the cardinal, my sister's favorite bird. He said sure and after checking out my shop selected my bike cards as a trade.

James is an illustrator and watercolor painter in Milwaukee, WI and in addition to the bird paintings, I really like his Milwaukee Skyline painting. He was super nice and matted the cardinal print and got it in the mail with plenty of time for the holidays!

Another seller, Brenda Gartman with the shop Bgartman is a Handmade Philly member with me and when I asked her about her dichronic glass necklaces and swapping, she said she has a certain family member who is into biking who might like one of my bicycle prints. When I shared the site with my mom, she of couse picked out the most expensive necklace

I also found this cute necklace for my sister who really loves owls:

Brenda was great about the swap and selected two other pieces from my ceramics shop to trade, a balloon pot and one of my new succulent planters. Today I'm headed off to Media, PA to meet her and swap the gifts (a huge help sinde ceramics can be expensive to ship!)

Finally, Tara of Sewtara, agreed to swap for this awesome coffee cuff:

She made it fun by saying she wanted a surprise! "Something cool in Philadelphia" so I looked through my print drawer and picked out one I thought wasn't too obvious but was awesome.

Her coffee cuffs are hysterical, like this Hello My Name is...

I'm still waiting on this one, but Tara's in Toronto, which is not too far away, but mail from Canada to the US seems to take forever!

Succulent and Cactus Pots

Here Come the New Ceramics!

Cases of ceramics with photo labels

Boxes of ceramic items in transit



I'm spending the weekend working on new items for the holidays and FINALLY adding new items to my ceramics shop on Etsy: allisonsceramics.etsy.com It has taken me forever because my work was in storage in my dad's basement for the last 5 years and I had no place to house it in my own house, but that's all changed!

Today I will start posting them to my Etsy shop and next Friday they will be for sale at the University City Arts League Holiday Craft Sale along with my photography, cards and wall hangings. The UCAL Holiday Craft Sale runs through December 23 and has wonderful handmade art work from their many students and professional artists. a portion of the proceeds benefit the Arts League in their providing visual and performing arts classes in West Philadelphia.