Holiday Gift Market

Our friend Clark has turned what used to be a family hobby into a full-time business. In his Longmont studio, he makes delightful cast beeswax candles that come in a variety of shapes and sizes, including several designs that are cast in on traditional European holiday season candle molds. Clark brought back some cool new geometric molds from Prague this year, included in the vast array we are offering.

Amber Lights candles are highly decorative, wonderfully detailed, naturally endowed with a heavenly honey scent, and burn clean and smokeless. 

Hanukkah begins early this year at sundown on Sun., November 28th. A set of dripless, smokeless, hand-dipped beeswax candles from Amber Lights contains all the candles you’ll need to light the Menorah through the entire 8-day holiday. And they smell wonderful! And they come in a lovely blue mesh bag. And they are Local. And if you have no use for Hanukkah candles, we have everything from birthday candles to 6″ pillars, bee-skeps to Buddha heads, Deco to dragons, reindeer to roses, all beautifully crafted from our friend Clark at Amber Lights.

Amy Mundinger of Pine Tree Studios is truly a gifted craftswoman, with a keen eye for color and design, and well-honed skills in fiber arts from crochet to embroidery on upcycled felt, and free-motion quilting with hand-dyed 100% cotton fabrics. Amy is an active and prominent member of the Handweavers Guild of Boulder, which will hold its 2021 Fiber Art Show & Sale from November 3-7 at the Boulder County Fairgrounds.

This year, in addition to wonderful felt ornaments, flowers and needlebooks, and collaged and stitched cards, she has designed and sewn some very comfortable, effective, and attractive face masks, our favorite ones!

Their name may lead you to believe that they are a law firm. But to the contrary, Dana Jones and Amy Baxter are two Niwot moms who began sewing face masks at the onset of the pandemic and found they enjoyed working with fabric so much that they kept going, making charming, retro-styled all-cotton aprons (for grown-ups and kids), tea towels, placemats, and napkins. Amy and Dana use soft, absorbent cotton flour-sack material for their casual towels and tableware, and source their accent fabrics from local independent shops.

Cathy is a nationally exhibited potter making stoneware functional ceramics. She has been a Boulder resident forever. Most of her work gets shipped out, but she was able to spare us a few of her perfect garlic keepers!

We met Courtland at a Loveland art fair this summer, where his work was drawing crowds. When we got close enough to see, the reason was obvious – displays of beautiful turned wood urns, bowls and trays in elegant shapes. Courtland’s favorite woods to work with are burls and other ‘figured’ woods – spalted, birdseye, etc., which lend fascinating pattern and color variation.

We chose a collection of maple burl pieces, and a group of more casual cottonwood bowls and trays. All bowls and trays have food-safe finishes.

Inspired by Colorado’s wildlife and the outdoors, Amanda Maldonado makes delightful drawings of local animals in pen and ink. This year, we’re selling postcards and prints of these fun, hand-illustrated critters, and her brilliant, NEW Watercolor Postcard Kits! 

This kit has everything you need to color in some fun barn animal postcards using watercolor! Watercolor allows you to blend and customize the color you want on the paper more easily than markers, crayons, and coloring pencils. The kit includes 5 postcards, a palette of 6 watercolors, and a free water brush pen. Amanda has hand-made her own luscious watercolor paints from locally collected plant materials! 

Our customer and friend Diane Patterson makes these wonderful ornaments, called Temari, which date back to ancient Japan, where Temari was originally a handcraft of upper class women. Intricate designs were embroidered on handmade balls using silk threads from kimonos. The balls were used as toys.

Temari are unique, beautiful, colorful gifts. Attractive hanging as a single ornament, grouped in a bowl, used in a centerpiece, given as a housewarming gift, or simply to hold and admire, they will be treasured for many years.

In the same nature-inspired spirit that imbues her jewelry and scarves, Dilia has created one-of-a-kind, original, monoprinted cards. They are blank inside, awaiting your own greeting. Or you can frame them as works of art!

Eve’s friend Sue Hagedorn is a Longmont fiber artist. She has brought us an assortment of beautiful indigo-dyed napkins, scarves and recycled clothing.

An Anchorage, AK native, she became interested in indigo dyeing at a workshop there and was drawn to its healing and quiet contemplative properties. She has explored dyeing with a variety of natural materials on natural fiber fabrics, table linens, clothing and paper of all kinds. Sue and Longmont artist Stephanie Hilvitz share their passion for indigo and eco-dying by offering wonderful workshops; their latest one is about natural dyeing with materials from the forest floor. She can be contacted at iowacreek@nullhotmail.com .

Years ago, Julie and Eve were classmates at the Boulder Potters Guild. Her passion for clay subsequently led her to create her own home studio in Longmont, where she applies her hand-building skills and sense of whimsy to making delightful decorative and functional pieces.

Now a Guild member and a teacher there, Julie says “I am drawn to texture and find my roots coming through in my work. I am inspired by nature and by the patterns of repetition: the simplicity of a house, the design formed by bicycle gears, the delicate texture in a leaf, the rolling rocks in a rambling stone wall, and the ridges on a sea turtle’s shell.”

Back by popular demand!  Notecards of vibrant paintings by renowned Boulder watercolor artist and muralist Kathleen Lanzoni feature local landscapes and floral subjects.  This year Kathleen will also offer some of her giclee prints and several original paintings.

Kathleen has been the recipient of numerous awards, especially for her plein air paintings (painted from life on-site, not in the studio). She is also a wonderful painting teacher and mentor.

Kelly is a font of creativity: writer, singer, painter, and more. This year, Kelly has been able to devote a lot of time to honing her skills in a life-long passion, pastel painting, and we reap the benefits! We offer some of her smaller pieces, mostly local Boulder County landscapes.  

Lois Edgar is a longtime member of the Boulder Potters Guild. She has been exploring techniques with clay for many years and has developed a style that is both earthy and charming. Many of her pieces are embellished with her delightful paintings of chickadees, owls, quail, horses, and other birds and wildlife.

This year we feature her porcelain wares and salt-fired pieces.  

Our dear friend Lynn Mattingly is a renowned fiber artist and has been practicing and teaching quilting for decades.  An exceptional sense of color-combining, a fabulous collection of fabrics and a mastery of design and craftsmanship combine to make Lynn’s work really special. We love seeing her beautiful potholders hanging on our stove, and they have held up in our kitchen for a very long time. Sturdy and machine-washable, they are not only gorgeous but also practical.

This year we offer her Baby Quilts, Quilted Potholders, Table-Runners, and Eyeglass cases, and Peace Garlands. Lynn lives just over the hills in Paonia, CO.

Pele Levy-Strauss started out a native New Zealander, was raised in the Marshall Islands and Hawaii (she was named for the goddess of the famous volcano there), went to college in Durango, and fell in love with Colorado. Now in Boulder, Pele discovered a passion for the craft of Macramé.

Unlike most textiles, Macramé is produced using knotting, rather than weaving or knitting. Long crafted by sailors and crafted in many parts of the world, Macramé emerged in the US in the 1960s, associated with hippie culture. It has recently experienced a resurgence in popularity for its sculptural qualities, natural materials and refreshing simplicity.

Pele has made a number of lovely, practical and affordable macramé creations for our holiday gift market!

For decades, our friend Tom Theobald of Niwot Honey Farm has been nurturing bees, harvesting honey, and crafting the finest, most elegant, romantic, hand-dipped taper candles you’ll find anywhere. They are naturally dripless and smokeless, and infuse the room with the gentle, warm fragrance of honey. They go perfectly with our Traditional Majolica candle holders. Available in pairs, either clear-wrapped or gift boxed.