1. What is your website? and email?
My Etsy shop: craftgasm.etsy.com My blog: craftgasmdc.blogspot.com My e-mail: craftgasm@gmail.com
2. Your ravelry.com username? (If you are on Ravelry)
I am not on Ravelry, as I am not talented enough with fibers to warrant it. :)
editor's note - i bet we can fix that on sunday!
3. Where are you located?
I'm in Columbia Heights in DC.
4. What do you make?
I make sustainable, upcycled paper goods (and occasionally other random items) from found and otherwise scavenged materials.
5. Do you make [your items] full-time?
I do not. Unfortunately handmade ain't paying my bills (yet). I'm a bicycle advocate by day, crafter extraordinaire by nights and weekends. Sort of like your cell phone plan.
6. How did you get into making stuff?
This is probably a threefold answer: 1) My mother and I were always making, repainting, or reusing things when I was younger. Looking back, it was likely a byproduct of broke-single-motherdom, but she was very creative anyway, so it always had me thinking about different ways to repurpose things. 2) I wrote an obscene amount of letters for a teenager coming of age along with the digital era, and always found myself drawn to cute stationery, of which I still maintain a huge collection. And I think I'm singlehandedly responsible for the USPS still being somewhat afloat. 3) I'm an... "enthusiastic" environmentalist. (I maaaay have once got in a screaming match with a jerkface I worked with who was trying to throw away brand new company folders just because they had an old logo on them [I won].) It was only a matter of time before these things came together as {craftgasm}.
7. How long have you been doing this?
I've been making items as gifts for friends and family for years (being a broke college student brings out one's creativity), but I've only been selling products online and at shows for about six months or so. There are only so many upcycled journals and notecard sets that my friends want as birthday and Christmas gifts.
8. Where do you find inspiration?
An easy answer would be "everywhere" but I especially love the contrast between vintage office accoutrements (old ledgers, yellowing labels, and supply cabinet stamps) and charming adorability (squirrels and other woodland creatures). It's the old vs. the new-again, as well as the urban vs. rural. Maybe it's because I was born in the country and now love the city life?
9. Any funny stories, words of wisdom, something else to share about you or your business?
I like playing with language and mashing words together to make portmanteaus, which is likely what led to my major in English. So I'd been adding "-gasm" to the end of words for a while when something was particularly awesome, and it just seemed natural to make the name of my business "craftgasm." However, I had to work up the nerve to tell my mother that I had decided on that name! She thought it was pretty funny, but I still haven't said it aloud to my respectable first-generation Italian grandfather. I call it "my Etsy shop" when the subject arises in his presence.
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