Handmade Sandals

Since a long time I have been wanting to make some dainty bare foot sandals for myself. The ones that could be worn on the beach or just plainly on a barefoot, obviously on a clean floor.

I saw a few designs on the internet but could not really find one worth copying and making.

Do not get me wrong here. I mean most of them were beautiful, lovely and wearable; but it seems they all seemed quite difficult and intricate to be worked upon.

That is when I thought of creating one on my own.

And then the one below was made, obviously HANDMADE.

http://handmadeselling.bigcartel.com/

This one was pretty simple as it is pretty evident from the picture itself.

I just crocheted about 20 single crochets and looped and joined them together to form a circle to sling my second feet digit to.

Then I basically kept just single crocheting till I reached the length that fitted my entire foot plus the circumference of my ankle part. (I hope you got what I mean)

Then to save it from being plain boring, I attached a Butterfly to the starting part of the anklet. It goes without saying that the butterfly was also crocheted.

Then voila! I was done in maximum half an hour. The time includes making the butterfly and sewing it to the sandal, along with securing a fish hook as a closure to the sandal.

Though since the time I made this one I got no chance to visit a beach. I therefore ended up wearing it only to work.

 And below is another one that I just made in a jiffy with some embroidery thread and transparent beads. Luckily  I got to wear this one on a beach recently.

http://handmadeselling.bigcartel.com/

Hope it looks good on me.

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HANDMADE GIFTING

I am yet to find anyone who does not like to receive “Gifts”. There is something with the gifts that make not just receiving, but also gifting them to someone beautiful. No wonder, gifting is classified as an art lately. The modern day retail outlets leave us with a lot of options for gifting. The branded merchandise out there available in the malls is put up for buying as gifts. But the catch to this comes when the occasion or the person to be gifted comes out to be really special.

Like for your grandmother’s 80^th birthday, gifting something that she would really appreciate and use becomes a challenge. Of course options that could come close could be a nice warm stole, her favorite flowers, her favorite perfume and few more. But surely if it is your grandmother’s 80^th birthday, you must have already gifted such gifts to her.

At times like these one really wishes that there could be something available somewhere that would be made especially for your grandmother. Gifts for such occasions would come in the customized category. And generally customized gifts are handmade, since it would be close to impossible for some enterprise to come up with unique and individual crafted gifts for a lot many customers of them through the mechanized route.
Ceramics with a customized hand painted art on them like the mugs, plates and other forms of cutlery are a good gifting option. Many such customized gifting options might be found in a kiosk format in a mall in your city. They can help you get a customized handmade art form uniquely designed as per the likings of the special person you wish to gift.

If you are staying away from such a customized hand painting kiosk in your place or if your grandmother stays away from you, you should fear not. Many of the today’s customized handmade gifting enterprises are on the internet. They exist as handmadeselling sites that could accept your instructions online; and then they could create the product with the art form which can then be shipped to your grandmother’s destination in no time. Such sites would array many other customized gifts leaving you with loads of options for gifting. Probably you will run out of occasions, because the customized handmade art can never run out of ideas.

Online Vs. Offline

When comparing a typical brick-and-mortar galley to an online art gallery, the biggest advantage is indeed of the 24 hours availability of the store. All thanks to Tim Berners Lee, that today the World Wide Web is widely used to create virtual stores for selling practically everything, any time of the year, season, week or day. Second is the reach.

Though, the real world craft fairs are hugely popular, but the reach to far fetch places is just beyond them. On the other hand, online stores could be restricted to just few geographies initially, but their success and word-of-mouth publicity propels them to become a part of each and every individual in every part of the world. Thirdly, and most importantly, it saves a lot of capital for all. Renting a display arena on the internet is much cheaper than a physical one. The capital expenditure on the retail constitutes a major portion. The ultimate retail cost of a handmade art at any physical gallery is mainly made up of the retail expenditures.

Whereas, using the website as a location saves the huge display costs involved in showcasing the products. On the other hand, the physical feel of the product is substituted by larger than life pictures of them. Also the detailed information do away with all the questions pertaining to the products that a customer might have regarding before the purchase of products. Most of the online art gallery also facilitates interactions between the buyers and sellers, leading to reducing all the barriers to trade a minimum. That allows the craftsmen to get involved with the prospective buyers in their purchasing decisions, leading to smoother transactions, thus reducing disputes after the payments and shipping.

Location does not come anywhere as a barrier to the online trade for the intricate arts and crafts. In fact with the advent of payment gateways, the estranged effect of the payment currency is also done away with. The buyers and sellers can negotiate within themselves to deal in the currency that they find feasible. In fact with the universal payment gateway products like Paypal, transactions happen within no time in practically any currency in this World. But for the entire mankind, the biggest advantage still remains the access to the cross cultural diversity on this Earth. The products from Africa like the handmade art made on an Ostrich egg can now be accessible to someone sitting in Adelaide in few days, and that too without preparing a cumbersome travel itinerary to Africa. This is the magnificence of being a part of the revolution called online art gallery.

Crafty and unconvincing

Crafty and unconvincing - Indian Express

Whenever I read such news, I feel a sense of satisfaction in starting my virtual store of handmade crafts. The biggest advantage, as is evident is of 24 hours availability of the store. All thanks to Tim Berners Lee, that today the World Wide Web is widely used to create virtual stores for selling practically everything, any time of the year, season, week or day. Second comes the reach. Though, the real World craft fairs are hugely popular, but the reach to far fetch places is just beyond them.On the other hand, online stores could be restricted to few geographies initially, but their success and word-of-mouth publicity leads them to become a part of each and every individual in every part of the World. Thirdly, and most importantly, it saves a lot of capital for all. The craftsmen/sellers; the buyers as well as the organizers of the fair save on the cost of the location that eats up the major chunk of the revenue. Using the website as a location saves the huge display costs involved in showcasing the products. The displayed pictures, information as well as the sellers' details available online help in regulating the trade smoothly with minimal troughs.

Wish the IGNCA at least had invested in a web store, then probably NGOs like Dastkar and its craftsmen would have had a little hope. On the hindsight, I am proud and delighted to share that one of the craftsmen on my site is an educated man from a village in Madhya Pradesh who makes a living by creating handmade fabric with motifs and caricatures hand-printed on them. The art is locally called the "Baig art"

Each metre of fabric hardly costs 5$, and can be shipped worldwide.

The beauty of the handmade art is evident in the pictures of the collection. Please follow the link to view the same.

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150164193384550.305062.308958804549&type=3