ReadyMade: Instructions for everyday life

Handmade Holidays 2009

Giving thoughtfully is, of course, always the goal, but we’re aware that time is often of the essence when trying to fill the space below the tree. So this year, we’re offering you a festive choice in the form of 18 delightfully handcrafted items, plus five web-exclusive picks. Get ready to experience a little list-making love.

by Jen Turner

Photos by Marty Baldwin

More Tees, Please
It seems like everyone is wearing something on his or her respective sleeves these days. Screen-printedshirts, like this custom design by artist Matt W. Moore, from Blood Is The New Black are definitely some of our favorite ways to make a statement.
$42, bloodisthenewblack.com

Cover Up
Not every slick MacBook yearns for an equally slick cover. This gray felt and brown leather laptop cover by Byrd and Belle is the J.Crew counterpoint to its silicone-injected cousin and will please any red-checked-flannel types on your list.
Starting at $68, byrdandbelle.etsy.com

Spice Market
Share the joy of awareness with Alyce Santoro’s Relish Today Tincture. It’s a honey, herb, and spice condiment that “is activated by placing a drop or two on anything that deserves an extra dose of savoring—a friend, your lucky pen, some flowers at the corner market.”
$12, supermarkethq.com

Fluffy Plays Fetch
We can’t help it—we’re dog people, but we’re surrounded by feline-loving friends. Perhaps that’s why these faux bois stitched felt “sticks” filled with catnip are so alluring. The possibility of taking the cat out to throw the stick around starts to make up for dealing with the litter box.
$9, spellwell.etsy.com

Indie Light
Using easy to come by chrome rods, wooden bowls, and a chrome-topped bulb, Chuck Routhier has fashioned a fixture that, hands down, beats almost any other table lamp we’ve seen.
$55, supermarkethq.com

Tree People
Sighn, a member of the MultiPolar Projects, wanted to create a large number of somethings. So he decided to produce one million wood cutouts of the reassuring phrase “It’s OK” (which he estimates
will take 50 years) with an equally reassuring catch: For each one purchased, the Arbor Day Foundation will plant a tree.
$20, multipolarprojects.com

Raise the Stakes
Here’s one for the budding gardener: porcelain garden stakes from Pigeon Toe Ceramics. Each is handmade and imprinted with one of 10 diff erent herb names to keep your plantings organized and make it easy for dinner guests to take self-guided garden tours.
$6 each, pigeontoeceramics.com

Liquid Gold, Lone Star Style
Jim Henry was told he couldn’t grow olive trees in Texas. You can guess what happened next. Henry’s Texas Olive Ranch has not only proved ’em wrong, but also shaken up the olive oil world by infusing products with regionally inspired flavors like real mesquite and a kicky roasted garlic.
$10, texasoliveranch.com

Hop To It
What to get that overachieving foodie who just gave you homemade goat cheese? A brew kit from Brooklyn Brew Shop! Owners Erica Shea and Stephen Valand formulate distnctive mixes of hops and grains and package them with brewing equipment and instructions.
$30 and up, brooklynbrewshop.com

Custom Collar
Whether purebred or mixed, bitch or boy, your best friend is not forgo en with this custom leather collar. Moxie & Oliver’s leather choker is carved, branded, painted, and dyed by Caitlin McNamara. She polishes it with your bud’s name and address inside.
$65, moxieandoliver.etsy.com

Bye Bye Birdie
If the cult of craft had a mascot, the bird would be it. The Owl is the talisman of the Renegade Craft Fair, and it’s hard to find an Etsy page without a feathered friend. La Familia Green’s tongue-and-cheek takes are a welcome alternative to their mushier mates.
$4, lafamiliagreen.com

Affordable Art
If you have a friend who is equal parts modern and old school, then consider these colorful prints as an apropos addition to her abode. Sarah San creates patterns (often symmetrical) inspired by nature with  nges of Americana and Dutch folk-art, then presses each one by hand.
Folk Sea print, $30, yellowlion.etsy.com

Twinkle Twinkle
Jewelry designer Satomi Kawakita finds beauty in imperfection. She hand carves her designs in wax, oversees the local casting, and sets each and every tiny gemstone.
Rings start at $60, satomikawakita.com

Yo-Yo Ma
Philadelphia-based Shauna Alterio and Stephen Loidolt of Something’s Hiding in Here have carved up wooden yo-yos printed with “cross-stitched” hearts. Perfect for a friend who needs a play break.
$12, somethingshidinghere.etsy.com

Very Berry
Judy Jackson’s elegant handthrown berry bowl is poked with holes to allow for its freshly washed contents to drain. (The matching saucer catches the runoff.) Toss in fruit fresh from the market,
rinse, and hustle it straight to the table for a polished (and dry) presentation.
Small bowl, $27, large bowl, $45; 718.388.1121

The Spirit(s) of New York
After purchasing a mill in 2001, micro-distillers Ralph Erenzo and Brian Lee became the first people since Prohibition to craft spirits commercially in upstate New York. Their Four Grain Bourbon is distlled twice and comes in a hand-numbered bottle.
$40-$45, tuthilltown.com

Lust-Worthy Lit
We love Trees & Hills’ Seeds anthology because it focuses on the social aspects of food and comes complete with a packet of Vermont lettuce seeds. And, naturally, the cover is stamped with an heirloom apple from a nearby farm in Vermont.
$5, treesandhills.org

Fancy Feet
Carla Venticinque-Osborn and Aaron Osborn’s cottage cobblery started after Aaron met several out-of-work artisans while living in Guatemala doing humanitarian work. Inspired, the couple decided to create a fair trade worker’s co-op (and house it all under a soon-to be-completed factory) where they make one-of-a-kind shoes out of mostly recycled fabrics. Our kind of retail therapy.
Starting at $90, 718.349.0203

Baby Bites
Consider Little Alouette’s minimal—and beautiful—natural-wood rattle (it’s filled with beans) teething ring for that discerning-bordering-on-militant new parent friend of yours. It’s made of locally sourced maple from the company’s Ohio surroundings and is finished in natural seed oil.
$18, littlealoutette.etsy.com

Pint-Sized Pillow Talk
The Tooth Fairy has a posse! Or at least a helper in Kimberley Scola of Chez-Sucre-Chez who sews each Tooth Buddy from the inside out, to give it a unique shape, and then finishes it off with button eyes and a hand-stitched smile. There’s even a transaction envelope, complete with a pretty ribbon.
$17, chezsucrechez.com

Have Loom, Will Travel
Do you know someone who can’t sit still when traveling? We think this paper loom, created by San Francisco artist and master weaver Travis Meinolf, can help. Now, instead of kicking your seat for the duration of the plane ride, Ms. Fidgety can make you a handmade scarf!
$10, curiosityshoppeonline.com

Good Wood
Working on a lathe with wood found in the forests of West Virginia, Jerry Smith turns bowls while the wood (cherry, maple, oak, walnut) is still green, resulting in unique vessels with raw edges and intuitive proportions.
Starting at $30, jlwoodturning.etsy.com