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The explosion in the past few years of the craft and DIY space has
been amazing to watch. People can craft in their spare time and then
use the internet to reach a broad audience of like minded people.
Consumers want unique items that really meet their needs in a way that
mass produced things can not.
The problem I sometimes have is that everyone is using the same pool
of materials. The internet makes the world a smaller place and I can
acquire fabrics or papers or whatever from anywhere... and so can
everyone else. What you come up with out of this mass pool of materials
is still unique and creative and one of a kind. Still though! I want to
see MORE uniqueness and creativity in the form of materials as well.
Two (newish) online sites are providing help for that form of start
from scratch creativity, Ponoko and (still in beta) Spoonflower.
Ponoko is a service that lets you design 3d items from a variety of
materials. You can design a wooden table and they will manufacture it
for you and then, free of charge, you can set up a shop on their site
to sell it to other people as well. It's a wonderful 'green' approach
to manufacturing as each one made is going off to a good home right
away!
Spoonflower is a husband and wife team fabric printing company. You
create your own fabric design and they are reasonably priced and offer
swatches, fat quarters and fabric by the yard.
Jessica Rosenkrantz of nervous system design has created this lovely fan using Ponoko. You can buy it on Ponoko as well!
Kim Fraser from Spoonflower upkeeps the Spoonflower blog.
Shopworthy has blogged about making a backpack for her son out of fabric that he designed and was printed by Spoonflower. So cute!
Minnie also blogs about crafts at Thank You For Not Being Perky and parenting at ScreamyThing
