Hello! Welcome to Manusmade! Where exclamation points are used! A lot!

Sorry, let's start again, shall we?

My name is Tania and I love everything handmade, and I know you do too! I'm not sure my addiction to linen can be cured. I'm hopeful I can move beyond this one type of fabric. I've always been creative: making things and trying to figure out how to do it myself. I have a hard time buying clothes when I know I could make them myself. But then months go buy and I haven't bought anything, nor have I made anything. Hopefully by going public with my committment to all things handmade, I'll actually make some things. By hand. I do have a day job - federal gov't employee, here, like lots and lots of other people in Ottawa. I'm hopeful that I'll be able to leave that job eventually and work in a more creative way - selling handmade goods, helping other people make great things, and inspiring people young and old to make fun stuff!

I love learning - my three degrees (that didn't make me all that much smarter) can attest to that. So can all the classes I've signed up for over the years - handmade paper, belly dancing, flamenco dancing, gardening, photography, and most recently a GRAMMAR course. Don't laugh, I actually loved it! I love learning how to make things by hand whether it's bread or doing a french seam properly. Even when I don't have time, my favourite gifts for friends and family are handmade by someone else.

So, why have I started this site? As a way to explore all things handmade. I love the feel of stitches in cotton, of embroidery in linen, of lovely paper on cards, of rough hewn edges on beautiful wooden shelves. It's all about texture for me I think. Touch is such a wonderful sense - have you ever caught yourself touching the sleeve on your favourite top? Have you every rubbed your hands over your favourite quilt? Have you simply just felt so comfortable in a home that is filled with things lovingly made by someone? Yeah, me too.

I'll be talking about all of these things and more. I'll be making things along the way, and I'll be showing you how to do it too. It's never as hard as it first seems! Eventually, I'll be setting up a shop where I'll sell the things I make, but for now I'd just love to build a community of people who love making things, or at least those who appreciate these things and the people who make them.

Who are you? You are creative, but you don't always have the time to be creative. You love the idea of handmade goods, you love to give them as gifts, and when you have the time, you like making them yourself. You really do want to make a loving, locally-grown or -sourced meal from heritage vegetables and little lambs that ate ivy and were read to softly every night before bed, but holy crap it's late, and you just drove by a chip truck and the fries smelled SO good that you just had that for dinner instead. Oh well, we'll have the other meal tomorrow.

What the heck is Manusmade? Manusmade is handmade. Manus is latin for "hand". It's not just a hand, but also speaks of the power of the hand. For me, this is a big deal, and I'll tell you why: I tend to do a lot of thinking all the time - lots of analysis, re-analysis, researching, double-fact-checking, reading, and then do it all over again to make sure I really know how to do something. Then, since I've spent so much preparing to do things, I've used up all the time I had for that project and then the project often doesn't get done. So, it's important for me to remember that not only should I use my mind to prepare for a project, but that I simply, in the end, just need to DO IT. Basically, I need to get out of my head and into my hands.

Manusmade is also about creating. Doing. Investigating. Figuring it out. Giving yourself the power to do anything you put your mind to. For example, I found out a couple of years ago that I'm allergic to gluten and dairy. That's all wheat, barley, rye, malt, cheese, milk, ice cream, yogurt, etc. That's two pretty big food groups that got cut out overnight. I had no idea what to do. Now, two years later, I'm proud of the fact that I figured much of it out myself. I read some books, did some reasearch, but then took it into my own hands to help myself feel better. Now, I know how to cook food that makes me feel great. I'm still struggling with the baking part of this way of eating, but I'm sure it'll come eventually. I'm hopeful that Manusmade will inspire you to figure it out too, through your own hands. We'll figure out how to make lots of things. Plus we'll talk to lots of people who are out there making things themselves - whether it's making bread, or starting their own creative businesses. I'm excited to meet you and get this community started!

Bye for now!