Handmade Hearts is a desperate passion project by a disabled queer person living in Germany with their equally disabled and queer spouse. I've known how to crochet sort of for most of my life, but it was only in 2019 that I decided to make it a part of me. Shortly after, I taught myself to embroider. Now you may partake in the results!
Available items reflect my interests. You'll see mostly crocheted items, patterns thereof, and the occassional embroidered art piece. If there's something you would like or have seen me make that isn't up for sale, you are more than welcome to make a request or commission either by messaging me in any way I have open or by filling out one of these forms I have set up for convenience.
I'm a verified artisan member of Artisans Cooperative and, as you can see, of the ISG. I've been here since around the beginning, watching and trying to help and believing in the power of collective action, and especially in making it possible for people like me to make a living that won't destroy our minds and bodies.
Please feel free to peruse my socials!
Oh! Just remembered I can post stuff on here. Going to start posting some of my projects on here. This is a incomplete cross-stitch I did back in March of this year :)
45% off everything my shop until December 24th: https://ko-fi.com/chaosfay/link/YULETIDE2024 I have quilts of many different sizes as well as original artwork. Help me clear out my inventory and receive one-of-a-kind pieces to gift others or keep for yourself.
ko-fi.com I don't use Twitter at all anymore, but I have the app and get notifications when Kristi (@auralynne) posts on our Twitter account -- which is how I realized she made us a Bluesky account! (Give it a follow.)
That has me thinking a bit about our social media situation. Right now, as far as I understand it, Kristi and Chiarra do most of the work, with Kristi doing the bulk of it. I run our Tumblr, but I won't take too much credit there because I mostly cross-post what Kristi prepares.
Could we open the floor perhaps for more volunteers to assist in social media posting and public interactions? Or at least open the floor for folks to give their opinions, which is what I'm doing I suppose. Hi. First forum post. ?
I've added my tiny wiggly snake crochet pattern to Ravelry and Ko-Fi for 1€! You can also see them in full for free via links in the description of each. What you get for the payment is a PDF and the knowledge that you've helped me out. :)
www.ravelry.com So I have a weird question. I'm thinking of the future of this site and the future of ISG, and I'd really like to start trying to develop a system where I'm using AS FEW stock photos as possible in our social media posts, and instead using photos from our actual community.
We would always credit people. But there WILL be times (especially with Instagram, which is our biggest following) when really the only feasible way to do so is with a business name overlaid on the actual image.
Example #1: let's say one of our volunteers has written a blog post about all the stuff you at least need to be a little bit good at to succeed as a creative indie seller, and they're using an analogy of "wearing many hats" to describe it - and the blog post has the "hat" analogy in the title somehow - so the image we make to share the blog post is literally a collage of hats made by ~3 of our vendors. Each with "Credit: (Business Name)" beside it.
The ~300 people who are shown the post on our socials would JUST see the business names, there would be no link - because we need to link to the blog post. Then the blog post would link to each member's profile. People would need to follow a couple links to get to the member creations/curations, but there is a clickable breadcrumb trail.
Example #2: Let's say we're just asking people a question, and using a photo from a member to illustrate the question (in a similar way to example #1 above). Then we could link to the person's member profile and/or @ tag them so that there is a link to their social media account too (assuming they have one). On Insta it would just be the @ tag, and the business name on the photo since there are no links on Insta. For someone with an Instagram, it would be clickable via @ link, then bio link to the person's shop. For someone without Instagram, people would have to do a shop search on our site.
Example #3: There could also be times when links aren't possible at all, and the only way to credit people is via their business name on the image. Flyers to spread the word about ISG, for instance, fundraising presentations, seller training content, etc.
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Now speaking from the standpoint of a volunteer trying to get AS MUCH DONE in AS LITTLE TIME as possible - basically the easiest way to do this is to have in our "terms and conditions" that any image uploaded to this site can be used by ISG volunteers. Then when we're creating content we can simply look through what people have posted and select stuff. When you add asking specific permission, waiting for replies, coming up with alternative images in case you don't hear back, then potentially repeating the whole process - it makes it so that sharing seller stuff is too time consuming and the end result is it doesn't happen too often!
I worded it like this:
Verified Seller Images
If you are a verified seller member, you agree that we may share your images to promote your business and our Verified Seller Directory, Verified Seller Showcase, and other guild services. By using this website, you agree that we may share your images on social media and on our blog at our other website, indiesellersguild.org, with credit, and a link to your user profile if possible.
I'd love some feedback!
Do you think most people would understand that phrasing "with credit, and a link to your user profile if possible" means we'll always put your business name somewhere, but we might not be able to do an actual link?
For me personally, if I saw one of my images used as long as there was a legible "auralynne" somewhere I would be ecstatic since it would up brand recognition even without a link. Do you think most others would feel the same way?
