The Maine Event

MaryAnn Anderson from Norridgewock, Maine, and the Etsy artist behind BackWoods Creations, has been doing the arts and crafts thing since she was a "wee child." Her mom always told her that idle hands can make trouble. Now her hands are busy keeping the creativity flowing, but she insists she still finds time to get into trouble. MaryAnn's creative endeavors focus primarily on painting, fabric, textile art, and the creation of art dolls.

The results of her creative efforts include whimsical batik and handpainted creatures such as Fergus above. Not toys for children, but three-dimensional fabric sculptures inspired by real-life animals, often created to raise funds for Etsy for Animals. EFA is a street team or group of artists and craftspeople on Etsy who donate some portion of their sales to animal rescues and charities. They change the charity monthly, and BackWoods Creations donates 10% of the purchase price of her EFA-specified listings to the charity designated for month of the purchase/adoption.


MaryAnn also creates fabric art jewelry and mixed media collages for a shop that provides a variety of options to indulge in her artistic expressions. Head out to the BackWoods to see for yourself, and find out more about MaryAnn on her blog.

For the Love of Moose

I met Craftymoose back in August 2006 on Etsy when I joined a fun group of Etsians who met weekly in the Forums for one of JewelStreet's Creative Challenges. Now, I haven't participated in a Creative Challenge for some time - working too much, moving across country, excuses all around - but I was very glad to see her join up with us 90 Feature Folk in the blog challenge we're doing. Glad because she now has company because of the challenge, - haha, I think Craftymoose was the only reader other than family I ever had for my blog - thanks Crafty! Also more doubly glad because she has such fun and imaginative pieces in her shop - items you are not going to find just anywhere for sure, and that I'm very glad to write a feature for. Her beaded creatures/suncatchers have always been favorites of mine, and her French flowers blow me away - how do people work with those tiny little beads????


Craftymoose claims to have been crafting for as long as she can remember, is self-taught and has enjoyed painting, needlework, quilting, polymer clay and jewelry making. Most recently drawn to beads, she has returned to the art of french-beaded flowers. She also has one-of-a-kind beaded art dolls and suncatchers as shown here in this post. Custom requests are welcomed by Craftymoose, so if there is something you would like to see created with her singular type of craft, give her a contact either through her shop or her blog.

And if you're wondering, the name Craftymoose came about because of her love of crafts and her husband's love of moose. Her avatar is the head of a 4'+ tall moose she made for her husband one Christmas - now there's a loving wife!