I couldn’t resist these bright poppies staring at me over at the spring market. They are original acrylic paintings on canvas by Judi Ewart of Art of the Southwest.

She names Georgia O’Keeffe as an influence in her works, and you can see that particularly in this painting as she focuses on the small details at the center of this flower:

Who could resist these? They just scream “spring!”
Stop by and pay Judi a visit at the spring market right now to see more of her works. You can also visit her Etsy shop.
I just had to share a new shop with you all today called Neke Designs. Shelli, the gal behind Neke, creates really gorgeous jewelry featuring wire-wrapping, hand-formed hardware and semi-precious stones. One quick look and you can easily see that this is a woman who pays attention to the small details. Everything from the clean wire-wrapping to choice of stones and colors is spot on.

Tourmaline Earrings, $20

Copper Weave Earrings, $22

Hoops I did it again necklace, $22
Stop by Neke Designs at the Spring I Heart Handmade market and see how you can get free shipping through March 27, 2010.
Or, visit Neke Designs on Etsy.
On antique presses, Brandi of Sweet Harvey Letterpress cranks out original letterpress stationery and art prints. The result? Fun stuff like this:

{Hello Robot}
And amazing works like this:

{HOPE letterpress print}
And beautiful designs like these:

{Refuge in Pool/Leaf/Lake}

{From left: Refuge in Curry/Sage/Cement, Refuge in Red/Leaf/Chocolate, Refuge in Papaya/Leaf/Chocolate}
Want to know the sweetest part about that last set of designs? Brandi is giving away 1 “Refuge” print (in your choice of color shown above) to a lucky reader. Here’s how to enter to win:
- Stop by the Sweet Harvey shop on Etsy and find your favorite item. Come back here and tell us what it is for 1 entry.
- Tweet about this giveaway on Twitter and leave a separate comment with your Twitter username for 1 entry. (An easy way to tweet this giveaway is to click on the green retweet button at the bottom of this post.)
- Become a fan of Sweet Harvey Letterpress on Facebook. Leave a separate comment for 1 entry.
- Follow the I Heart Handmade blog on Google Friend Connect (look in the left sidebar for “Google Friends”) and leave a separate comment for 1 entry.
A winner will be selected at random using random.org and announced on the blog on March 13, 2010.
Tired of the snow, cold temperatures, lack of sun and fresh air, your old wardrobe and everything else that reminds you of winter? I certainly am. It’s not that I don’t like you, winter, but it’s your time to go.
At least for now.
Besides, there’s a spring market that just opened up today and it’s filled with lots of great springy items that will help perk up everyone. Here’s something to whet your appetite:

Want to find out who makes this great stuff? Stop by the market and check out today’s “heart ~ fave ~ love ~ swoon” feature. You’ll find something fresh here daily.
Words can be hard to come by. Or perhaps you have the words but you don’t have the person’s attention for whatever reason. Either way, these ought to do the trick:

They’re called lifetokens and they’re an easy, thoughtful and fun way to say certain things, like “I’m sorry” or “I’m proud of you” or “I miss you.” All you have to do is select your token and then it’s off to the recipient! Once they receive it, they’ll find a secret code on the token and will need to go decode it on the lifetokens website. Pretty neat!