Artist Spotlight - OutNumberedNovelties

I have a soft spot for figured woods, such as tiger oak highboys, mesquite cutting boards or anything made out of bird’s-eye maple. A fellow Etsy Texas Friends team member makes amazing hand shaped and turned wood items, from fabulous hair sticks/axes to hand carved measuring spoons. Rich is the creative force behind the Etsy shop OutNumberedNovelties. While his shop is full of smaller wood wonders, he has also been known to make larger custom pieces upon request.

I had the opportunity to have a booth next to Rich at a show in Arlington last December. Unfortunately for me, the hair accessories were right out because my hair is not long enough to use them. I don’t play the guitar to be able to figure out which type of wood fits my picking style the best, but I could see some of his hand formed utensils in my kitchen. There was one mesquite spoon that had great contrast between blonde, medium brown and dark reddish brown all in the same teaspoon sized spoon. Rich’s utensils are finished with mineral oil to bring out the wood’s characteristics and make them food safe and more durable.

If you are lucky enough to live close by, you can shop for OutNumberNovelties’ wares in person at the Downtown Mini Mall II on the square in downtown Denton, TX.

Design This – Native American Hair Tides

This design project got its start when a prospective customer saw something in another one of my “Design This” blog posts that she liked. She sent me a screen shot with the item that she hoped to be able to purchase. I had recently sold that exact pair of Native American style feather and leather hair clips but had a similar pair that was not currently listed anywhere, so I sent off a picture of them. She liked them and was interested in some earrings in a similar style and wondered, “Also, do you make Native American hair tides, they are also called hair leather straps?”. The earrings were the easy part of this custom request but I would have to do some research into these “hair tides” to see if they were something I felt confident creating.

I was having some difficulty locating examples, so my customer found a couple of links for me. After seeing the product that I was being asked about, I discovered that they could also be found by searching for Native American leather hair ties or wraps. This gave me an idea of the product that my customer was after. These hair accessories are meant to wrap around your hair braids and the solid leather part at the top is tied securely around the braids with the leather fringe hanging below. I asked for some specifics as to the preferred length of the solid and fringed portions as well as color preferences and then I was off to search for supplies and to investigate fringing methods.

I found a nice red suede piece of leather that looked like it would make what my customer had asked for. After researching fringing, I decided to use a multibladed tool to fringe the lower portion of the hair tides. I practiced on some scrap leather to get a feel for the tool. I had to be careful how I pulled the leather or the fringes would not come out right. After a bit of practice, it was time to create my customer’s custom hair tides. After fringing the pieces, I attached laces to each one for securing the hair wraps to her braids.

Since my hair is not long enough to braid, I needed a way to model the product for my client. I used the tail of my stuffed white tiger to simulate a hair braid. I have doubled up this image so that you can get a feel for what these Native American style leather hair wraps would look like when in use.

Feel free to contact me if you find something on my blog, in my Facebook photo albums or EDCCollective's sold listings that you like. If I don’t have the item but can recreate it or something similar, I’d love to make a custom piece for you.

Item availability update: I have begun listing my Native American Inspired Hair Wraps in my EDCCollective Etsy shop section Feathers, Leather n Wood as of 2/14/12. These wraps can be worn in a variety of ways. One example can be seen in this photo sent by one of my customers.

Design This – Native American Hair Accessories

I described in an earlier post how an Etsy alchemy listing led me to include feather wrap pendants to my offerings at EDCCollective. A recent alchemy listing inspired me to add feather hair accessories as well. The title of the alchemy listing was “Native American Necklace and Hair Accessories”. That peaked my interest and I clicked on the request to read the description. I responded with one of my feather wrap pendants and was told that a different style necklace was being looked for, but was asked if I could make something similar in a hair thong?

Hair thong, now that was a new term to me, so I did some research on the web and came back to my prospective customer with some ideas and questions. After getting some feedback, I sent a photo of mock ups of three different types of feathers that I had on hand that I thought would lend themselves to this project. My customer liked the design and feathers of the middle one the best, so I proceeded to complete a pair of Native American inspired hair thongs based on it.

I liked the way the gray and white feather mock up looked, so I made a couple of pair of hair thongs based on that design for my shop. The third photo in this post shows the completed custom hair thongs as well as the ones for my new shop listing. While looking for hair clips for this project, I found some that would compliment other feathers that I had in stock. I used these colorful new clips to create some peacock feather hair accessories.

I have really enjoyed working with the feathers and creating these wonderful hair accessories. The natural beauty of feathers allows them to be used for a variety of projects. Stay tuned to see what new creation I’m inspired to come up with next.