Author: PHW

Becky McGraw

As a young girl, Becky’s passion for baking began in the kitchen helping her family bake Christmas cookies. For the past 6 years, she has been the owner of Beckaboo’s Cakes, specializing in custom cakes, cupcakes, cake pops and cookies for a variety of special occasions.

Beckaboo’s Cakes is passionate about combining sugar and art. We strive to provide our customers with a unique dessert which is not only beautiful, but tastes amazing as well.

We are located in Winchester, Virginia and serve the Shenandoah Valley, Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia and Northern Virginia.

The selection at the Bough and Dough Shop will include chocolate peppermint or gingerbread cake rolls, gourmet holiday cookies, whipped buttercream cupcakes, holiday cake pops and truffles, candied nuts, and more.

Visit Beckaboo’s Cakes online at www.beckabooscakes.com or Facebook.

John & Wendy R. Venskoske

J & W Farm started four years ago by John and Wendy R. Venskoske, Jr. with the idea of adding value to local agricultural products. For Christmas that year, we made these birdseed wreaths to give to family members, friends, and wife’s co-workers. They were so much appreciated that we decided to offer it to our current retail outlets that we were selling our food products to. They have been a hit and steadily growing. We use a special blend of birdseed from two local feed stores and custom make them with seasonal ribbon and/or special requests. For Valentine’s Day, we offer a Heart shaped wreath. Our Holiday Birdseed Wreaths are packaged for gift giving and shipping!

Visit J & W Farm online at www.jandwfarm.com and Facebook.

Monkeytown Pottery

My first experiences with art go back to when I was a small child and my mother was studying art, while she would work in her sketch book, I would work in mine. My love of art intensified in high school. Because it was just so much fun and as my skills developed I found that the moment of creating art felt almost like magic.

I continued my art studies at James Madison and discovered Ceramics. I immediately loved everything about the medium. I kept drawing too and my other favorite medium was pastels. Both ceramics and pastels make art rather quickly and that magical feeling of creation was always there. At this time I was lucky to get an apprenticeship with potter Scott Supraner of Hawksbill Pottery and continued to apprentice him after I graduated from James Madison. Ceramics stayed in my life for the next ten years but at that time I left drawing behind.

In 2001 I bought family property (a general store that was my Grandmother’s and my Great Grandfather’s before) in a little village officially called Bloomfield but unofficially called Monkeytown. Monkeytown Pottery was born and I have been making functional and sculptural ceramic forms there ever since. My love of drawing came back to me during this time and drawing and carving on pots became my new passion defining my style in a way that completes my pots in a new and exciting way.

Recently Monkeytown Pottery has added a gas fired reduction kiln to its back yard. So now I offer a cone 10 line of functional ware as well as oxidized ware.

Monkeytown Pottery offers all sorts of functional pots for the kitchen and home: mugs, dinnerware, baking ware, platters, large bowls colanders, batter bowls and crocks. Also Art Pots for the home and garden: vases, bird baths, masks, face pots, and intensely carved pots!

Visit Monkeytown Pottery online at www.monkeytownpottery.com and Facebook.

Graustark Farm’s Fiber Products

Linda Brown has been spinning, weaving and felting with fiber for over fifteen years. Her foray into the fiber world started with spinning angora from her daughter’s 4H bunny. From there she progressed to raising a few sheep and llamas. After realizing how soft, luxurious and easy to clean the llama fiber could be, Linda developed a breeding program to raise a variety of llamas specifically for their soft fiber and good temperaments. Llama fiber is different from sheep wool in that it is a hair fiber which has no barbs and contains no lanolin.

Through the farm business, Graustark Farm LLC, Linda uses her llamas’ fiber to create custom wearing apparel and accessories through weaving, knitting, crochet and felting. The process starts on the farm with shearing in the spring and then progresses through hand spinning the yarn to weaving or other needlework. Almost all of Linda’s designs are created with her own handspun yarn from llamas living on the farm; other fibers may be added for color or texture. In addition to using llama fiber for her own designs and private commissions, Linda creates with the other farm fibers of alpaca and Romney wool as time allows. The farm participates in fiber shows and promotes llama fiber as a new horizon in luxury fiber.

Linda feels that education about llamas and their wonderful fiber is as important as the sale itself. She hold the position of Senior Consultant with the Camelidynamics program of llama and alpaca handling and training as well as being active in several regional llama associations. Graustark Farm displays llamas and Linda’s fiber art in various settings, such as the Bluemont Fair, Shenandoah Valley Fiber Festival, the Blue Ridge Spinners and Weavers Guild, Franklin Park Arts Center Gallery and of course by appointment on the farm. Learn more about llamas and their fiber on the farm web site, www.graustarkllamas.com

LSN Soap Company

It all started with a bottle of lavender, and our Little Sugar, Mia!

In 2006 I began learning about essential oils and the amazing benefits of using these gifts on our bodies to help heal and nourish. This sparked an interest and curiosity for learning about how we can work towards freeing our lives of all the toxins. At the time our daughter, Mia, was just over a year old and I wanted nothing but the purest of products for her little body. Throughout my quest to find products that were safe and effective I decided to try my hand at making it myself. I spent the next year learning how to make body butter that didn’t contain any of the “yucky” stuff!

I attended our first Christmas bazaar at Skyline HS in December of 2008. At the time, and for the next seven years, people fell in love with Little Sugar Naturals and our signature product, Whipped Body Butter. We created our logo (the purple circle) and began to have quite a following of local and regional customers.

During the summer of 2015 we decided it was time to become official. We became a limited liability company (LLC) and changed our name and logo slightly. The LSN Soap Company reflects what we do! We are not just soap, though! Now we provide people with everything they need to care for their skin, and we are super duper proud of that!

Even though our name isn’t Little Sugar Naturals anymore, Mia is still the inspiration for every minute I’m in the kitchen and every mile we log traveling around to sell our products.

What began as an interest to provide the best for our Little Sugar, became a passion that has since become beloved by not just our family and friends, but our community as well.

Your LSN family will continue to work tirelessly to provide you and your family with the purest, most nourishing handcrafted body products.

Click the thumbnails to view larger images of LSN products, or visit LSN at www.littlesugarnaturals.com.

Nina J. Design Studios is a woman owned business engaged in the creation of handbuilt pottery, mixed media paintings and limited edition wearable art made from fine silk and cotton. We are located in the beautiful Shenandoah valley, Virginia.

Our story begins with a young girl who was born in India. Starting from childhood, Neena (Nina J) had an appreciation for beauty and artistic things. Her father’s desire was for her to be multifaceted in her career choices. Neena fulfilled her father’s resolution that her university studies focus on the sciences as well as the arts. Her passion has always been arts, spirituality and nature and she believes that science, the arts and religion coexist harmoniously.

The realization of each of Nina J’s mixed media paintings has been rooted in her dreams; artictic figures, nature and aquatic scenes with vibrant and bold colors have always been at the forefront of her designs. Instead of making prints of the artwork we decided to share the beauty with the world in the form of limited edition silk scarves and apparel.

The lucidity of her dreams carried over into the garden where all the flowers and herbs prompted her to expand into clay. Each handbuilt piece of pottery starts in the garden with fresh flowers and herbs. Leveraging her artistic bent Nina J presses these botanicals into the clay. The finished pieces have a fossilized finish, immortalizing the pressed botanicals. We make vases, bowls, plates, platters, serving dishes, specialty products like spoonrests, soap dishes, jewelry keepers and mugs that are all food safe, dishwasher and microwave safe. We also make signature clay jewelry. Each piece is a unique, signatured work of art.

The pottery pieces inspired Nina J. to make blocks for the specific purpose of designing wearable art from those blocks. This idea gave birth to our latest, closed loop, proprietary method of creating our limited edition wearable and usable art – scarves in silk and cotton, shawls, scrunchies, ponchos and table linens.

Our objective is to harvest nature’s gifts and transform them into wearable and/or functional pieces of art. Each piece will bring a smile to your face and peace in your heart and all eyes will be upon you as you adorn her gorgeous wearable art.

We sell our products through boutiques and museums throughout the USA. To provide further uniqueness to our products and processes we have museums who harvest botanicals from their gardens and ship them to us for their specific creations. We also have the ability to do custom work.

“Live and Walk with Art”

Click the thumbnails for larger images of Nina J.’s work, or visit her website at www.ninastudios.com

“Madeira” Hand Carved Wood Products

Since my youth I have admired trees and loved wood. I love working with wood and sharing my knowledge with others. Out of desire and economic necessity, I have made most of the furniture for our home. About sixteen years ago, my mother-in-law asked me if I could make her some spoons from scraps. I told her that I would try, and I did. As it turns out, she never used them. Instead she hung them on her kitchen wall, where they still hang today. When we visit her, and I look at those spoons, I tell her that if anyone asks who made them, not to tell them it was me! Those original spoons were crude. But with practice I have refined my product.

I have expanded to bowls and other utilitarian accessories. My wife and partner, assists me with the design ideas, marketing and sales, and the occasional back rub after a long day of carving and shaping.

Most of my wood comes from our wood lot, trees that have been damaged by storms or attacked by insects. Though, I will never turn down a log or piece of wood given to me.

We sell our product at craft fairs in Virginia, West Virginia and at Farm Markets. Our spoons are in gift shops at Belle Grove Plantation, and the Museum of the Shenandoah Valley in Winchester, Virginia. We enjoy working with the public. We have developed friendships with our fellow crafters and our customers.

We strive to sell a quality product at a reasonable price.

Watercolorist

Eugene’s refined approach to watercolors includes wet-on-wet and dry-brush techniques. He uses a subtle palette, preferring to let the water coexist with the pigment in each composition. Eugene also works in printmaking and Chinese brushwork.

His subjects range from the nearby mountains and historic villages to the dunes and seascapes of coastal Carolina and Florida. Two separate bodies of Eugene’s include an Asian inspired style featuring meditative still-life compositions and his Abstract artwork which is thought provoking and ever changing……ideal for a burst of energy in any space.

Eugene’s diversity of styles has created a large market, leading him to establish the Eugene B. Smith Gallery in Old Town Winchester, Virginia. He shows his work at this gallery, at juried exhibits throughout the U.S, and at special events, including charitable benefits.

His works are included in private collections internationally, and he has held a one-man exhibition in Okayama, Japan.

A largely self-taught artist, Eugene is a graduate of Lord Fairfax Community College in Virginia and Shepherd College in West Virginia, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Business.

Click the thumbnails for larger images of Eugene’s work, or visit his website at www.eugenebsmith.com