The Mandalah team down in Sao Paulo has created some interesting handmade tickets for next week’s Good Ideas in Collaboration Salon.

Architect Emily Fischer has created a series of quilts that map out cities and neighborhoods.

Peter Atwood, a handmade knife and tool maker, runs a small blog that keeps fans updated on his latest batch of tools, which often get snatched up at lightning speed.  For a tiny producer of homemade items, selling out all products within a day is quite a feat.
Atwood apprenticed in the Shenandoah Valley with a well known blacksmith and in 2000, became hooked on custom knives.  He honed his skilled and specialized in small tools, folding knives and little gadgets.  He gradually turned his obsession into a business and shares his feelings about his work online, creating a strong following.  [...]

Best Made Co. is the only company in the world that manufactures one of a kind, limited-edition axes. These artisanal tools are hand-painted and constructed in a small New Jersey workshop, made up of a head hand forged in Maine, and a handle made of hickory from Tennessee.
Though an unusual piece, a Best Made Co. axe will apparently last for generations. Each one is backed up by a certificate of authenticity, an edition number, and a hand-engraved mark.
At the moment, the axes are available on the Best Made Co. website, and in a small number of retail shops.

[via We Love [...]

This weekend marked the first annual Makers Market, located in Long Island City’s Socrates Sculpture Park in New York. The fair, invoking Long Island City’s historical legacy of manufacturing and craftsmanship, brought thirty vendors, offering handmade wares from motorcycles to jewelry and furniture. The tented displays included one-of-a-kind pieces, along with other products made in small editions, and visitors could also attend a panel discussion with Andrew Wagner, editor emeritus of American Craft and current editor of ReadyMade magazine. Otto snapped a series of interesting photos of the waterside marketplace, along with impressions of several of their favorite finds; we [...]

A new law scheduled to go in effect February 10th may limit or prohibit many hand crafted toy makers to continue selling their products. The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act will mandate intensive and expensive testing procedures for toys and clothing designed for children under the age of 12. The law is designed to look out for lead and other harmful substances in kids items, but the expense may be too much for small scale operations to bear. Its reported that such third party tests can run as high $50,000 which puts it out of reach for all but the [...]