She's Crafty!

She’s Crafty!

By Lisa M. Thibodeau

Missy Ballance is the kind of girl everyone wants as her friend. There’s never a dull moment chatting with her, she loves Mexican food and knows how to enjoy a Krispy Kreme, and she doesn’t take herself too seriously. As a hands-on mom, she shows a genuine tenderness for her two small daughters. As an artist and a member of the Sacramento Craft Mafia, she shows her mad skills on the sewing machine, rocks a distinctive DIY style and demonstrates a dangerous level of business savvy! Missy is the owner of Mohair Circus and Snap Happy Graphics. She is also one of the Sacramento Craft Mafia’s best hit women.

A Brief History of the Mafia

Banding together in November 2006, the Sacramento Craft Mafia organized so that local artists could support each other as they launched and grew their crafting businesses. The first Craft Mafia was organized in Austin, Texas in 2003 by a few creative business women devoted to the DIY ethos and attitude. At last count, there were 45 groups popping up in cities across the country. The Sacramento chapter is a diverse bunch of lady artists who knit, crochet, sew and alter with enough daring and moxie to impress the Godfather himself.

The Mafia ladies are fiercely loyal to one another (as famiglia should be), sharing information, encouraging new family-members and celebrating each other’s successes as they spread their crafty goodness to the masses. Their website professes a code of peace and love—stabbing in the back with knitting needles is not condoned.

The “sisterhood” meets once a month in person to network. They also host craft shows and reach out to the local crafting community by offering classes and tutorials. Serious about their businesses and seeking to be profitable, the Mafia’s members promote themselves through their websites and at craft shows, selling their wares on Etsy.com, and chronicling their trials and triumphs in their blogs.

The fun of it aside, blogging is one very important way these artists promote themselves. Missy explains, “It’s an important business tool, a way to connect with the global crafting community and share ideas, and it gives you a view of how other artists work.”

Tamie Snow, fellow mafiosa, mom and blogger (Roxycraft.wordpress.com), agrees: “I have definitely seen my business increase since I started blogging.” She adds that she appreciates the serendipitous nature of how her customers sometimes discover her crafts through her blog. “It’s awesome!”

Finding Ballance

Missy Ballance works her magic in a craft room painted the girliest shade of pink, where her affinity for vintage fabrics and whimsical creatures is apparent in the very cool stuff she creates. Her sweet mohair bears, fairytale bunnies and adorable tooth fairy pillows tell the story of a crafter who has not forgotten the magic of childhood. But beyond her own work, Missy also serves as the group’s Treasurer, has founded an artists’ co-op site (GlitterandGrunge.com), dabbles in graphic arts (she is self-taught), designs rubber stamps, sells on Etsy.com and regularly whips up blog entries with generous helpings of exclamation points and sideways smiley faces. (You can get to her blog, on her “Crafty Carnival” site, through MohairCircus.com.) So, how does she manage to balance all this with being a full-time mom to daughters Gracie, 6, and Daisy, 3? Missy laughs, “People always ask me, ‘when do you sleep?’” To which she replies, “Oh, I sleep all the time, but I don’t clean my house.”

Missy says that balancing motherhood and her work takes a lot of patience and resourcefulness. Luckily, she is plenty resourceful, and her sense of humor is as quick and light as her whipstitch. “Many days I work when [the girls] are napping, or in school, or I give them buttons to glue on to paper to keep them busy in the craft room.” She adds with a smile, “There is definitely glue on my carpet.” Like many of the group’s crafty moms, Missy finds her time crafting cathartic, a way to express her creative side which was nurtured in her by her own mom. She hopes she is instilling in her own daughters a love of creating things and an appreciation for the homemade.

Mohair bears are Missy’s specialty and are somewhat of a niche market. A bit pricey, mohair is unique and not commonly used by other crafters, but the decidedly retro fabric, combined with anime-inspired proportions and styling, give Missy’s bears a distinctive, one-of-a-kind look. “My look is very hip, not your traditional teddy bear,” Missy explains. Some of Missy’s bears sport tiny tiaras, or little dresses or scarves, and each one is heirloom quality and utterly charming.

Many crafters in the group are influenced by the anime genre (think Hello Kitty proportions), as evidenced in the big eyes and ginormous round heads of many of their craft creatures. Many of the Mafia’s crafters also share Missy’s love of retro, yet their wares are all decidedly non-traditional (there is not a doily in sight), and they enjoy pushing the envelope with styles that are riotous—even subversive. The tag line heading Tamie Snow’s website, Roxycraft, says it all… “patterns that don’t suck.”

At SacramentoCraftMafia.com you can nab everything from a tie-dyed onesie, complete with skull and crossbones, to a naughty notebook done up with vintage Fredericks of Hollywood catalog pages. Deconstructed and recycled fashions abound, as do original handmade accessories (including Dia De Los Muertos-inspired necklaces and earrings), but you’ll also find wooden toys and whimsical stuffed animals, sweet Tees and beautiful blankies.

Famiglia First

Surprisingly, the urge to create wasn’t always a part of Missy’s life. It wasn’t until after college and working, when she was home with her kids, that she began to dabble in crafts again. “I think it’s the period of your life when you have some time to think and that whole nesting-phase thing kicks in.”

Fellow mafia mama Tamie Snow, owner of Roxycraft, agrees, “I was never crafty until I was about ready to give birth to my son, then all of a sudden I decided to make him a mobile.” The mobile, with its fanciful crocheted creatures, turned out so cute that she decided to make more and try to sell them. Not long after, an article in a magazine launched her business selling crocheted doll and animal patterns. “It just took off,” Tamie says. Now she balances an energetic toddler (Jackson is 2) with her work. “I do it when he sleeps, stay up late, but I have found a rhythm—still, my son always comes first.”

Tamie encourages moms who want to start a business to begin a blog. “It’s a window to your work,” she explains. She also stresses the importance of doing shows, saying it is important to “keep your face out there.” But having a website, she thinks, is the most important piece because it “gives you legitimacy.” Having your own book can’t hurt either. Tamie is now eagerly awaiting the arrival of her first book, Tiny Yarn Animals: Amigurumi Friends to Make and Enjoy. It hits book stores this August, but you can already check out some of the patterns and see her super-cute crocheted creatures on her website: Roxycraft.com.

What’s next for these ambitious moms? Missy can’t say exactly what her next goals might be. “My husband keeps asking me if I have ‘made it.’” She has been on HGTV, designed products for other companies, and has sold a lot of her work. “Of course, I would love to make a lot of money,” Missy says, “but for right now this is good because I can be home with my daughters, and they need me.” Missy and the rest of the Mafia are having fun doing what they love and packing heat—in hot glue gun form, of course!

DO Try This At Home:
Both Missy and Tamie have shared tutorials with us this month! Learn how to make adorable bunnies, just in time for spring! Click on In This Issue and look for Missy's tutorial under our new column, "Crafty Mama."
Or crochet your own super-cute Gabu Creature. Just click on In This Issue and look under Online Extras for Tamie's tutorial.

Top of the Hit List: Fibertastic! 
Some SCM members will be out in full-force at this fiberarts showcase and sale event, happening Saturday, March 8 next door to the Coffee Garden (2904 Franklin Blvd. in Sacramento). 3pm – on. There will be an art show, spinning wheel demonstration, fashion show, and plenty of offers you can’t refuse.