Local Saturday - Put a Cork on It

It goes without saying that buying local is best.

Why?   I can think of these reasons.

• You support a small businessperson, and his/her family.
• Maybe you support local employees, as that small businessperson thrives, and needs to hire to continue to grow.
• Your spent dollars stay within your community.
• You can sometimes check out where they produce what they produce or give the service they are providing, through open houses or giveaways.  

Through my years (started in 2009) of blogging, I have cyber-met some businesswomen from all over the world.  Starting today, I would like to give a shout out to some of these.

I had mentioned, the other day, I would blog a little about Sasha Johns, a woman from Alabama whose art has taken a little bit of a different direction.  Her creativity intrigues me.  I've never lived in Alabama, but I have lived in the South, including in Arkansas for five years.

I love the idea of upcycling - taking material that would otherwise be wasted, and making art or something useful with it.  Her Etsy shop features keychains and other jewelry made with wine corks.  She also sells wine jellies locally.

It may puzzle you, knowing that I live an hour or so from New York wine country, why I am giving today's shout out to someone from Alabama.  The reason is simple.  We need to help one another.  (In New York State, we can't grow those delicious Muscadine grapes you can in the South, either.)  At least one of these corks, Duplin, may have come from a bottle of delicious muscadine grapes.

Now I own a piece of her art (a letter A made from wine corks) thanks to a giveaway (thank you Sasha) and I am happy to get the word out about her local business.

And speaking of giveaways - we all love giveaways, but we should also buy from these local craftspeople.  I have been a bit negligent about that but there is a certain birthday coming up.

So I am going to revisit some of the crafts bloggers I have interacted with through the years, and see what I can do to make my special someone happy with a crafted gift.

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