Etsy pop-up returns to Toronto, here are six artisans that caught our eye – by Debra Norton

The Made & Found featured recently in Australia’s Fashion Journal:

Toronto-based label The Made & Found create quality travel products you won’t want hiding at the bottom of your suitcase. Handmade from natural products with everyday use in mind in mind, their sustainable selection of totes, travel kits and drawstring bags combine a bright and clean aesthetic with functionality and durability.

Each product is designed with love and purpose, for ease of travel and living. The Travel Kit has a designated toothbrush pocket so it no longer sleeps with your hairbrush, and the Drawstring Packing Bag makes the prettiest little laundry bag you’ve ever seen. There are 16 products in the range, each featuring neutral cotton fabrics with a unique pop of colour.

New totes! New totes! New totes!

Continuing with the rounded shape of the drawstring travel bags, three new tote bags have just been added to the shop – Ocean, Rocket Pop, and Taffy. Inspired by eating orange creamsicles by the sea, rocket pops, and salt water taffy wrapped in waxy translucent paper.

To me drawstring bags are essential when packing for travel. I love them! I like to keep everything organized in separate bags. One for underwear, socks and bathing suits, one for yoga stuff, another for t-shirts and tank tops, one for sweaters or anything that might snag or get fuzzy, one more for dirty laundry (no dirty stuff floating around mixing with clean stuff!), and an extra one just in case. Oh, and shoes go in one too!

I used to feel like a bit of a weirdo, but recently I’ve met a few other people who also pack this way, and I’m quite sure there are many more of you out there. It’s okay. Come on out and be a proud packing nerd!

Pictured above is one of the new cotton drawstring bags now available in the shop.

Here’s a little video on how to ninja fold your t-shirts. Imagine going into a wash n’ fold laundry place and it was run by ninjas! They would be dressed in all black – balaclavas, tabi boots, and all. Your clothes would be folded up super fast and wrapped nicely in fabric bags. I would never do my own laundry again and that video game music would be the soundtrack to life.

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I have a thing for wrapping things up. I just love it. It probably came from watching old kung fu movies with my grandmother when I was a kid. Not those kung fu movies teenaged boys would watch, that were all about fighting, and being absurdly aggressive. These ones had more of a storyline, not that they were any less over the top. What I remember so fondly is a detail so ridiculously small, no one in their right mind would have cared about it. I loved that the characters always wrapped things up in fabric. Things like food, some magic herbal medicine, or some other valuable something or other. Oh, and when someone was running away (someone was always running away or being told to leave, forever!) they would wrap their belongings in a piece of fabric. It was never fancy or precious, just a piece of fabric (made of natural fibre with nice texture usually).

I was also a bit obsessed with the show Top Chef when it first came out. What really stuck with me was when a contestant was sent home. “Please pack your knives and go.” Padma would say, and then there would be a calculated shot of them going back to the kitchen to pack their knives in these really great knife rolls! They would just put all their knives in it, roll it, tie it, and “go”. I wished I had a knife roll. I wished I had really nice knives. I wished I had a reason to have really nice knives. And I wished I had a place to go with my really nice knives so that I too could wrap them up and go . . . somewhere, anywhere. But I didn’t. I didn’t have any of those things. I did have some make-up brushes however, two of which I actually know how to use, and they needed organizing. Yes! So I made my first make-up brush roll. And of course it had to be made of natural materials with nice texture.

The first photo is the Folded Paper Furoshiki cloth by Link Collective.

On the website of Japan’s Ministry of the Environment you can learn how to wrap up all kinds of things!

The other two photos are of the Lemon Make-up Brush Roll available in The Made & Found Shop.

We’re in the middle of a cold, grey winter, and the view out my window is so dreary I’ve taken mood altering (without the use of drugs) into my own hands. Colour! Or color (if you’re American)! I need to see some bright, warm, happy colours!!!

In Toronto, it’s a well known fact that the subway is the dreariest place, with the dreariest faces. The only thing drearier is the subway in the middle of winter. I would love if everyone could just make the small effort to wear some colour. Not black, not grey, not navy. When I’m bored on the subway I like to count the number of people who are wearing something that is not black, grey, navy or some other dark neutral and I usually get as high as 3, occasionally 5. To top that off everyone looks as though their dog or best friend just died, which I suppose may be true, but most likely not. So I like to look at each person and imagine them laughing their ass off, or imagine them getting what they want most in life, and then I imagine what that might be. That’s when things get fun. You should try it.

Here are a few new things I’ve made, to make me feel like the sun is shining, even in the middle of a snow storm. A make-up brush roll, travel case, and drawstring packing bag in light blue, cream, and tangerine orange, colours that make me think of the ocean, the beach, and orange creamsicles.  All available in the shop, except the drawstring bags, which will be available next week. Notice how happy it looks in snow?