Amazon Handmade has created a space for customers to shop custom, handcrafted goods from sellers across a variety of categories, helping support entrepreneurs and micro-businesses worldwide—with the added perks of shopping Amazon’s store.
Top-selling categories within Amazon Handmade include home, kitchen, and jewelry, and the shopping experience features products from across the globe. Customers in the U.S. can shop by location, either at the state level or within one of six wider regions: the Pacific, Rocky Mountains, Southwest, Midwest, Northeast, and Southeast.
Meet sellers who turned their love of craft into top-selling products and successful small businesses:
Moonlight Makers
Six months after Claire and Nicole became neighbors in Asheville, North Carolina, they started a design and screen-printing business—Moonlight Makers. They draw humorous and heartwarming designs, and then screen print the designs on apparel, totes, and dish towels. The most popular designs make it onto magnets, stickers, koozies, cards, pins, coasters, and mugs.
Claire and Nicole renovated a short bus to sell their handmade wares at festivals in 2015. Since illustrating their first design, “Let That Shiitake Go,” they have added more than 300 designs, and also offer custom printing for local businesses.
Some of their best-selling products are the Funny Dish Towel, Sweet Dreams Are Made Of Cheese Who Am I To Dis A Brie? And the Funny Gardeners Mug.
BenShot
Photo by Brandon BjorkmanBruce and Ben—a father and son team—create a one-of-a-kind glassware with objects embedded in the glass, in their northern Wisconsin workshop. The vintage work space and wooded surroundings provide a unique glass-working environment resulting in truly extraordinary glassware. In five years, Amazon Handmade has helped the business grow from two employees to a team of 40 full-time employees. The team is deeply rooted in their community and has donated to over 500 nonprofits supporting a variety of causes, from children's hospitals to canine rehabilitation programs. BenShot glasses are great for hard-to-shop-for people like dads, coaches, and coworkers.
Specialty Wood Designs
Mike founded Specialty Wood Designs, a small business that creates handcrafted, one-of-a-kind wood products and gifts in a shop in Charlotte, North Carolina. The company specializes in kitchen products such as cutting boards and lazy susans, but also make other useful and artistic items for the home. Some of the small business' most popular kitchen products include Ambrosia Maple Wood Cutting Boards and theMaple Wood Kitchen Coffee Cup Holder.
Schafer Art Studio
Tim and Paige, a husband-and-wife team who started Schafer Art Studio, are based in Beaverton, Oregon. They are passionate about working with solid woods and crafting with colorful resin, resulting in functional serving trays and cutting boards that double as art. Inspired by the Pacific Northwest, top sellers include the food-safe maple wood cutting board and the rustic pine wood sign, made in their studio.
This Joyful Home
This Joyful Home was founded by Shanna in Ranchester, Wyoming. She began sewing baby slings and Mei Tai carriers in 2005, and has developed product lines over time, as she saw unmet needs. In 2014, she officially rebranded her business as This Joyful Home—to better reflect a more diverse collection of items. She sews, designs, and prints whimsical placemats for tables, pet bowls, coffee makers, and more. Shanna began creating paper towel replacements—“unpaper” towels—in 2008, and she's seen public interest skyrocket in recent years. Some key products from This Joyful home include the Keurig Coffee Maker Mat and Natural Reusable Unpaper Towels.
Sheep Farm felt
Photo by © Simon Lewis StudioMegan started Sheep Farm felt as a way to keep her hands busy and use the wool from her farm. She began by creating wool felt ball garlands and flowers from her dining room table. Within six months, she couldn’t keep up with the demand and partnered with a fair-trade company in Nepal to help produce felt products. Now her team has grown to seven employees, and their fair-trade partners have been able to grow from 50 to 300 artisans to keep up with the demand
Rebeca Flott Arts
Rebeca is an artist, entrepreneur, shop owner, and author who specializes in custom painted window screen art using her trademark mud. After spending her youth in South America, Rebeca now calls Florida home. She discovered screen painting, and now sells her original pieces and DIY painting kits through Rebeca Flott Arts. Popular items in her shop include Dandelion and White Peonies screen art.
