I got my Certified Handmade Seller Artifact!

CreativeCritters is now officially a Certified Handmade Seller!

This week Artfire.com opened the Certified Handmade Artifact Application Process for members who voluntarily commit to keeping their ArtFire offerings entirely within the Handmade and Fine Art categories. I'm not the only one who's been waiting for this one! All of my work has always been created with my own two hands, so filling out the application was no problem. Everything in my shop is listed under Handmade or Fine Art. My studio meets all the requirements, including being a PRO member of ArtFire for at least 60 days (I joined ArtFire in Feb 2009), being in good standing with ArtFire (I have a Karma score of 10), having a complete studio with a banner, avatar, studio policies, and bio with picture, and having good product photos. I make sculptures, dolls and plush toys, catnip toys, jewelry, and more and had to explain my creative process for each (that part probably took the longest). I also had to include pictures of my work space (which is always cluttered -LOL), as well as a picture of a work in progress. This lead to the creation of Remus Critter. Since I had just finished my project I had to start a new one in order to get some WIP pictures. This really wasn't asking too much because I'm always working on something. I was in the mood for something fun, and Remus was perfect. There was no actual "plan" for creating this critter, I just sort of came up with him as I went along. He's inspired by A Critter With Heart from Dinko Tilov's Creating Fantasy Polymer Clay Characters. I actually took pictures of the entire process (just for fun, and for later projects). Of course the hard part of the whole application process was waiting to receive the artifact! I know I'm not the only one who was checking her studio every so often during the day, just waiting for that beautiful blue hand to show up! And when I got my approval email I just had to do a little happy dance. Now everyone who enters my shop will know that I'm a Certified Handmade Artisan!
I'm very proud to have earned this particular artifact!
And just for fun, here are some of the pictures of the creation of Remus Critter.

Thanks for dropping by!
-Michelle of CreativeCritters