The Enthusiasts - Wear your passion and pay it forward

I've refrained from using this blog to shill my crafty creations, but this new collection is just too good to not share in every possible medium I can!

A lot of my crafting designs lately have been...well, a little negative. I got angry, and sarcastic, and while I don't regret those designs, it was definitely time for something new. Introducing, all new from Femmecraft...

This collection came from a simple origin - I love people with passion. I don't care if I don't know the first thing about what you're passionate about. If you're truly, honestly passionate about something, that makes it interesting to me. My friends are an extraordinarily eclectic bunch as a result. I know writers, artists, mathematicians, builders, engineers, and programmers. I know people who swoon over the smell of a musty old book, and people who light up at the mention of RAM cycles. I know people who could tell you the entire family tree of Aragorn, and people who love nothing better than taking macro shots of the hairiest spiders they can find. The object of their passions are different, but that spark of enthusiasm is the same, and it's that spark that lights them up in my eyes.

The age of the internet has been both a curse and a blessing for those of us with less "usual" interests. No matter what you're into, if you can get on the internet, you don't have to be alone. As someone who grew up in a small town with no internet, and no community, the extraordinary gift of this sense of community is something that still amazes me every day. Want to talk about footwear styles in the court of King Louis XIV? There's a forum for that. You want to talk to other people about what type of wood makes the smoothest pipes to smoke from? There are whole corners of the internet devoted to that.

On the downside, being able to pull together huge communities across the globe easily can also create monstrosities like GamerGate. There are some people who think that having more people in a community means you have to be stricter about who can and can't be in their particular "club".

As a response to the amount of negative attention geek culture is getting right now, I've put together a collection of handmade jewellery designed to celebrate the obsessive - no matter what your obsession might be. As a reaction to the awful gatekeeping and rulemaking about who can and can't be a geek, I want to celebrate all sizes and shapes of geek, in the form of themed pendants.

I also wanted to do something with this collection, to actively contribute to the continuation of community rather than just celebrating it. So I've decided to donate 10% of the sale price of every pendant in this collection to a relevant charity. Here are the four pendants that make up the First Wave - these are all available from Femmecraft over on Etsy as of today.

• Word Nerd - a 30mm round pendant featuring a deep blue glitter polish background and a hand sculpted leatherbound book, under a hand drawn banner designed to represent the ruffled pages of a well loved book, this is the perfect gift for every Word Nerd.

Proceeds to the Children’s Book Council of Australia.    

 

•  History Buff - A 30mm round pendant featuring a deep plum holographic background and a hand sculpted quill, this is the perfect gift for anyone who can tell you exactly what years the Medieval period of history encompasses.

Proceeds to the National Museum of Australia.

 

• Gamer Geek - 30mm round pendant featuring a bright red sparkling glitter background and a hand sculpted Nintendo Controller, this is an essential for every square eyed obsessive.

Proceeds to Extra Life, gamers supporting the Miracle Children’s Hospital Network.

• Comic Fanatic - 30mm round pendant featuring a sparkling teal glitter glitter background and a hand sculpted comic style speech bubble, this is an ideal gift for anyone who has a stance on DC Vs Marvel.

Proceeds to the Comic Book Liberation Defence Fund

And that's just the first wave! I also have in the works;

• STEMinist (supporting the Ada Initiative)

• Sex Geek (proceeds to ACON)

• Dog Person (proceeds to Monika’s Rescues)
• Derby Folk (supporting the Sydney Roller Derby League)

• Cat Fancier (proceeds to the Cat Protection Society)

Huge, right? This is absolutely the biggest project I've taken on since I started Femmecraft, and honestly, I'm a little worried it will collapse in a pile of nothing. I really want to sell enough of these to make some significant donations, and to do that I need exposure. I've sent out a press release (hah, how official!) and approached some bloggers, but dammit, I want more. And that's where you can help! If these pendants speak to you, if they would suit someone you know, if you could tweet this or link it, or hell, just tell your Mum they're nice, I would be eternally grateful.

With that, I'll end my uncharacteristically shameless self promotion. For now, head on over to Femmecraft and check it all out, and next time it'll be back to the beauty!