Long Island Craft Shows

Online sites showcase local items

CORNING, Iowa — Larry Badgett and his wife, Isako, live at the end of a long gravel road that cuts through the rolling hills of Adams County.

It's a quiet spot, far enough from neighbors and from town that the rumble of a car over the dirt can mean only one of two things: Someone is visiting, or someone is lost.

For an entrepreneur like Badgett, who makes intricate wood carvings from trees he cuts down and mills on his own property, it's not exactly a high-profile location — but that's not stopping him from making sales.

Sometimes, he travels hours to set up a table at a craft fair or gun show. But these days, he's also doing business without leaving home.

The retired manufacturing worker is one of a growing number of entrepreneurs and artists turning to websites that feature products made in a particular state or region. From artwork to candles, cookbooks, jewelry, jam and salad dressing, online marketplaces based in Iowa and Nebraska are multiplying in number and attracting customers from outside of the Midwest and, in some cases, outside of the United States.

One of the largest is GROW Nebraska, a nonprofit marketing and training group that operates a website and three retail shops in Kearney, Grand Island and Norfolk.

Buy Iowa Online, the site where Badgett sells his woodworking creations, was launched in 2009 by the Southwest Iowa Coalition, an umbrella group for economic development organizations in a 22-county region of the state. Two years later, the site has 39 sellers and is poised to go statewide.

Lynn Adams, the coalition's director and an economic development specialist with the Iowa State University Extension office in Red Oak, said an online marketplace was a natural fit for southwest Iowa, a primarily rural area where there are plenty of people who want to start small businesses — but not necessarily the traffic or the resources they need to get started.

Many of the sellers who use Buy Iowa make and sell their wares as a second job, she said, so convenience is important.

“It's very difficult when people are trying to supplement their incomes and work another job,” she said.

Long Island's Patricia Stewart: Celebrity Jewelry Designer ...

When Patricia Stewart started to make handcrafted jewelry, she knew she had found her calling.  So she started PS Designs, her own jewelry line, in 2000.  She traveled all over Long Island at craft fairs and special events selling her jewelry.  Fast forward to 2007, where Patricia was recognized like few others when she was discovered by a celebrity stylist at Sunrise Mall in Massapequa and was asked to design a custom necklace for Chandra Wilson of Grey’s Anatomy for the People’s Choice Awards, as well as her appearance on Oprah.  Patricia designed the now famous “The Chandra,” a crystal heart necklace made of 1,130 Swarovski crystals resembling a mass of diamonds.  Chandra Wilson even brought a gift to Oprah herself, who loved the piece so much she sent Patricia an autographed picture of her wearing it.

Needless to say, today Patricia is fulfilling her dreams of creating beautiful handcrafted jewelry.  She has also started Passion Charms, a company that has over 1,000 styles of Sterling Silver charms with Swarovski crystal and Cubic Zirconium stones.  You can find Passion Charms as well as Patricia’s handcrafted jewelry at her store in the Walt Whitman Mall in Huntington.  Below is a small sample of her stunning styles.

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