In this post we want to introduce you to Karmele, which is the person behind the Olelé brand. She crafts with their own hands and lots of imagination to create some great fans that  they have already flown to homes of the entire world.

We met Karmele in the network. But while Jositajosi were into a market where we participated, she came to meet us in person.It was a kind gesture that says a lot about her.

Karmele always was related to crafts. When she was a child, she tells us that she spent hours drawing and experimenting with handy materials. She had never been considered a person with an aptitude for art, despite having graduated in Fine Arts!!! The fact is that she is a restless person who still likes to experiment with new techniques as she did as a child. Anything that involves learning creating appeals to her.

Fabrics used for her precious fans serve as inspiration for their work. “I like touching and watching the cloths for a while, finding repetitions and deciding how to fit the pattern within the fan. There are fabrics that appear to have been designed specifically for it, and others that I love but are very difficult to cut.”

Most materials are bought online because Karmele lives in a relatively small town. She would have to move out to buy the materials so is more economical to order them out online.

By the moment, Olelé only sells at Etsy store. Karmele decided to start little by little and learn how it works the online trade. Etsy allows her to place your shop in a short time and easily. Perfect for the beginings when you still do not know exactly how to do a lot of things.

From the first, she knew that she wanted to open his shop in English and with prices in $, as the market is wider. Most of Olelé orders come from the U.S.A., especially California and New York. She also has Spanish and Australian customers and recently she had an order from South Korea which was received with enthusiasm and excitement!. Karmele is considering participating in a fair, looking forward to meet other designers she already knows through the net but not in person.

From Jositajosi, we wish you good luck! 

As we already posted previously, Jositajosi wants to use this blog not only to speak about our works and experiences. But also to tell you what inspires us and to show crafts of other designers and artisans that we meet along the way and little by little they gained a foothold in our hearts. Let me introduce you to Aroa Schwandt, a very good jewelry designer and even better person. We know her since we coincide with her in Nómada SuperMarket in October, 2009 and since then she has become very fond of us. Just take a look at the photo to see she is also as crazy as us ;)

Jositajosi met Aroa through facebook, and by chance, as both brands were selected for an exhibition in Madrid. We were simply lost about preparations and with thousands of questions because none of us had been before in fairs of this kind, so we decided to stay together.

Since we could not come to Madrid the weeks before Nómada to see the space for the stand. She began, sua sponte, a tradition that she keeps whenever we coincide on a fair. It turns out that, Aroa, always send us a picture of our stand space and his location at the fair. This way, all the times that we were coinciding, she was sending us the mentioned photo.

Thank you for your gesture! We expect to be able to make the same if she decides to come to a fair on the north.

Aroa devotes himself to silver jewelry confection combining silver with different materials; as recycled glass, olive wood or semiprecious stones. One of her collections that we more like is “Aigua” (water in catalán). In “Aigua”, Aroa combines silver with glass, but not a standard glass. She picks up pieces of crystal that sea has polished and rounded on the beaches of Barcelona, her hometown.

  In her words:

“We dirty the sea, and sea gives it back pretty”

Take a look on the web, she recently opened an Etsy shop and revamped her website with new collections. You can also follow Aroa through her blog.

If you do not know what to give to a girl, try an Aroas’s handcrafted present. You will hit the nail on the head, sure. We hope you will enjoy her jewelry as much as we do.