Meet Featured Artists Jose and Brandi of Josandi Crafts

What is your business’ name? Our business name is Josandi Crafts and we are Jose and Brandi.

What sort of items do you make? We make hand-crafted items out of various metal wires and beads.  All of which are hand-made pieces including bracelets, necklaces, key-chains, and bookmarks.   Our booth at the indie market features a various array of different styles of necklaces and bracelets, most of which are chainmaille.  We also make bracelets made from glass crystals, charms, and various gemstones. 

When and how did you learn your craft? I learned how to do chainmaille and other forms of jewelry a good time back.  Since I'm self-taught, learning was as easy as watching a few Youtube videos and giving things my own kind of take.

Where do you get your inspiration from? I was actually watching Shark Week on discovery channel a while back and Mike Rowe was fixing a chainmaille shark suit.  I wondered if that style of craft would look good as a jewelry.  I did my research and realized its quite a common form of jewelry-making.

How did you get started doing this as a business? We decided to start doing this as a business when we were working on projects at our places of work and school during breaks and people would approach us with design questions and ask to purchase our items. 

Do you have any advice for other crafters/artisans just starting out? If you have fun doing what you are doing, try not to focus on the money aspect of it so much.  Just do what you do, and the money part will usually come along with it.  All of your pieces will be admired and desired by somebody somewhere, you just have to be patient and wait for that person to get a chance to see what it is you've done that suits their own personal needs.  Who knows, maybe one day your pieces will be on public figures. :)

Anything else you would like to share? A lot of the times when you hear the words 'chainmaille' and 'jewelry', your thoughts instantly go to armor, diamond rings and Pandora© bracelets.  But with Josandi Crafts, it's more than that.  Our jewelry is 100% hand-made, and our chainmaille is put together piece by piece to ensure that our product is worth being put on the shelf with a price tag.  The last thing we want is for someone to purchase an item from us, and not have it be worth their money.

Josandi Crafts will be a featured artist at the First Friday Indie Market on November 7, 2014. The market is located on the corner of MLK and Elm St in Downtown Greensboro, NC and is open from 4-9 pm.