Clay Wood & Cotton wants to be your source for the best handmade items for your home.  We look for artists who combine beauty with utility, and who put a sense of fun into their work.

Kristen is a Brooklyn mama  (to one young boy and two old cats) by way of upstate New York. When she was a little girl, she spent many weekends in the handmade gift shop that her grandmother owned. She learned how to sew and knit from her mother, and never went very long without a pen or marker in her hand. Somehow after college she ended up in publishing, but quit after a few years and enrolled in the Textile and Surface Design Program at F.I.T.

Kristy was a Brooklyn girl for a while too, by way of Houston, Texas. But now she lives north of the city in Beacon, NY, with her husband, lazy dog, and cat. Kristy has spent a few good years behind the scenes in the photo industry, never far from one (or three) computers, but always dreamed of owning a shop filled with all her favorite things.

Kristen and Kristy met on the New York craft scene, and soon bonded over bad jokes, good food, bad TV, good design, and not being able to throw anything away. Kristen was turning secondhand fabrics into home accessories for her Cakehouse line, and Kristy was turning the scraps from her husband's wood shop into bookmarks as Beacon Bookmarks. They began selling together at the Brooklyn Flea, and realized how well they and their products worked together. So they hatched a plan to start a website where they could sell their own wares, plus work from other handmade artists and designers who they liked and admired. And that became this very website that you now hold in your hands! (Or lap. Or desk.)

But something funny happened on the way to the web shop... A perfect little retail space came up for rent on Main Street in Beacon, Kristy's town.  They couldn't say no. So they stretched out the business plan a little, and jumped off the screen and into the brick + mortar world as well.

And they brought in Kristy's friend and neighbor Kelly to help out. Kelly is another Texas native who found her way to Beacon via NYC. Kelly is a "recovering art student", photographer, designer, writer, PR lady, and pathalogical networker. Case in point: She created the online networking site beaconcitizen.com. Kelly seemed like the perfect person to help our retail shop get a foothold in the Beacon community.

And so here we are! We're so happy to have made it this far, and are looking forward to growing Clay Wood & Cotton. As we move forward, we want to add to our inventory some paper products, knitting and sewing supplies, craft kits, and more. And we'd love to hear what you'd like to see here—please drop us a line at .

Thanks so much for stopping by,
XOXO

Kristen, Kristy & Kelly