Briana was born with a glue gun in her hand.  As a young girl, she turned cardboard boxes into dollhouses, complete with candytuft hand-tied bouquets fit for Barbie.  Unique paper dolls drawn on the back of her father's dissertation proved to be a big hit in the family, along with the Bouche de Noels and pasta carbonara she attempted. She moved onto embroidery and cross stitching while in elementary school, started sewing at ten years old, and took up linoleum cutting.  High School gave her the ultimate cheesecake education and the desire to create.  While pursuing her BFA at the University of Georgia, she studied commercial interior design and that gave her access to all the art classes, including drawing, sculpture, and art history. Upon graduation and after a quick trip to Disney World, she settled down in Hot Springs, Arkansas and worked as a designer for a pair of awesome architects.  She was gainfully employed for over 5 years and then decided to be a stay at home mom to her 2 busy, little boys.  Little did she know, that an etsy shop, www.nest.etsy.com was her ticket to creating and crafting.  It gave her the confidence to experiment with making soap and sewing fun items and selling it at the local farmer's market.  She is involved in the Sprouts community garden, President and manager of Spa City Co-op (www.spacity.locallygrown.net), The Hot Springs Area Community Gardens, Herb N League, an action packed book club, and now, Handmade for the Holidays. Sewing, soaping and making the world a little better.

heather arrived in hot springs, arkansas, as many do - from another land.  in this case, south florida.  in typical non-linear fashion, she dropped out of work and went to school full-time in her early 30s after winning a scholarship which allowed her to spend a summer painting in southern france and pondering the wonder of possiblility. her BFA from the university of florida, with a minor in art history gives her just enough knowledge to make her dangerous in a museum setting.  she loves this.  she is a printmaker but has always had special feelings for colored pencils and has collected them from her travels throughout the world (it was that or shot glasses).  heather has been known to mix colors for her prints for upwards of nine hours at a stretch.  she feels her color sense may well be a super-power.  since she arrived in hot springs with her two dogs a mere year and a half ago, heather has taken to making pendants from vintage postage stamps.  when faced with a small workspace, making small things seemed logical.  she fell in love with the worlds she found on those little squares of paper and derives great joy from sharing her new-found knowledge of geography with those around her through the farmer's market, river market and www.heatherjmontgomery.com.  she has always believed in beauty and innovation as ideal means to move the world forward. in keeping with that belief, she is so happy to partner with briana to bring wonderful things out into the wonderful world through Handmade for the Holidays.