Amanda Horton

Amanda Horton’s creative drive began early – at age seven, she was caught tracing her own body with hopes of creating her own couture clothing. Today, twenty years later, Amanda has created a line of jewelry, assorted accessories and housewares that channel her old-world, vintage sensibility with modern simplicity. Her business, Allium Designs has flourished into a diverse line of jewelry with pieces as easy to wear as they are glamorous. Amanda Horton is an Oregon native who grew up in a small town in the Willamette Valley. She started her business, Allium Designs in 2006 while living in New York. Since moving back to Portland, her main focus has been growing her business. She currently sells her handmade jewelry online and in a few great boutiques around Portland. She started making jewelry in high school after taking a metalsmithing class and after many years in hiatus, started metalsmithing again just last year. Currently, Amanda works at Oregon Health & Science University and helps investigators find funding for their research. She received her degrees in Political Science and Sociology at the University of Oregon in Eugene.

Amanda Horton teaches the following classes:

• Wire Wrapping Techniques

Jennifer Neitzel

DIY Lounge is Jen's love child with the do-it-yourself community. With the intention to create and maintain momentum for local artists  and share the outcomes with the masses, DIY lounge spreads knowledge and connects people with their inner innovators with new and unusual classes.

In addition to inspiring children and adults alike with DIY Lounge, Jen runs a tight ship over at Knot Ugly Designs. With Knot Ugly Jen creates knit, crochet and reconstructed pieces, which she sells in boutiques and at arts and craft markets. Jen uses this venue to mix vintage fabrics with unconventional colors and begins to think about two-dimensional things in three-dimensions.

In addition to business management, public education, knitting and crocheting, Jen loves to sew, basket weave, nuno felt, and participate in a hodge podge of other crafts. She inspires those around her to take creative risk and she proves that anyone can do anything they set their mind to it - with enough patience and creative thinking.

Truth be told, Jen is something of a craft Macgyver. When the world goes to hell in a hand basket, this is the girl you want to share a cave with. She can make curtains rods from old pipes or ornate twigs or reupholster tired furniture. She can make stylish and flattering tops from weird grandpa sweaters and she can undo any knot, no matter how big or scary.

On a more serious note, Jen wants to help people connect with the art of making things. In response to the increasing disconnection that society tends to have with the products they buy she offers the ultimate gift: knowledge. The more information you have about how to make things the more choices you can make about what you choose to buy. Jen says, "If you know how to draft your own t-shirt pattern and it is one that is becoming on you, you don't need to buy it from businesses whose practices you may or may not support. Don't be a consumed by consumerism, buy into DIY!"

-Photo by Jen Downer of She Saw Things - Photography