Maasai beads ladies bangles of various designs
Assorted loose Beads,earrings, necklaces as well as other utility beads products
Description - over 5000 types of beads in different colors,shapes,sizes and shades
Size - 26cm L SIZE: 10"L
Code - W37000754
Vesse Pot
Tulip Pot
Square Pot
Plate Pot
Box Pot
The traditional pots are made by women group based in Nyanza and Central provinces of Kenya. The special raw materials used are all sourced locally. . The product is rooted to the African culture as a domestic utensil. However, new patterns or design in line with peoples cultural background is evident from the wide range of utility pottery product available.
With the increasing export demand of pottery product as a handy product for domestic use, more and more producer groups are taking the trade as an important source of income which is in turn also enabling us to promote pottery utility items in line with our African cultural heritage. However, it is important to add that the products are made according to indigenous labour intensive methods using local materials. It is also important to stress here that these traditional African pottery product are environmental friendly and non-harmful. They have been in use for centuries.
Small Pot
Long Neck Fish Pots
Jazz Pots
African ladies Bags/ Purse
Modern Look Ladies Hand Bags
Handicrafts
New look African ladies Hats of various colours
The hats are a fitting outfit for ladies going out for all kinds of functions/occasions or parties.
Price :
Big Hat : USD $40
Medium Hat : USD $30
Small Hat : USD $25
Woolen Kiondoo Basket.
FOB Price - USD 50
Key Specifications - these are unique and rare
Jewellery as a product is made by people from every corner of the country. Kenya is a multicultural society in that we have the cultures or ethnic groups with diverse value and cultural systems. Understandably therefore the art of bead making or jewellery is not specific to a given community or region. Most jewellery has a combination of locally sourced natural materials and tends to have an authentic touch identical with the cultural background of the producers or artist.
Kenya has an abundant wealth of raw materials. These range from semi precious stones, cow or goat bones, horn, wood, seeds, leather items, decorated items from kisii soapstone, imported African traditional beads from different African regions in the south, west, east and central Africa. Other materials used are copper, brass, and aluminum to mention but just a few. However, the items need to be made more neatly inorder to command ready sale in overseas market. There are some jewellery products whose products are synonymous with the product or community e.g. the Maasai community and particularly the Maasai woman present distinctly rich variety of their traditional fashion accessories.
Responding to the market trends and tastes or market driven designs and demand is very crucial in the marketing of jewellery products. To this end therefore, all efforts are made to come up with creatively designed product by using semi precious and natural materials in making items like brooches, bangles, bracelets, hair ornaments, ear rings necklaces etc. The point is there is already a wide range of creatively and cultural rich design of jewellery products available from Kenya that sells at differentiated price depending on the raw materials used.
The products are made from domestic animal hides e.g. cow, goats, sheep. Some of the products are made from calabashes and other available local materials. The artisans making the drums have to make sure the hide is dry and well treated to avoid insects eating into the drum products.
The above products are made by a group in Nairobi province. The production place is packed with a beehive entrepreneurial activities where intermingling of the people from all part of the city is the order of the day. Like any other place in the world where a high interaction of people from all walks of life takes place, instances of mugging, beggary, petty crimes, theft from the car, pick pockets e.t.c. is inevitable. We do therefore advise our customers during such visit to be careful with their personal effects just like what they would do in other part of the world with a high interaction of people
Hotels,Restaurants,home - Utility Olive woodcarving and Bone batiks products of Various Designs
Home utility, Turkana Basketry Products of Various designs
Home, hotel and Restaurant utility - African Basketry Products - Fruits/ bread laundry table mats of Various designs.
Nubian Utility and Deco Basketry Products
Nubian Utility and Deco Basketry Products
African kikoi and Kangas
Size - SIZE: 27cmx21cmx5cmH (10.5" x 8" x 2"H)
CODE - W37000898
Size - 20CmX5cmH SIZE: 8" X 8" X 2"H
Code - W37000918
Size - 30cm x 9cm x 5cmH SIZE: 12" X 3.5" X 2"H
Code - W37000920
Size - 20 X 20 X 5CMH
(8" X 8" X 2"H)
Code - W37000639
Size - 23 X 9.5 X 5.5cm H
(9" X 3.5" X 2"H)
Code - W37000632
Size - 15 x 15cm x 5.5cm H (6" x 6" x 2.2"H)
Code - 0W37000633
Size - 31x18x2,5cmH SIZE: 12.2" x 7" x 1"H
Code - W37000753
Size - 23 X 11 X 2.5cmH
(9" x 4.25" x 1"H)
Code - W37000627
Size - 30.5 X 15.5 X 4cm
(12" X 6" X 1.5"H)
Code - W37000628
African ladies Bags/ Purse of Various Design
When we talk of God given talents, the word is often well expressed through the works of Batik Post cards, Batik artworks and other forms of artwork. Ordinarily, these artworks are made by outgoing talented individuals artists. Most of them undergo their training at various institutions in the country such as the young men Christian Association (YMCA). The Kenya Polytechnic and Youth Polytechnics formerly known as Village Polytechnics. Some develop the artistic talent or skill through the hand of more experienced artists or through encouragement from friends and relatives. Many of the artists come from rural, urban and pre-urban squatter villages. Almost all of them are married and as such their use of God given talent is so handy as their main source of income. A majority of the artist operate at their respective homesteads. It is a thing which is not only cost effective but of added value to building the family social and cultural bond.
The selling of Batiks, cards and other forms of artworks is often done by individual artists and in rare cases by a group of artists who come together as a means of attaining socio-economic gains. This is done in the spirit of seeking recognition which would otherwise not be possible to be accomplished or realized by working in isolation. This kind of initiative is informed by the fact that groups attract assistance more easily than an individual.
Most of the products that the artist are able to come up with using natural material, display a significant touch of cultural value or national heritage. It is indeed impossible to enumerate each and every single item that come out of these creative individual artisans/brains.
The materials used are cotton clothes or silk, various dyes for colouring, wax to separate colours, while iron charcoal box is used to clear off wax. The production process is quite involving and labour intensive. The use of natural material is already growing popular in that even maize cobs, water plants and other types of leaves are now handy in the hands of creative artist.
Some of the products made are things like Bird figures, Christmas tree decos, wall hangings, animals, traditional homesteads or Kenyan people in their ethnic attires such as the Maasais, Pokots, Turkana, etc. Each batik piece of work can be produced according to the customer's tastes and interests in terms of colour, design etc. Many of the art does give insights that express value of life and people's culture thus depicting natural heritage e.g. wildlife birds, animals, people including abstract art e.t.c. In recent years, some artist have come up with Batik bone designed house utility items like spoons, knives, Beer opener or even cultural custom dress etc.
Post cards made from Recycled locally available materials
Post cards made from water Hyacinth
Soapstone Dice and Token Products of Various Designs
Soapstones URN Products of various designs
Coloured soapstones Products
Natural Soapstones Products
Soapstone Elephants Products of Various Designs
Soapstone Sculpture Products of Various Designs
Soapstone Sculpture
Home, hotel and Restaurant utility - African Basketry Products - Fruits/ bread laundry table mats of Various designs
The banana fibre products are popular for their household utility use. These are items like laundry basket, office waste paper basket, and fruit or egg trays. There are also banana fibre products that serve as house deco. These are art scenes depicting African culture, animals, and nativity products. Of late, the Kikuyu ethnic women community from central province have introduced Banana fiber "Kiondo" basket. Unlike the sisal baskets, the banana fibre "kiondo" do not need any colouring.
As for the hand woven banana fibre basketry, the producers are based in Central and western province and even in slum areas. 90% of banana fibre basketry producers are middle-aged women who make the banana basketry to supplement their sources of income. It is also an activity that instills a sense of belonging and security. Most of the producers lifetime dream is to educate their children and acquire or build a better house which has a security of tenure.
Like in most slum areas, a majority of the women take both the role of the bread earner and house head. There are many reasons behind it such as having been widowed, divorced or even migrated from rural areas in search of greener pastures in Nairobi just to find themselves in the slum life. Traditionally unlike men, women do not have property right or inherit from their place of origin thus rural land. Therefore their best alternative is to adapt to urban slum life where basic social amenities are not only lacking but inadequate to serve the usually high population of maginalized citizens. The problems that face the slum community and their rural counterpart is poverty and unemployment. Many of the slum dwellers rely on unreliable source of income such as temporary construction work while their women combine their respective source of income with child rearing among other household chores.
In order to fight the odds against them, women unlike men have formed their own Banana fibre groups. The common objective is to work as a team as a way of seeking recognition and to empower the group members. This is realised through networking with the powers that be. These women slum groups, source the banana fibre raw material from the rural areas where banana plant is grown. The fibre are collected from the garden while dry and later softened by soaking the fibre overnight before usage.
Dolls and Toys making using locally available recycled materials is increasingly gaining popularity as an income generating activity particularly with the slum women dwellers. There are many other individual women artisans with similar skills who are already involved in making dolls as a source of income. For a majority of these women, it is a means towards self-reliance. All the toy and doll makers operate from their respective home environment. The women group is comprised of single as well married mothers, who supplement their socio-economic basic needs through making of dolls and toys.
There are other women groups in the rural areas of Central province who specialize in traditional doll making using raw materials like maize husks, wood and pieces of rags. Other materials used include "clothes left over". These are bought from various tailor shops. Such wrap up materials are used in making the innovative and ingenious wire bicycle like among others, the riding man or ingeniously made flapping/flying birds.
As for the women dolls, materials used are tree bark, beads, and sisal materials. What makes some of the dolls to be more traditional in appearance is that they are dressed with traditional costume or attire. So are the ornamental items. The popular traditional dolls are Turkana "mama", Giriama Dancer, Kikuyu dancer, Maasai warrior, Miss Maasai, Coast lady in their Muslim veil, the mama na mtoto (mother and child), jambo/hello boy and safari dolls such as Zebra, Monkey and Giraffe dolls. The materials used to make most of these dolls and toys are sourced locally.
The creativity and enterprising zeal and imaginations of dolls and toys producers extend beyond the Kenyan boarders in that these producers have been able to come up with dolls wearing other African countries' national attire. These dolls are the Ugandan lady, Nigerian lady, Sudan beauty queen including Christmas nativity products.
The workmanship on the African dolls is of high quality. However, the ware bicycles and flying like bird are quite an innovative piece of work that arouses curiosity among children particularly boys while girls show interest in other type of african dolls and wire toys.
The production of wood carving in Kenya is associated with the Akamba ethnic community of the arid and semi-arid eastern region of Kenya. The art of woodcarving dates back to 450 years ago. In other words, it is a perfected skill, which has been passed on from one generation to the next. The young apprentice works among the seasoned master carvers; learning all the techniques of the craft form splitting the timber to carving and hand polishing the finished forms. Many of the artisans specialize in sculpting a series of African forms, including the exotic wide range of wild animals found in Kenya and East Africa. All carvings must meet rigid standards of quality for the export market. While production norms are maintained, no two pieces are ever exactly the same. Traditionally, the women role is to sand paper the finished product as part of quality touch in terms of coming up with high quality products.
The art of woodcarving as one would rightly put it is in Akamba people's blood. The carvers age range from 18-65 years. Kenya has over 60,000 highly skilled craftsmen who produce tones of woodcarvings a month. Woodcarving as an income generating activity supports about 350,000 people. The woodcarving production is by nature labor intensive. The craftsmen model each form using simple tools made from animal hide, local wood and spring steel fashioned into adzes and knives. No machinery is used in the process of transferring a tree- truck into hundreds of items both decorative and functional. The woodcarving products are very popular with the tourists visiting Kenya.
Kenya's woodcarving items have over the years been exported to almost all parts of the world. The wood carvings products have not only acted as a source of income for a large number of Akamba community but have also been a commodity that has over the years earned Kenya a substantial amount of foreign exchange. This has been realized through the sale of a wide range of decorative and utility products such as the animal figures, traditional people masks, bookends, salad servers and many other items.
Some of the wood that the carvers use or cut down have now come to be enlisted as endangered species and for that reason, the government has come up with stringent measure that requires planting of at least two trees for each tree fallen or cut. Besides that, the government has also put tough measures, which require issuance of license before any tree is cut or fallen down. These measures are aimed at avoiding further deforestation in Akamba arid and semi-arid areas and the entire country in general. According to the available research/statistics, the carvers need for wood account to 10% of the national consumption of hard wood.
Size - W/SHRINKPACK SIZE: 13 DIA X 9CM
(MORTAR - 5"x5"x3.5"H PESTLE - 6.75"L)
CODE - W37000899
Size - 15cmX5cmH SIZE: 6" X 6" X 2"H
Code - W37000917
Size - W37000921
Code - 30cm x 14cm x 2.5cmH (12" x 5.5" x 1"H)
Size - 25.5cm x 9cm x 2.5cmH SIZE: 10" x 3.5" x 1"H
Code - W37000921
Size - 20 X 20 X 2.5CMH
(8" X 8" X 1"H)
Code - W37000635
Size - 26 X 18 X 2.5CMH
(10" X 7" X 1"H)
Code - W37000636
Size - : 10 X 10 X 4cmH
(4" X 4" X 1.5"H)
Code - W37000637
Size - 26cm X 26cm X 2.5cmH (10" X 10" X 1"H)
Code - W37000717
Size - : 18 x 12 x 2,5cmH
(7" X 4.75" X 1"H)
Code - W37000717
Size - 17cmX11cmX1.5cm (6.75"X4.25"X0.6"THICK)
Code - W37000771
Size - SIZE: 26cm X 18cm X 1.5cm Thick SIZE: 10" x 7" x 0.6" thick
Code - W37000626
Size - 12 X 12 X 2.5cm
(4.75" X 4.75" X 1"H)
Code - W37000629
Size - 31 X 21 X 3cm H
(12" X 8" X 1.2"H )
Code - W37000630
Size - 14 DIA X 33CM H
SIZE: 5.5" DIA BASE X 13"H
Code - W37000631
