Meet the Daft Staff

     Cody

I'm Cody. I'm the person you are most likely to see at the shop. I'm the co-owner of Daft Crafts. I am 26 years old. I am heavily involved with animal rescue and foster dogs and cats, as well as collect donations for local rescues and distribute them, and help find homes for shelter pets or rescue take-ins. I also own Lu & Ed. I make fun, one-of-a-kind monster storage solutions for kids called Mon-stors. I started that up about three years ago, and sold primarily through craft shows and online. I got an invite to sell at Scrivner's in Leavenworth, and fell in love. I saw what a positive thing a creative environment breeds, and started the wheels in motion to open a place to bring that to our community here in Independence. Eight weeks later, we opened Daft Crafts, and it's become what it is today (awesome).

    Trace

This is Trace, my fiancè. He is the other co-owner (*cough*pockets) behind Daft Crafts. He puts up with all my crazy ideas, like "Hey, you know what we should do? Open a store!" and doesn't really complain too awfully much about them. He is a Certified Cisco Network Engineer, so he's not at the shop too often, but you may see him on occasion.


    Allysha

Allysha is currently attending college to achieve her Associates in Arts and then plans to continue on into a Psychology Major to become an Art Therapist. She decided to live her life unemployed from corporate jobs about two months ago to follow the dream life of living off her art. She is the creator of Almond Eye Creations. She volunteers at Daft once a month and instructs 3-4 classes a month, including clay throwing, glazing, wire wrapping, hemp braiding, jewelry making and more!

Here we are...

Six months since we opened, I have finally gotten a few moments of spare time and gotten this website thing sorted out, with a functional blog, artist links, class schedule and more! Hooray!

If you are new to Daft, let me catch you up to speed:

What we are. We are a volunteer based art gift shop located in Independence, MO dedicated to bring affordable art & craft gifts and art education classes to our community.

What we sell. Everything in our shop is handmade in America, with about 70% of the merchandise being local artists! We have over 40 artists selling at Daft Crafts right now, and each one brings some whimsy fun into the shop with their vibrant creations.We have everything imaginable, all of it with a fun spin to it - clothing, home decor, jewelry, purses, dinnerware, art, toys and way too much stuff to list here.

What we do. We offer various affordable art education sessions and work shops on Wednesday and Saturday evenings, including clay sculpting, jewelry making, knitting, crocheting, macrame, and up-cycling projects. We also offer craft sessions for young children to encourage creativity, including tie dying. We offer artists space to sell within our venue so they can grow and expand as artists within the community.

What we support. We are heavily involved with local animal rescues. If you have ever been in the shop, you may have met Ripley, the Daft doggy, or Taft, our Daft adoptable dog. Daft Crafts is proud to offer our location as a pet supply drop off location. If you have unused leashes, dog or cat food, blankets, towels, flea medication or anything pet related you would like to donate but aren't sure where to go, it can be brought to Daft Crafts and we will distribute it to local animal rescues and shelters in need. :)

I hope you enjoyed learning a bit more about the shop. :) If you have any questions or think of anything you would like to see covered here, please email me at daft_crafts@yahoo.com!