Meet Haley of Haleyshandmades - our EFA webmaster!

Note from mishkat (Katie): Haley is the EFA webmaster. Although she works behind the scenes, she is an integral part of Team EFA, and contributes many hours of her free time to help maintain the EFA website. Take a look at Haley's website or her Etsy store to see her wonderful artwork - and check out her Flickr photostream to see more of her art and her beautiful animals: Sunny, a standard poodle, and Mollie, a red tabby.

Haley says:
When I was growing up in Austin, Texas we had a variety of pets. The menagerie changed but there were always standard poodles, cats, and a parrot. We also had a salamander once and horses for a time. My mother instilled in all of us children a love of animals. I took that love with me when I went away to college in St. Louis (Washington University). By then, my artistic talent had surfaced and I started making poodle art.

I'm quite sure my professors thought I was a little peculiar creating poodle prints and drawings. My favorite piece I made when I was a student was definitely "Poodles Crossing the Delaware." It's a huge 3 foot by 5 foot print of poodles fighting in the American Revolution based on the painting by Emanuel Leutze.

After I graduated from Washington University in 2005, it took me a while to find Etsy and to create more art. But I did work various jobs - including one at a print shop which helped me learn about papers, commercial printing processes, and accomplishing jobs quickly and well.

I adopted a cat named Mollie soon after graduation because I missed living with animals. A standard poodle, Sunny, joined us this last winter. We adopted him when he was a little over a year old and he's a great guy to go to craft fairs with, model for cards, and take walks with because of his calm personality. It's great to finally have a poodle of my own!

When I finally learned about Etsy in 2007, I was creating art again and had gotten married. It took me a while to learn about how Etsy worked. Michele (mvegan5) invited me to join EFA sometime during my Etsy education since I donate 5% or more of my poodle card price to my favorite animal charities. They are local shelters and rescue organizations I have personally dealt with.

It's fairly easy to keep the website updated and I love helping out EFA with any of their projects. All the members that I have ever corresponded with are wonderful people and truly love helping animals. They're a great bunch to work with!