There are some products that start with a gap in the shop.
And then there are the ones that start because we are, apparently, a couple of cat ladies.
The Familiar Collection is a little bit of both.
Basic Crafts is a very small, woman-owned business. And when we say small, we mean two women doing all the things behind the scenes. Olivia and I have a hand in the ideas, design work, product development, samples, photos, listings, packing, customer service, and all the miscellaneous chaos that comes with running a creative business.
We're also makers ourselves.
So when we create custom hardware, we're looking at it from both sides. We want something that works as hardware, obviously, but we're also thinking about the finished bag. How will it look next to a custom print? Does it have enough weight and dimension to feel substantial? Does it still read clearly once it's actually on a project? And, probably most important to us, is it something we'd get excited about using ourselves?
That's a big part of how the Familiar Collection came to be.
Finished Make by SW Creatives for Basic Crafts Featuring hardware from the Familiars Collection & custom Basic Crafts fabric by Alchemats Materials & Hardware
So, What Exactly Is a Familiar?
Historically, a familiar wasn't simply another word for a pet.
In folklore, familiars were supernatural companions or spirits associated with witches and cunning folk, often described as taking the form of animals. Cats are probably the most recognizable example now, but accounts included dogs, birds, toads, and plenty of other creatures too.
Modern use of the word has become much broader and a lot more affectionate.
For us, a familiar is that animal who is just part of your world.
The cat sitting beside the sewing machine.
The dog asleep under the cutting table.
The rabbit rearranging something they absolutely were not supposed to touch.
The frog, bird, reptile, or tiny creature you are inexplicably obsessed with.
Basically, the pet who has worked their way so thoroughly into your life that “pet” somehow doesn't quite cover it.
That idea felt right for us because The Familiar Collection was never meant to be only about cats or only about paw prints. It's really about those animals we love enough to work into the things we make.
And because we are also nerds who happen to like a little folklore, fantasy, and witchy nonsense from time to time, the name felt pretty perfect.
Our Own Little Familiars
Pets are a pretty big part of both of our lives.
Olivia is a bona fide cat lady and an enthusiastic appreciator of toe beans. She has loved cats through different chapters of her life and currently has two very spoiled feline supervisors.
I'm not exactly lowering the household cat average over here either. I have three alongside two very catlike doggos.
We know pets aren't just cute little creatures living in our houses.
They're there while we work. They're under the sewing table. They're in the photos we take. They're part of routines, memories, and different chapters of our lives.
They wander into the background while we're designing something, sit directly on materials we're trying to use, and somehow make themselves part of the creative process whether invited or not.
So building a whole hardware collection around them made a lot of sense.
Olivia and the Toe Beans
The paw design in particular belongs especially to Olivia.
She put a ridiculous amount of thought and work into getting that paw right.
And that's something we want people to know about Basic Crafts hardware in general.
We don't want to take a generic shape, slap it onto a piece of metal, and call it custom. When we're developing an original piece, we're approaching it with an artist's eye while also thinking about what that artwork has to become once it's cast in metal.
The proportions matter.
The depth matters.
The edges, curves, negative spaces, size, weight, and way light moves across a metal finish all matter.
Our goal is for our custom pieces to feel substantial, intentional, and unmistakably themselves.
The paw was created specifically for Basic Crafts. You may find other paw-shaped hardware out in the world, but you won't find our paw design anywhere else.
And yes, the toe beans received an appropriate amount of attention.
Finished Makes by SW Creatives for Basic Crafts & Best Auntie Ever Featuring hardware from the Familiars Collection & custom Basic Crafts fabric by Alchemats Materials & Hardware
More Than Just Paws
The Familiar Collection is becoming a whole little family of hardware.
Our paw design currently includes zipper pulls and purse feet, with coordinating Chicago screws coming soon. We also have more paw designs in development because apparently one set of toe beans was never going to be enough.
But familiars come in a lot more shapes than paws.
The collection also includes our cat bust magnet and zipper pulls, along with our frog & ouroboros hardware because if folklore has taught us anything, it is that a familiar certainly does not have to be a cat.
That gives us a lot of room to keep growing the collection around animals and creatures that makers have a real connection to.
Some will be obvious pets.
Some might be a little more unexpected.
This feels much more fun to us.
Finished Make by SW Creatives for Basic Crafts Featuring hardware from the Familiars Collection & faux leather vinyl by Basic Crafts, special showout to Knotted Threads Co. for the fabulous Donut Hole Pattern
Made to Become Part of the Make
One of our favorite things about custom hardware is what happens when it stops being an individual component and becomes part of a finished project.
That's also where Alchemats Materials & Hardware, the parent shop behind Basic Crafts, comes in.
Their custom prints give us another layer to play with when we're working on new pieces. Whenever it makes sense, we're thinking about how hardware can live alongside those prints instead of simply matching a metal finish to a fabric after the fact.
A cat print paired with sculpted paws.
An animal-themed print with hardware that carries the same little thread of storytelling.
A custom project where the zipper pull, purse feet, print, and other details actually feel like they belong together.
Those details are small, but bag makers know how much the small stuff matters.
It's one of the things we love about the custom sewing community. A maker can start with the same pattern as hundreds of other people and somehow create something completely their own through the fabric, hardware, zipper, lining, stitching, and all those tiny choices made along the way.
We want our hardware to give you another one of those choices.
Finished Make by Addie Kakes Kreations featuring hardware from the Familiars Collection & custom fabric by Alchemats Materials & Hardware
Two Makers Making Things for Other Makers
There isn't a giant design department hiding somewhere behind Basic Crafts.
It's Olivia and me.
Basic Crafts is woman-owned, with just two women running the show behind the scenes.
Ideas get sketched, changed, questioned, sent back, tweaked again, sampled, inspected, and occasionally stared at for an unreasonable amount of time.
We are picky about our hardware because we care about the things we're putting into the maker community.
Basic Crafts was built around the idea that materials should be as interesting as the things makers create with them. We love hardware that has weight to it, artwork you actually want to look at, unusual finishes, nerdy little details, and those tiny touches that make someone stop and ask:
“Wait. Where did you get that?”
The Familiar Collection is very much that philosophy in animal form.
A little bit nerdy.
A little bit magical.
A whole lot of pet people.