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Bali's Candra Suwitra hand-carves a set of four sea turtles featuring a sweet speckled pattern. Crafted from jempinis wood, the ornaments are hand-painted and come with golden polyester strings.

Working to clean up oceans and waterways, recycle, and employ the local community, Ocean Sole of Kenya creates amazing, colorful sculptures from recycled flip-flops. This sweet sitting dog sculpture is formed and hand-carved from approximately 8 flip-flops, and can take as much as 7 hours to create. Each dog is unique with variations in color, pattern and placement as seen in the example photo.

Bursting with color and personality, this hand-carved wooden owl figurine celebrates the joyful spirit of traditional Mexican alebrije folk art, brought to life through intricate patterns and bold hues. Carefully carved from copal wood and painted by hand, each detail reflects the skilled craftsmanship and imaginative style of artisans Jesus and Roxana Hernandez, making every piece a one-of-a-kind expression of creativity, culture and charm.

The exotic axolotl, sometimes called the 'Mexican walking fish', is rendered yet more exotic by being reproduced as an alebrije sitting in a lotus position. Teresita Gonzalez of Mexico carves the creature from copal wood, and paints it masterfully by hand in myriad brilliant colors. Alebrijes are a form of Mexican folk art, generally crafted of wood or papier mache. They commonly depict mythical or fantastical creatures, and are painted with colorful patterns.

Working to clean up oceans and waterways, recycle, and employ the local community, Ocean Sole of Kenya creates amazing sculptures from recycled flip-flops. This colorful cat sculpture is formed and hand-carved from approximately 8 flip-flops, and can take as much as 7 hours to create.

Please note: As recycled materials are used. Each cat is unique with variations in color, pattern and placement as seen in the example photo.

Husband and wife duo Zeny and Reyna from Oaxaca grew up with the tradition of carving alebrijes (fantastical figurines of real and imagined animals); both of their parents were master carvers in that region's traditional folk art. Here they create a wonderfully colorful snail in great detail. The snail is carved by hand from copal wood and painted in a wide array of meticulous patterns.

Small parts are separated for shipping to protect from breakage.It is said that Oaxaca's alebrije tradition descends directly from Mexico City artisan Pedro Linares (1906-1992). When he was 30, he became seriously ill and fell into a sort of coma. While he was unconscious, he had a most fantastic dream. He was caught between the land of the living and the dead; the place looked like a forest and was populated with creatures with body parts belonging to different animals. The beings repeatedly uttered the word alebrije, and when Linares woke up, he recreated these figures in vivid colors using papier mache techniques and called them alebrijes . His work became famous and eventually influenced artisans in the state of Oaxaca who decided to craft alebrijes using traditional wood carving methods and according to that region's world vision.