Best handmade Christmas gifts

Marloe Morgan

Marloe Morgan’s high-fired, hand-thrown stoneware is made in northern New South Wales. From shallow bowls awash with popping orange and yellow, to organic-shaped platters and high-gloss rain-print sake cups – each piece is designed with sharing, entertaining and everyday use in mind. Plus her bespoke service allows you to have a piece designed and produced in Australia, exactly to your specifications.

Marloe Morgan ceramic homewares, from $18, marloemorganceramics.com.au

Hank

You may have spotted Hank designs on the tables at restaurants including Canberra’s Italian & Sons and Lee Ho Fook in Melbourne; it’s the handy work of Melbourne-based artisans Christian Tucker and Breeze Callahan. Their first tableware pieces, a salt bowl and pepper mill named Forbes and Ike, combine concrete and timber with delicate gold and brass accents.

Hank, Forbes pepper mill and Ike salt bowl, $250 a set, hank.com.au

Skate Shank

Sydney-based designer Rowland Perry refashions old skateboards into bespoke kitchen tools. By hand, Perry turns the laminate boards into stunning handles for various chef, hunting and cheese knives, and even a pizza cutter. Talk about sharp.

Skate Shank custom knives, from $90, skateshank.com

Anna-Karina

Anna-Karina ceramics are made in Bangalow, New South Wales by ceramicist Anna Karina Elias. The pieces are beautifully simple; they whisper rather than shout, and your kitchen and table will appreciate the approach (which includes casting shelf mushrooms into porcelain bowls and turning oak tree branches into custom glazes).

Anna-Karina ceramic tableware, from $20, instagram.com/annakarinae/

Sophia Kaplan Plants & Flowers

Sometimes there’s nothing more special than receiving a really beautiful bouquet.  Whether it’s branches of dogwood and crab-apple with dusty dahlias or beautifully scented garden roses with tree peonies and delicate flannel flowers, Sophia Kaplan’s unique style of mixing cut flowers with living plants is sure to make an impression. 

Sophia Kaplan Plants & Flowers, arranged to order, 0449 877 277, sophia-kaplan.com

Wahl&Ross

Ever wondered what the most stolen item at Noma Copenhagen was? Shoalhaven-born industrial designer Drew Rosskelly could tell you: it was a wooden spoon for a berry dish they were doing, which he sketched, cut and hand-finished under his own company’s umbrella, Wahl&Ross. Beautiful stuff.

Wahl&Ross woodwork, from $23, wandr.dr

Bind|Fold

Between her backyard and laundry in Melbourne, Victoria Pemberton spends most of her days up to her elbows in vats of indigo, practising the ancient Japanese art of shibori dyeing. Pemberton uses everything from PVC pipes to beer coasters to create patterns, resulting in a unique collection of hand-sewn tablecloths, napkins and tea towels – all bound to make a statement.

Bind|Fold napery, from $25, bindandfold.com

Notts Timber

The kitchen table in Susannah and Sommerville Monotti’s home is piled high with wooden spoons, chopping boards, bowls and salad servers. Each item is hand-cut in their garden shed in Bendigo, using blackwood, salvaged Huon pine, blackheart sassafras and other Tasmanian timbers.

Notts Timber Design kitchenware, from $35, nottstimberdesign.com.au 

Brooke Thorn

Brooke Thorn throws complete dinner sets by hand on a potter’s wheel and dip-paints her stoneware with colours that range from peach to nectarine, teal to sky blue. Mix and match a few colours for even more sunshine at the table.

Brooke Thorn ceramic tableware, from $25, brookethorn.com.au

Alison Jackson

Between silversmithing and jewellery classes at Pocket Studio, just outside Canberra, Alison Jackson also produces a range of hollow-ware. Her range includes playful Tipsy bowls (no flat surfaces) to copper tea tins, silver pouring jugs and spoons.

Alison Jackson hollow-ware, made to order from $98, alisonjackson.com.au

Gemma Patford

With a background in pattern-making, designer Gemma Patford is no stranger to pulling things apart and piecing them back together. From her home studio in Melbourne’s Brunswick, she fashions rope into softly sculpted bowls, market baskets and wall-hangings, then dip-paints the assorted forms in bright neon and popping hues.

Gemma Patford rope vessels, from $45, gemmapatford.com

Shilo Engelbrecht

While you might have come across Shilo Engelbrecht’s designs recently in Jac+Jack or Sportscraft, her own collection of homewares, Älv, is equally striking. The magic begins on canvas: Engelbrecht’s oil paintings – expressive layers of pink and burgundy, offset by forest green, navy or peach, perhaps – are photographed then digitally printed on soft European linens and silk.

Älv by Shilo Engelbrecht, from $50, shilo.net.au