Feel like tapping into your creativity or maybe you want to shop for crafts and handmade items? The Handmade TN Creative Collective may be right for you.

Handmade TN, also known as the Coffee County Creative Collective is located in the Downtown Avenues of Tullahoma. The group operates as a creative collective with 41 current members.

All items in the store located in the Avenue are handmade or handcrafted and customers are free to browse to find something they like. The collective focuses on non-competing crafts to keep members in their own creative lanes while seeking items not currently represented. The business offers a diverse inventory including jewelry, rope bowls, handmade soap, laundry detergent, sewn clothing, resin work, embroidery, and laser-engraved items. Recently added are hand-forged metal items such as knives. The business offers raw crafting materials, DIY kits, classes, and member commission work. They can be found online at their official website is handmadetn. com.

The collective functions cooperatively where members work store shifts, assist with advertising, and learn about each other’s products to sell collaboratively.

Will Prater, owner and operator of Handmade TN, notes the goal of the collective, along with marketing the work of its members, is also to draw the community into tapping into everyone’s individual artistic talents.

“I’d ask people to come in and just talk to me, tell me what they make, and we try and keep everybody in their lane,” he said of meeting people who want to get into a craft. “We would love to have anybody who is willing to come in and check out our shop and check out all the classes and activities we have going on.”

Prater said there’s a lot of things going on as something is constantly on the schedule.

“We have book clubs that meet every Sunday,” he said. “We do tea parties. We’ve just recently released our craft and cake date. They can buy a craft and then they can go over to the cheesecake store, which is located right across from us, sit down and have a piece of cheesecake and coffee and have a date, and it’s only $17.”

Given the number of offerings by the collective, Prater said the best idea for those looking to get into the arts and crafts is to go to their website or better yet, drop by the Avenue and meet with Prater and pick up a schedule of events.