Updated 9/13/13: Voting for the awards has been extended! You can now vote through September 22, 2013. It's time for the second annual Martha Stewart American Made Awards, and Soft Star is in the running! The audience-choice awards were created to recognize domestic crafters, makers and small business owners. Nominees are spread across six categories: food, craft, design, style, garden...

Michael Sandler and Jessica Lee Earlier this year, our old friend Michael Sandler stopped by our workshop to give a presentation on the benefits of walking barefoot. At the time, the barefoot guru was on tour promoting his second book, appropriately titled Barefoot Walking. A few weeks later, we were saddened to hear that Michael suffered a tragic injury before...

Homelessness poses a challenge to every city in America. There are many programs that use shelters, soup kitchens and job placement to help people get back on their feet, but a group in Charlotte, North Carolina is trying a more unconventional method: running. We recently heard about this story on NPR's All Things Considered broadcast and thought it was worth...

Congratulations to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge! We were very excited today to hear about the arrival of their new prince. In the spirit of international solidarity, we made a special pair of baby shoes for the royal family. Thanks to Elf Keoni's wicked sewing skills, we were able to send a very exclusive pair of moccasins depicting the...

We're very grateful to all of our wonderful customers who have sent us so many photos of their Softstars. It's exciting to see where our shoes end up, and sometimes we're astonished to see how far they've traveled around the world. We'd like to share with you some of our favorite photos of Softstars across the globe, sent to us...

I recently came across an article about an intriguing historical discovery. In 2008, a team of archaeologists in Armenia discovered what they say is the world's oldest know leather shoe. By Pinhasi R, Gasparian B, Areshian G, Zardaryan D, Smith A, et al. (authors of source article) , via Wikimedia Commons The shoe is believed to be up to 5,500...

Earlier this week, the elves donned their gardening clothes, closed the workshop early and headed out to beautiful Starker Arts Garden for Education (SAGE) to participate in an afternoon of volunteer work. SAGE is a unique community garden located in west Corvallis. The food grown there is donated to local food banks and soup kitchens, providing fresh fruits and vegetables...