Come on in for virtual coffeewith founder and poet/artist Emily Ruth Hazel!
(Keep scrolling for CREATION STORIES below.)
Need some portable inspiration or a memorable gift? You're in the right place. Unique journals and expressive accessories give me a buzz!
Wild Honey Words is an artist-operated, Black-owned, sustainability-conscious business that runs on womanpower, love, and Southern California sunshine. Wild Honey products are designed with care and custom printed for you.
WHY WILD HONEY WORDS?
Pictured: prickly pear cacti blooming in the canyon near my creative studio
A spoonful of well-chosen words can be honey for the soul: a delicious substance with healing properties. As a cross-pollinating poet and visual artist, I collect and spread ideas everywhere I go. Like a honeybee on a wildflower mission, I’ve learned to reach deep into the heart to find the nectar that sustains me. My pairing of words and images give you a taste of what I’ve made from all the beautiful and prickly places I’ve landed over the years. That’s why the Wild Honey Words logo resembles both a honeycomb and a flower made of seven hexagons, which represent creation and connection.
My hope is that you’ll catch glimpses of your own story here and that what I’ve created will spark connections and make ordinary moments more meaningful. Every item in my shop features an encouraging word, an original line, or a bite-size poem. Combining handmade elements and personal touches with creative digital techniques, I often layer my own photographs and mixed media artwork into the designs on my products.
For the inside scoop on my work as a writer and artist, subscribe to Wild Honey Wordbuzz
(e-news updates). You can also check out this blogpost I wrote for Wild Honey's one-year anniversary to learn the backstory of how my journey as a creative entrepreneur and shopkeeper began when I was a snaggle-toothed kid naming her crayons Sapphire and Cobblestone Gray. Here’s to dreams that linger and to building foundations under them!
WILD HONEY WORDS IS ABOUT YOUR STORY, TOO.
Pictured: Your Story Matters Journal
Part of my life’s work is to encourage people to free their own authentic voices—especially those of us whose voices have been minimized or not given attention historically. I've imagined the Wild Honey Words Creative Jumpstarts page as a community playground, and I'll be adding new writing and art-making prompts periodically. (If you'd like to know when I post new prompts, sign up for Wild Honey Wordbuzz updates and I'll keep you in the loop.)
In the meantime, I’m designing journals and greeting cards (coming soon!) to carry your words. Personal expression is vital and healing and one of the most beautiful, surprising, and liberating ways we can connect with ourselves and each other. Keeping the handwritten word alive has a room of its own in my heart, and I'm a deep believer in real-deal postal mail. Cardmaking was one of my first entrepreneurial ventures, starting at age eleven.
Among my friends, I’m known for being an avid journaler and a copious notetaker and for writing epic cards for every occasion. As a diehard keeper of precious paper artifacts (we’re talking decades, countless boxes), it’s been a longtime goal of mine to create journals that people want to hold onto and cards that are worth savoring and saving because they capture time in words like leaves in amber. I can’t wait to expand Wild Honey's journal collection and to launch our line of greeting cards.
JOIN THE WILD HONEY WORDS COMMUNITY!
Pictured: Urban Skylines Journal and Urban Skylines Hardcover Journal
Because of you, Wild Honey Words is growing, one story at a time. Every item you order is custom made for you or your gift recipient, which means you're choosing a more thoughtful, environmentally friendly way to purchase unique lifestyle products. AND you're directly supporting the independent artist behind this small business, so I can keep creating uplifting products that become a part of your everyday life. I'm grateful for you!
Want to stay connected to Wild Honey Words? Join me for the journey by signing up to receive Wild Honey Wordbuzz letters: a sprinkling of inspiration in your inbox plus the scoop on specials, limited editions, and new releases. Feeling social? Follow @wildhoneywords.shop on Instagram and Facebook for the latest, including shareable goodies and more sneak peeks into my process.
Thank you so much for your interest and for spreading the word!
love & gratitude,
Emily Ruth Hazel (she/her)
Founder & Creative Director
@wildhoneywords.shop
CREATION STORY: Books Can Take You Anywhere—and Carry You Through
Pictured: Book Lover's Tote
When my siblings and I were kids, whenever we were headed anywhere, my father always said, "Bring a book!" That training served me well when I commuted via public transit in NYC. A good book could take the edge off those random “the train has stopped for 20 minutes in the middle of a tunnel” moments.
In high school, I worked at our local library branch shelving materials for three years. Organizing books is a meticulous job but one I find interesting, meditative, and satisfying. I love seeing books come into the world and helping people get their hands on them.
A Wild Honey Words bestseller, my Book Lover's Tote gives you a glimpse into the personal collection of a chromatic librarian (yours truly). I arranged and photographed 33 titles—books written by friends and by authors with whom I've had the privilege of collaborating, books I've found interesting and inspiring, and books I'm still in the process of exploring. (I’m a slow-soak, concurrent reader who tends to journey through books at a glacial pace.)
Across the seasons of my life, each of these books has nudged up against or become a part of my story in some way, so I wanted to pay tribute to the folks who created them and to inspire more readers to (re)discover these and more.
Under this colorful lineup, the words “Have book, will travel” ride between two horizontal yellow stripes that suggest both a bookshelf and a two-lane highway. May the Book Lover's Tote carry you and your favorite readers through many years of your own adventures!
Featured books, left to right:
- Bedrock: Writers on the Wonders of Geology, edited by Lauret E. Savoy, Eldridge M. Moores, and Judith E. Moores
- Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller
- The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
- Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert
- Rosa by Nikki Giovanni, illustrated by Bryan Collier
- Letters to a Young Poet by Ranier Maria Rilke
- Cherries and Cherry Pits, written and illustrated by Vera B. Williams
- Prayers Like Shoes by Ruth Forman
- The Library Book by Susan Orlean
- Old & New Testaments by Lynn Powell
- Those Who Ride the Night Winds by Nikki Giovanni
- The Gift: poems by Hafiz, translations by Daniel Nadinsky
- Under the Mesquite by Guadalupe Garcia McCall
- A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah
- Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith by Anne Lamott
- The Blind Contessa's New Machine by Carey Wallace
- No Matter the Wreckage by Sarah Kay
- Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson
- The Gifts of Imperfection by Brené Brown
- Daring Greatly by Brené Brown
- Shiner by Amy Jo Burns
- Renaissance by Ruth Forman
- Muscular Music by Terrance Hayes
- The Book of Longings by Sue Monk Kidd
- The Body Is Not an Apology by Sonya Renee Taylor
- Hailstones and Halibut Bones: poems by Mary O'Neill, illustrations by John Wallner
- Subway Girl by P.J. Converse
- ZaatarDiva by Suheir Hammad
- Floating, Brilliant, Gone by Franny Choi
- Cinderland by Amy Jo Burns
- A Bruise on Light by Shane Koyczan
- The Color of Water by James McBride
- I Am Her Tribe by Danielle Doby
Pictured: Book Lover's Tote
CREATION STORY: The Art of Nature Therapy
Pictured: Time in a Garden Framed Print
Before moving to the foothills of Los Angeles, California (Tongva land), I lived in New York City (Lenape land) for more than a decade and spent countless hours exploring so many of its fabulous gardens and parks. For years, I made a weekly pilgrimage (multiple trains and a bus ride—true commitment) from apartments in Queens, Manhattan, and the Bronx to the New York Botanical Garden. I loved developing a longterm relationship with that serene gem of a place—much like a relationship with a person, so familiar, though constantly changing.
Away from the frenzy and roar, those magical afternoons and evenings at the New York Botanical Garden (as well as in NYC's other emerald treasures) were an unfailingly delicious palette cleanser. Green spaces are sorbet for my soul. The relative quiet and the beauty of nature kept me sane and spiritually connected through wearing and tumultuous seasons.
Nature has always grounded and restored me and inspired my creative and spiritual work in profound ways. Home is where my plants are. I designed the Time in a Garden Framed Print as a visual invitation for you to interact with nature in whatever way you're able to on a given day and to be refreshed by a meditative pause.
Here in California, I've wholeheartedly embraced the botanical gardens, arboretums, parks, and hiking trails I live near now. I'm so grateful for the care that goes into maintaining natural spaces—not only in wild or rural areas or the suburbs, but also in the thick of bustling, gritty, crowded cities. I'm a deep believer in our human need to create these space in our communities and in our lives, because outdoor recreation truly re-creates us and allows us to continue to create. We need to preserve these sacred places, because they preserve us.
Pictured: Time in a Garden Framed Print