Other People's Crafts

It seems a little off calling the event we went to on Saturday a craft fair, but I guess that’s what it was. Craft fairs, especially during the Christmas season, conjure up images of overly crowded gyms filled with old women looking at over flowing booths containing cutesy-wootsy, potpourri smelling decorations that people with names like Bambi or Candy put out for every different holiday season. The Renegade Craft Fair Holiday Sale, however, is basically the opposite of almost everything I associate with the stereotypical craft fair. First of all, the event had the highest concentration of people from the Indie crowd that I have ever seen in one place. Mike and I both felt that our jeans weren’t tapered enough, because they weren’t at all, and that our shirts didn’t make ironic enough of a statement. We basically felt totally uncool. Second, instead of household decorations, the booths were mostly filled with screen print t-shirts, hand-made jewelry, and other things similar the stuff you can buy on etsy and manned by people with multiple tattoos and piercings. To top it all off, the whole affair was in the Pulaski Park Field House, an incredible building from 1914. Anyway, I really had fun and got a few people checked off my Christmas shopping list.


Here are some of my favorite vendors:

(family, be warned; looking at some following links may give hints of your Christmas presents)

http://www.shoporangeslice.com/ - This is like the fourth indie craft related thing I’ve seen that includes orange in the name. Orange is the color of indie.

http://tugboatprintshop.com/ - Cool prints, they just ask for storybooks to be written around them.

http://theneedleshop.net/ - my first stop after I get my new sewing machine.

http://www.sosillystuff.com/about.html - cute kids clothing.

http://www.nomadicant.com - neat looking earrings, but some of posts looked a little thick and heavy.

http://ellembee.etsy.com/ - hand printed clothing, mostly organic looking prints.

http://www.freshieandzero.com/index.html - I like the simplicity of the things here.

http://pacificpuzzleworks.com/ - Awesome puzzles, beautifully crafted, but a bit out of my price range.

And of course, I have to give a shout out to the only storefront of the Renegade movement, Renegade Handmade.