Spent

It has been a full day of craft fairs for me. I'm pooped. There we four craft fairs along Main so I started at the top and worked my way down. There was so much amazing stuff and I got so many awesome x-mas gifts. It made following through on my "buy handmade" pledge a cinch.
First I went to the fair at the Heritage Hall. I found the perfect gift for my mother-in-law and something for the little person growing inside my sister-in-law. I also saw an amazing jeweler, Ginger Pottin. She does beautiful work with bits of leather and copper enameling. I've never seen anything quite like it. My favorite piece was the one pictured to the right.


Then I walked up the Blim to check out the Vancouver Craft Mafia. It was small but there was some super cute stuff and I met some really neat people. I especially enjoyed chatting with Lia of Goodmorning, Morning. I had two favorite bags. That's one of them on the left. Adorable right? Yeah. She uses a lot of thrifted fabrics and has a lot of different styles, so her bags are very unique. Not to mention beautiful and practical.

Then it was a bit of a walk down to the skate shop Anti-Social where Seamripper's was having a do. At first it didn't look like I had the right place, or maybe I had the day wrong but I asked the girl at the desk and she says "oh yeah, it's just in the back there". Umm okay. So I walk past the skate ramp room through this little hallway and emerge into a crafty mecca. It was the coziest atmosphere I've ever seen at a craft show. And though it was small, there was a lot to take in. The first table I went to was Thistle Town. I had talked to Claire at a show at Heritage Hall last weekend and had told her that I was looking for an elk stuffie. Well I walk into the room, skip over to her table and right away I see little felt horns sticking up out of the plush pile. she had made two, both super adorable, and I immediately claimed one as my own. I haven't taken a picture of him, but I picked out another of my favorites from her site to show you. Aren't those ears the cutest? I think so!
OK, so then, across the room I see Jaime of Crookkid. I met Jaime at the West End Community Center Craft Show where I bought like half her stock of cards because I loved them so much. I was happy to see her at Seamrippers because I felt it was more her crowd, and I was extra happy to see that she now has an etsy shop. I'm so excited that I can now get her stuff without waiting to see her at a fair.
After the Seamrippers I walked a little further down Main and dropped into ShinyFuzzyMuddy. There was some amazing stuff there. It was a real artizan market.

I have to say, after all that I was pretty pooped. But it left me feeling really in touch with the craft community, and also left me with tons of amazing gifts for people. I've always loved handmade goods, but taking the handmade pledge has nudged me to seek handmade when it normally wouldn't occur to me. And I have to say that I am consistently overjoyed with the results. I feel so much better about my purchases, have so much more fun shopping, and get the best reactions from my giftees. Not to mention it hasn't been any more expensive.

Yay handmade!