Showing posts with label Renegade Craft Fair. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Renegade Craft Fair. Show all posts

Saturday, September 13, 2008

Not a Renegade This Year


I'm so bummed!
is this weekend, and I am not there! I am here, and I am seriously, seriously bummed. Nevermind the fact that we were just out of town last weekend, and that I have my own biggie craft fair--

--in TWO weeks, for which I am furiously crafting, and that it has apparently been hurricaning down rain in Chicago all day. I don't care! I'm mourning my Renegade!

We all went to Renegade last year the weekend after I failed my PhD qualifying exams (it felt political from the start, since the administration had been weirdly unwilling to give me any maternity accommodations and I had been unwilling to take my exams while tending to a newborn. They did eventually give me a few extra months, but then my committee was just never available to meet to help me prep, and never mentored me the way that all my grad student colleagues said that they were being mentored, and then all of their exam questions seemed to come completely out of left field and I was apparently super unprepared. After I failed, I emailed the chair of my committee and said that I was thinking about not trying again, and she just never emailed me back!), and so Renegade's obvious awesomeness is paired in my mind, I think, with relief that at least the months-long constant cramming was over, and the whole fun and relaxing weekend served as a balm for my very wounded ego. I bought Syd this hat and ordered a matching one for Will----and Syd, who really hadn't been able to walk for more than a couple of months (hence the bare feet even in the slight chill--bare feet=better balance, don'cha know?), followed her big sister along like a true devotee--


--and not just for the snow cone that a big sister will graciously share:

  

I also have lots and lots of photos of this lady--


--which tells me that my kiddo's obsession with dinosaurs goes back further than I'd thought.

I would have loved to have gone back this weekend. And, um, this might come as news to you, but I tend to repress unpleasant emotions, so the fact that I was shot through with misery this morning and burst into tears and could not tell you why may have had something to do with the anniversary. Or it may not--who knows?

I did notice, however, that some of the same vendors I visited last year are there again. I'm quite the handmade soap nut, so I bought some Biggs and Featherbelle soap , and I admired the industrial-strength record album coasters that artreco made.

But there were so many other things that I wanted to buy this year! How will I get this spoon ring now? And the British flashcard toddler apparel? And the faux fur cat-eared hat? Okay, that one I'm just going to have to buy anyway, shipping be damned! And yeah, I'm not even going to kid myself that I could ever afford this, but this bookshelf would look so great in the playroom.

Speaking of the playroom...finally tired of hearing me bitch and moan about the rickety shelves he installed (seriously, this morning they were canted at a 30-degree angle, and they just had fingerpaint and board games on them!), Matt took me to the Habitat for Humanity Restore and did not tell me I was nuts when I called him over to where I was and said, "Wouldn't these doors make PERFECT shelves for the playroom?" Okay, he did swear a lot in the ensuing hours, but tomorrow I'll show you the coolest thing ever to be constructed in our house. Not the coolest thing ever conceived, if you get me, but the coolest thing, by far, ever constructed.

Matt did not, however, permit me to buy the church pew. God, it would have ruled!

Thursday, February 28, 2008

Indie Craft Fairs

Sporting the strawberry hat I bought her at Renegade Fair!

I'm a really big fan of indie craft fairs. I find the modern DIY practice really fresh and appealing, and the vibe so different from your typical craft fair. So far I've enjoyed attending them and buying lots and lots of awesome stuff, and one of my goals for this year is to apply to some of the fairs in driving distance in order to test how my work might sell in a market that's really suited to it.

Here is a list of my favorite indie craft fairs:

I attended the Renegade Craft Fair in Chicago this year, and it was quite a good outlet for some retail therapy. I bought loads of things, including a vinyl wrist cuff in orange and grey, knitted strawberry-top hats for both my kids, postcards, pins, and soap, and I studied the kinds of displays and marketing that the successful booths employed. It was where I figured out that my own displays need to look way more put-together.

The Bazaar Bizarre (I wish it was the Bizarre Bazaar, but I'm not in charge of all aspects of the world at large) is a winter event that I've never attended, but there's one in Cleveland, which is in driving distance, so I'm so there this year. Even though they're obviously not updated for the upcoming year yet, their sight is very valuable if you like to sell because they have lots of photos of past events. I flip through the vendor photos and gaze jealously at their awesome displays, and wish I, too, could make their awesome products.

Craftin' Outlaws also looks really cool, and is in good old Columbus, a driveable distance, but it seems like it might be really close in time to Chicago's Renegade Fair, which would be unfortunate. I can't spend the year tooling around in my RV from indie craft fair to indie craft fair until Matt and I retire. Or if we worked independently. Which would be great.

The No Coast Craft-O-Rama is too far away for me to attend, but it's another winter event. This is the thing I didn't get last year--I chose to sell at a sci-fi convention last Thanksgiving weekend instead of at the local craft fair's holiday fair, and I did well at the convention, but I might have done better at the holiday fair, because people love themselves some Christmas. I was opposed to the idea of making "Christmas" crafts because I generally only make things that I'm really into myself, and I'm not so into Christmas, but I was thinking I might try it this year. Christmas-themed stuff, anyway, if it doesn't sell, would also make good Christmas presents that would fit in with my handmade holiday ethic without the last-minute stress of actually making the handmade holiday. I noticed on etsy, too, that everybody but me made Valentine's Day stuff and it all sold like mad, so another one of my goals for the year is to figure out a schedule for creating for the big holidays.

Finally, the Urban Craft Uprising is also much too far away for me to attend, but I'm also a really big fan of the Web sites for indie craft fairs because they always provide links to the Web sites of their vendors, and I love indie craft Web shops as much as I love indie craft fairs.

Know more? Share!