Renegade 2010!

My friend and I managed to zip through the Renegade Craft Fair in an hour. The weather today was beautiful and the fair was insanely crowded (good for vendors, vaguely homicidal for me) so I was less than thorough, but I grabbed a lot of cards, coveted a lot of clothing, and saw a lot of handmade "taxidermy."


Very pregnant Circa Ceramics and Foxglove Accessories had side-by-side booths. With due-dates approaching, I was surprised to see either of them, but Nancy of Circa Ceramics was her usual energetic self with her show apron tied around dad-to-be Andy and her latest creation in the "kiln." She and Foxglove's Betsy both have more shows scheduled in the weeks to come and I wouldn't be surprised to see Betsy with a display rack of earrings in the maternity ward. (You guys rock!)

Paul Friedrich drew me a business card, complete with his star, Onion Head Monster. Check this guy out. I think he's fantastic.


Last week I made a treasury of "Hounds and Houndstooth" that included a sweater by Beantown Handmade. Without realizing it I'd met owner Anne and willing companion Mike at the panel on Friday, and today they were at the fair with their wares (which are even cuter in person). My friend and my dogs would never stand for the hats, but we were lucky enough to witness the modeling and purchase of a "blossom dog hat with button strap." Even in the heat Briana and Edie (owner and dog) both loved this lovely cold-weather accessory.

Sparrow Collective and little ocean were stand-outs in the clothes-I-want-to-own-right-now category.

I also want a SuperJumboDeluxe clock. What's the opposite of buyer's remorse? When you don't buy something?


Art: little plate kewpie cabeza by Circa Ceramics
Tear Stamp Earrings in Blue by Fox Glove Accessories
Onion Head Monster Fish by Paul Friedrich
Photo of Edie the dog in a Beantown Handmade hat by JillHannah (me)
Multi clocks by SuperJumboDeluxe

DIY Trunk Show Chicago visit and purchase

I bought art! Face Beans 7" x 5" by Luisa Castellanos of Pock-It Palz. I need to do that more often. I don't buy myself wall art with any regularity because it is a bit out of my current budget (food, clothes, shelter being the only things within my current budget, and even those are questionable). But basic functions be damned, bring on the happiness!

Yesterday, my sister and I went to the DIY Trunk Show as spectators. I always feel a little weird now going to shows as a non-vendor, but it's way more relaxed and you actually have time to look at things and go back and consider, and it's totally fun. I also like having a second person with me while poking at things (as a vendor, any second person you've bribed into joining you is back at the booth while you run through the other tables) so I can share my thoughts and opinions out loud and point at things and say "buy that for me." Plus, with my sister, we have her entire life's worth of history and development of style and taste and understanding, so it's particularly entertaining to jointly coo over the same table of funky prints or yet another amazing but $65 and we know we'd lose it hat, and then come to bags that I think are the greatest things ever as she stands quietly trying not to make gagging noises at me, and two minutes later we are in the same situation over necklaces or pillows but in reverse positions.

Ah, sisters. Ah, crafters. Ah, humanity.

My highlights for the day:

Pock-it Palz in general. Plush things that eat their own little baby plush things, and other great plush things, and the painting I decided I couldn't live without. I actually liked a number of her paintings, but the one I brought home was my favorite.

loosetooth. Her pillows pulled us in but the Talking Alligator print may be my next art purchase. You can't really tell from the website, but it's gold foily and feels very multi-dimentional somehow, plus they're all signed and numbered and very professional and delicious.

MAKA designs. Her Etsy site isn't doing her work justice. I really loved her necklaces, and I'm not a big jewelry person at all ever. Hammered nickel and a really appealing aesthetic. I don't need to buy myself jewelry since I hardly ever wear jewelry, but it definitely stuck in my mind.

Sweet Mother of/at Renegade!

and Father, too.


The Renegade craft fair is a big deal in Craftland. Started in Chicago in 2003, blah blah blah, now also in Brooklyn and San Francisco and four times a year in each place (I think). Here's their website for all the accurate primary-source information your heart desires.

I didn't feel ready as a vendor to apply in time for this one, but I wasn't about to miss going.

Car's still in the shop. Raining like the dickens (whatever way the dickens rains) all weekend. Wicker Park is half wayish between my apartment and my parents' house, so I thought it would be a lovely thing to do with them if we could meet there. But since I'm still automobilicly impaired, they agreed to pick me up from my acupuncture appointment, which was at least 20 minutes closer to Renegade than my apartment.

I called them after I finished getting poked. It was still very cold and wet outside, and they had apparently decided to go shopping for stools for their new kitchen this morning in the exact opposite direction from their house, Renegade (farther), my acupuncturist (even farther) and my apartment (farthest). They were caught in traffic still closer to the stool store than anything else so after much discussion and debate over the various routes and possibilities afforded to me by public transportation, my mom told me to go eat lunch somewhere and they'd come and get me.

I did and they did.

To be honest, it took a few more frazzled phone calls from them, but they found me and we found Renegade.

Renegade!
Highlights:

• ■ Meeting the human behind my first ever Etsy purchase (I only bought six and gave them as presents, but she doesn't have six as an option right now)
  
• ■ Seeing Betsy (aka Foxglove Accessories) for the first time since she got back from her honeymoon and meeting Mr. Betsy.
• ■ Seeing the other "core" members of the Chicago Style Crafters who were there, in action: PixelParty and Cookoorikoo (another Mr. and Mrs. pair, but without a neighboring tent, they were having a hellish time with wind and rain and a persistently un-Velcro-ing tent side), Something Beautiful's warm-smelling if not warm-temperatured space, Donovan Beeson/16 Sparrows looking put together yet sarcastic as always, a probably cranky but definitely smiling CrankyPickle, and I barely snuck in a friendly hello to CircaCeramics as they seemed to sell things as fast as they could wrap them.
  
• ■ My dad insisting we come see this shirt he really liked, then him buying it for me. I really like it, too. All graphic and branchy, and then there's the monkey! I was just thinking the other day that my long-sleeved shirt wardrobe sucks. Now it is one shirt less-sucky.
• ■ Meeting Daniellexo from Etsy. I have no idea what I thought she'd look like, but I was surprised somehow that her particular face went with her particular person. Not in a bad way or anything, more like when you first see and hear Kevin Clash and find out he's Elmo.
  So Danielle, if you're reading this, I just called you Elmo. You gonna take that?
• ■ Seeing things in person that I recognized from Etsy (MikeandMary and RainyPrints come to mind)
  
• ■ Being totally awkward and weird as I said, "Oh! You know Diana Baumbach!" to the proprietors of Tugboat Printshop. Backstory: when I first began my Etsy obsession, my "BFF" from elementary school (Diana) mentioned she had friends on there and sent me their link: tugboatprinshop.etsy.com. So when I was walking by their booth, I stopped and made a dork of myself. Go me.
• ■ A few other noteworthy booths from which I made sure to get cards:
  ▪ foldedpigs. Fabulous dinnerware with brains, hearts, roaches, etc. Delicious. My mom was really tempted to get a roachy serving bowl for Thanksgiving, but our usual Thanksgiving guests are a bit on the conservative side for that. Pity.
  ▪ up in the air somewhere. Really great ceramic semi-functional sculptury design pieces. I want someone I visit a lot to own them and display them in an appropriately design-conscious environment. That person will never be me.
  ▪ huzzah! Video game nerd t-shirs in their most brilliant and pure form. I have to get The Blueprint T-shirt for my friend for Christmas. It's just too perfect and too him.
  ▪ Pink Kiss. Again with the clay, but these are more "pottery" and much prettier with words and images that look almost like they transferred when wet paper was left sitting on the piece before it dried. I liked the look and I liked a lot of the readable text and the unreadable text, too. I like text as art. Suck it.

I need to get my application together for Holiday Renegade. Sell my snarky card crap and dog sweaters in December. That would be swell.

Wow. I've completely degenerated into sleepyhead stooopid mode since I started writing this post. Think I can get images on here before I pass out and electrocute myself by drooling on the keyboard?

Teaming with craftiness

Today was Day 1 of my first show! I didn't know what I was doing, but it didn't matter since it was the most gorgeous day of the year and buyer traffic was very light. Still, my goal for the day was to have people come and just look at my cards so I wouldn't feel like I'd wasted my effort, and that much was accomplished. The best part about this being a two-day thing is that tomorrow I can post better signs for my instant super-personalized card-making services and maybe people will actually bite. The other artists showing are fabulous people and there's lots of fabulous things packed into CircaCeramics' fabulous studio. My parents came and I predicted they would buy something from CircaCeramics with a chicken on it, and they did. Not that they collect chickens or anything, it just seemed like their quantity and quality of quirky.

Wow. I'm rambly and half-stupid right now. Maybe it's the 5 hours of sleep I got last night so I could print and cut and fold and organize and pack and set-up by noon today.

If you are in the Chicagoland area and want to stop by Sunday, May 18 from noon-5 PM, we are at 3759 N. Ravenswood.

Links and press about the show:
Chicago Tribune article with lots of misspellings
Metromix event
Crains Chicago "10 Things To Do This Weekend"
Time Out Chicago article about Circa Ceramics that mentions the open studio
Facebook event
CircaCeramics webpage w/info
Chicago Style Crafters webpage