What a great weekend of craft fairs! Ashton (my 9 year old) and I decided to make a weekend of visiting craft fairs and even talked my sister into accompanying us on Sunday.

On Saturday we started out at the Riverside Secondary School fair, and then hit the The Happening Arts & Crafts Show (Thomas Haney Secondary School). Sunday we headed out to Abbotsford and swung by the Second Annual West Coast Christmas Show (for the free samples of course ;) ) and then we went to the Abbotsford Arts Council's Christmas Craft Fair. Lets see if I can give you a brief synopsis of each.

 Riverside Secondary School
This fair was kinda hard to find because I approached it using mapquest directions which apparently didn't follow the beaten path and weren't market by any kind of signs advertising the event. The event itself was inside the highschool and was split between the two gyms. One gym had the crafts in it while the other seemed to be more of a consession area. Although the parking lot seemed to be full, there wasn't a huge amount of traffic inside. We were there at about 1:00 pm and the weather was horrible, there was good attendance but it wasn't spectacular. There were a couple of unique vebdors worth mentioning though -- unfortunatley neither of threm have websites yet so I hope they e-mail me as they said they would so I can put their contact details up here.

The first unique vendor that was there was a lady who calls her business "T-Cup". She has taken a teacup and attached it to its matching saucer. She has then attached this to a copper stake/pipe which can then be put in your garden or planter for the birds to enjoy. They are meant to have the cup part filled up with water and the saucer with bird seed. She had one stuck in a large planter of pansies and it was really whimsical!
I look forward to seeing her at future events where I might be able to snap a pic to show you just how cute they are.

The next vendor captivated my son's interest. John Cloutier (mailto:j.cloutier81@gmail.com) makes little mosters out of Sculpy. Each one comes with an adoption certificate and a brief introduction including a name, likes and dislikes and future aspirations. The animal and the certificate are packaged in a cute little carry box that has cotton balls in it to ensure the new adoptee a comfortable transition to its new home. Below is a picture of "Oly" which my son adopted. John has more pictures of his work in his Picasa Album. Worth checking out -- they are really cute!

I was also amused to chat with a vendor who was completly sold out of his cat scratch posts. He was sitting at his table with one post left that had a sold sign on it. He was amazed that he had sold all 20 of the posts he had brought. He said he has had some sucess on Craigslist but didn't expect this kind of sucess! He is retired and makes these as a hobby -- who knew they would be so popular?

The Happening Arts & Crafts Show (Thomas Haney Secondary School)

This was one of the best craft shows I have been to this year. It was really well advertised and signs were clear and indicated the way clearly. I initially thought that the show consisted only of the vendors under the rotunda but was pleasantly suprised when I saw signs leading into another and bigger room. The fair had a great atmosphere and was really busy.

I particularily liked the work of Marcel and Wendy Merks -- Driftwood Bay . They have some really cute birdhouses made out of driftwood and clay. I lifted an image from their website so you can see what I mean:

I was really impressed with a couple of the vendors and wished that I had left myself more time as we arrived only 45 minutes before they were closing. ( I took some pics of the fair -- you'll notice that some of the vendors have already closed for the night as it was after 4 when I snapped the pics)

I'll end this post here and continue with the Abbotsford shows in the next post . . . .

Well we are off to see what's going on at several craft fairs near home. We will probably see the Thomas Haney fair and the one going on downtown PoCo. Tomorrow we are aiming to go to Abbotsford (i think :))

I look forward to being inspired by all the creations -- see you there! And if you go to an event I'd love to hear your impressions!

I'm back and I must say that I am most envious of Queen St West in Toronto. The selection of fabric stores, bead stores and button stores was fabulous. If only we could transplant some of those to Vancouver! I had to restrain myself but did end up with some beautiful glass beads and some new trims for the notebooks I make. If I go back I will definatly plan for some sewing projects so I can take advantage of the fabric selection!

I will be out at various craft fairs this weekend and look forward to telling you all about them. The hardest part will be choosing which ones to go to! My 9 year old is so excited as I promised him we could go together and he is definitely following in my footsteps as far as crafting goes.

I am now working on the call for artists section of the website and the local artists section. I was really happy to hear that some of the artists that I feature on the website are getting hits from me which is so great to hear. I will also be updating the stores section and resource areas so let me know if there is something that should be added or removed.

That's it for now -- hope to see you at one of the events this weekend,

Tamsin

What a busy weekend! I am posting this from Toronto where I am working at my real job for the week -- I did manage to get to 2 craft shows this weekend before jumping on the plane though!

Circle Craft
I got a chance to go to Circle Craft on Friday eve and was really wowed by some of the talent there! I was surprised that we had to wait in line to get in -- but I guess that means good things for the exhibitors. It was really busy and talking to some of the people at the show they said that the turn out was really good this year. This year's fair was full of beautiful scarves and wraps and there was a whole range of items for pet owners that I haven't seen in past years. I did notice that there were not as many fashion booths as there were at the One of a Kind and think that that is one of the major differences between the two shows. As always there was a good range of jewelry form fashion to precious and the food section was sinful and the samples so yummy!

I ended up with a new dog coat for Aja (the chihuahua) and was able to test it out the next morning at my son's soccer game. It is so cute and really well crafted (I will post a link to the website and a pic of Aja in her new coat when I get back to Coquitlam this weekend).

Arch Bishop Carney's annual craft fair
Saturday I made it to this fair for the second year in a row. This is a big event with crafters set up in both the school's gyms. I have to admit that the second larger gym is by far the more preferable of the two as far as being an exhibitor goes but was impressed by the traffic that this fair gets. I had been seeing signs advertising the event for the past month and they were well placed and prolific. I spoke to many of the exhibitors and will be posting links to some really cool websites and crafts in the next couple of weeks. In particular there is one vendor who makes picture frames out of hockey sticks and offers framed prints of hockey players and sport celebrities. I remembered him from last year and had a great chat with him this year -- keep your eyes peeled for some pics of his work in a few weeks.
I couldn't resist the magnetic bracelets and am now wearing a beautiful one with amethyst stones. I have already noticed an improvement in circulation!

Well that's it for now,

T

So I have been diligently working on a totally new look for the website and thought that it would be great to feature local artists and crafters' work on it. So I started contacting some of the people who make amazing things and the response has been so positive! Not to mention how inspired I get when I see all the fabulous stuff they are making -- so back to the designing I go -- stay tuned for the new and improved version of the site!

I just don't know where the time has gone! I did get to the One of a Kind show this year and as always was inspired by all the fabulous things that people have created! I just got an e-mail that they have set next year's dates and that they will be in the new convention center -- and in Dec. I am really psyched that it'll be closer to Christmas next year as I thought Oct was too early this year.

I finally got around to updating the calendar on the website and now I have decided the whole website needs a new look. The design I have in mind needs some pics of some craft/ arts so I am looking for some fun crafty pics. I will be snapping lots of pics of my crafts but would love input from anyone else. So if you have a great pic of your creations let me know!

It took me several hours to add all the upcoming events to the calendar -- I can't believe how many fairs there are in the next few weeks -- now I have to decide which ones to go to! I will be going to the Circle Craft on Thurs evening and am really looking forward to it.

Any suggestions to other must-go-to's?

I have been getting twitter e-mails saying that people are following me so I had better pay some attention to Twitter. I do the Facebook thing and am trying to do the Blogger thing -- so Twitter here I come! Is there a trick to Twitter?

I will keep you posted on my craft fair visits and hope to hear about yours,

T.