In rain or snow or sleet or hail, just not wind

Holding down the tent on a gusty day.  Photo by Amy McNabb.

We firmly believe in being there for our customers.  We are part of the Charlottesville City Market nearly every Saturday morning for 9 months of the year.  We're there in rain.  We're happy to go when it's hot- we just bring a big bucket of ice as a swamp cooler.  We're happy to go when it's cold or snowing even- two pairs of socks, a handmade scarf, hand warmers and we're out there with a smile.

The one weather condition we can't stand?  Wind.

Little 8 mile an hour winds: not so bad.  One of the first things we learned about outdoor displays was: make them much heavier than you ever imagined they'd need to be.  We use cast iron wherever possible.  Lots of pins keep our tablecloths in place.  We've got 40 pounds of weight on the feet of our tent.  But you know what? Those random gusts are killers. A 15 mile an hour wind can make our tent balloon up, and make our earring display (10lbs) blow a few inches across the table. 20 miles an hour? We're taking our tent down as fast as possible, and holding our displays.

We've seen unweighted and unstaked 10' x 10' tents go flying at shows before.  Invariably, they land on either the ceramics person or the most expensive car in the vicinity.  (Hence our 40 pounds of weight on the tent legs, and our dual hold on the tent!)

We eventually lost the tent above to a particularly windy day.  It didn't go flying (thankfully!), but one of the cross bars that held the canopy in place just couldn't take it any more, and snapped.

So, if you come to the market on a really windy day, rest assured that we'll be there.  We'll still even be happy to make a custom pair of earrings while you wait.  So long as you offer to hold the tent.

Show schedule 2011

Most Saturdays from April 2- December 24, we'll be at the Charlottesville City Market. The City Market takes place right next to the Downtown Mall between South Street and Water Street. Our spot is along 1st street at the top of the hill next to the pink building.

We are doing several special shows this year as well!

April 17

Spring Bada Bing in Richmond, VA

May 14 + 15

Art Star Craft Bazaar in Philadelphia PA

June 11 + 12

Renegade Brooklyn in Brooklyn NY

June 17 + 18

Campout East in Crozet, VA

For the latest show updates, we frequently post on both our Facebook page, and our twitter.

We hope to see you at a show!

Spring Bada Bing!

One of our favorite shows of the year is coming up this weekend! Spring Bada Bing is put together by the Richmond Craft Mafia, and has a collection of about 60 nifty vendors this year! We're especially excited about Needle Noodles (hilarious crocheted creepy cute things), weehah (awesomely sweet cards), and beesknees studio (lovely paintings.) And most intrigued by a shop called Everything Tiny- these teeny dinosaurs promise to be great!

So, if you're in Central Virginia, fancy a road-trip to Richmond on a what promises to be a lovely April day (yay!), and would like to see some incredibly cool crafts, stop by! The event space is great, parking is easy, and there will be more eye candy than you can handle.

Hope to see you there Sunday!

Show schedule 2009

Come and see our whole collection in person, design your custom goodies, or just drop by to say "hi." We love to meet you.

The photo of the two of us in our booth was taken by the lovely Lis Kidder, a glass artist who makes gorgeous dichronic glass jewelry.

Here are our upcoming shows for the 2009 season.



Charlottesville City Market
(Charlottesville, Virginia)
most Saturdays
April 4- December 19, 2009
7am - noon
information & directions

Spring Bada-Bing
(Richmond, Virginia)
April 19, 2009
11am - 4pm

Renegade Brooklyn
(Brooklyn, NY)
June 6 & 7, 2009
11am - 7pm

Ballston Arts & Crafts Market
(Arlington, VA)
July 11 & October 10, 2009
10am -4pm

Crafty Bastards
(Washington, DC)
October 3, 2009
10am-5pm

Taking over Brooklyn one piece of tiny food at a time

We are ecstatic: we just found out we were accepted to Renegade Craft Show in Brooklyn! We consider Renegade to essentially be the Ivy League of indie (ie: self-representing artists with a DIY bent) craft fairs. The great (and difficult, for us) aspect of juried shows is that the organizers try very hard to ensure a good diversity of kinds of products. Jewelry-making is a very easy craft to pick up, and there are a lot of amazing jewelry designers out there. The net result is that jewelry generally ends up being the most insanely competitive category in any juried show.

I spent all day Monday (the day the notifications went out) reliving my college application process: hitting refresh every 5 minutes on the email, just in case that might speed things up. Right around 9pm, the email finally arrived. I held my breath as I opened it, then did a fair amount of jumping and yelling when I realized (two sentences in) that we had been accepted!

SQUEEEE!!

So, if you're in Brooklyn this coming June 6 & 7, stop by McCarren Park and check out the show! We can't wait to see which other artists made it in, and to meet a whole new crowd of people up in NYC!

Show schedule: Spring 2008

Come and see our whole collection in person, design your custom goodies, or just drop by to say "hi." We love to meet you.

The photo of the two of us in our booth was taken by the lovely Lis Kidder, a glass artist who makes gorgeous dichronic glass jewelry.

Here are our upcoming shows for Spring 2008.



Charlottesville City Market
(Charlottesville, Virginia)
every Saturday (except May 10)
April 5- May 31, 2008
7am - noon
parking lot at the intersection of Water Street and 1st St.

Spring Bada-Bing
(Richmond, VA)
Sunday, April 20, 2008
11a-4pm
Planet Zero (in the Manchester District)
www.springbadabing.com

Ballston Market
(Ballston, VA)
May 12, 2008
10a-4pm
Wellburn Square (just off the Ballston Metro)
ballstonarts-craftsmarket.blogspot.com



Shows we've recently done:

Fairfax Chocolate Lover's Festival
(Fairfax, VA)
February 2, 2008

Charlottesville City Market
Saturdays April- October
7am- 12pm

Show Schedule: Fall

Come and see our whole collection in person, design your custom goodies, or just drop by to say "hi." We love to meet you.

The photo of the two of us in our booth was taken by the lovely Lis Kidder, a glass artist who makes gorgeous dichronic glass jewelry.

Here are our upcoming shows for the Holiday season.



Charlottesville Holiday Market
(Charlottesville, Virginia)
every Friday and Saturday
November 2- December 22, 2007
10am - 4pm
east end of the Downtown Mall, near the Pavilion and City Hall




Shows we've recently done:

Centerville Pumpkin Festival
(near Richmond, Virginia)
October 20, 2007
10am - 4pm
http://centervillepumpkinfestival.blogspot.com

Charlottesville City Market
Saturdays April- October
7am- 12pm

other inedible art!

Today was a market day, which is always a great deal of fun. Seeing people squeal in delight over teeny avocados or spaghetti and meatballs on a necklace, hearing stories about what our goodies remind people of, and best of all being sandwiched between two fresh produce vendors- what more can I ask for in a morning? (And the fresh stuff was particularly amazing today- local white peaches that are absolutely heavenly, and some picked-last-night cucumbers and yellow squash- I love it!)

As you can vaguely see from the photo at the beginning of this post, we have a largish sign advertising our wares. All day long, people read the "100% inedible", see the photos of the food, and exclaim "Really! You can eat it?!" I suspect this is partly because there is a vendor at our market who fries donuts on the spot, and as a result a cinnamon-sugar fried donut perfume is constantly wafting about on the breeze. (This is good for business.)

As you might well imagine, not a few people have asked whether we ever thought of making jewelry that was actually edible. To which we generally reply that it's been done (think drugstore candy necklaces), and that we can't imagine the stress of food vending, but that it's a great idea and they're more than welcome to run with it. Think of the repeat business!

Anyhow (after that really long lead-in), I couldn't help but love this article about a guy in California who uses tortillas as his canvas. Here we have someone who creates inedible art from something actually potentially edible. How I would love to be next to him at a market! Can you imagine the customers?

(In front of our booth, coffee in hand, with friend) "Really, you can eat it?"
"Nope, it just looks like food!"
"Oh cool!" (browse, browse, browse, take card, move along)
(moved along to tortilla artist's booth, next door)
"Wait, so you can eat it?"
"No, no, it's just on a tortilla."

Sadly, the article doesn't really show much of his work, so I tracked down his gallery website. Personally, I was kinda hoping for more use of the cool burn marks that flame leaves on the surface, as opposed to just the paint, but it's also possible that tortilla art does not translate well to photography.

All in all, though, it's always nice to run across people doing fun things with food! :)