Morning of the fair: SPC vendors

Heather from Bright Lights Little City sets up her lamps made from cocktail umbrellas. One of my personal favorites and a crowd favorite as well. Unfortunately all these photos are from setup, so you don't see the shoppers or even the totally constructed displays. Just take what you see here and multiply the coolness by at least two to get an idea of what it was like on the day of the Craftstravaganza.

Jason was one of many first-time vendors at our fair, and his glass resin bowls were another popular item. He told us that he spent all winter making them and had no idea how they would sell, so I think he was happy with the turnout. They were really quite pretty. We saw lots of people walking around the building with one of his bowls in their hands. If I'd been in the Christmas shopping mindset I think I would have purchased at least one.

Chris and Isara from Polaire construct a rack. Actually, looks like Isara's doing most of the work here, and she showed up the night before to decorate the table as well. I didn't even get a chance to really look at their table during the show because I was rushing around so much, which is my biggest regret of the day. One of my coworkers said she knows these two, but I didn't see her at the show, although my boss and three of my other colleagues did attend! Lisa brought her son and he bought a copy of my Bob the Golfer comic book, so I have a new fan!

This is Jenny Gehlhar setting up a nice vertically-oriented booth space, which were purportedly the most popular. She was spacing out those pillows near the end of the day because she was selling out so fast. That is what we like to see in the craft fair business. Jen also publishes the local punk zine Atomic and plays in a band, so she is basically one of the coolest girls I have ever met.

The 7two7 Glass booth was another favorite, although we were nervous all day about one of the racks getting knocked over! Jenna bought a cute glass barette from here. A more limited assortment of 7two7 products is displayed at Quince on Grand Ave, but it was awesome to see all of this in one place. I wish I'd had more time to see it all.

Faythe Levine from Flying Fish and the Indie Craft Documentary! We bought something from her too, but she was mostly there to film interviews for her documentary. It was a lot more fun than the live TV interview, and I hope they find something that is worth using in the movie. We will be looking forward to seeing it when it is complete! Faythe was super nice and I wanted more time to talk with her, but we might make another trip down to visit her in Milwaukee at the new location of her craft store, Paper Boat.

The Pursecution booth was right next to the empty booth that was next to ours. We had a very diverse group of both vendors and shoppers, which gives me a good feeling, plus it's just plain awesome to see more tattooed folks around. Some of our more elderly attendees did not enjoy the show very much, but they did list "people-watching" as their favorite part. The people are really what it's all about.

Here's some stuff from Nate's Custom Sewing. He has pillows for sale at Quince too. I also liked the flat art but, once again, I didn't really have time to enjoy it. I was really glad that we were able to get (comparatively speaking) so many male vendors at a craft fair.

Here's one last vendor booth, but I can't tell which one! Looking back at the photos I realize there were some tables I never gave more than a glance to the whole day--there was just so much to see and so much going on. I haven't even covered everything, so I'll try to wrap up tomorrow with the band photos and any vendor tables I've got left. What a weekend! It's going to be Thursday before I can talk about how I spent my Sunday.