So at the eleventh hour I found a couple of local craft shows and shops to sell my work at this holiday season. The first was the Christmas in the Beaches Craft Show at
The Purple Thumb. It's a cute store in the beaches area that rents out shelf/wall space to locals for handmade or ethically made goods. They have tons of great stuff! I was there November 12-13. I managed to sell a few things, but found it very difficult. Not as many people as I had hoped came through -- probably because I failed to realize that no one goes to the beach in the winter, and plus it rained on the second day!! But overall it was a good experience, especially for my first show. And more than that I got to meet a lot of other vendors who were just like me, and traded stories, tips, useful websites, life experiences... You get to talk a lot when you're sitting in one place for 8 hours!
The lovely ladies from
100 Mile Finds also stopped by. It's nice to meet the faces behind the website :) Their website just launched, and its purpose is to link customers with locally made goods. Buying local not only helps the environment, but puts your money towards your fellow citizens rather than those big box stores. I've enlisted as a vendor on that site as well! I've just started
my page, and will be adding more stuff soon!
One of the girls I met at the Purple Thumb passed on some info about the
Holiday Popup Art Shop in Kensington Market, who were coincidentally looking for more handmade gifts and stocking stuffers to sell. So... I quickly packed up my pillows again and dropped them off. They will be on sale there until December 30, alongside many other handmade gifts and works of art by local artisans. It's really a unique place :) And in a great area if you're looking for that one-of-a-kind gift for that special someone. Hope you'll stop by!
I myself am more of a necklace person, but in the spirit of expanding my horizons, here are a few bracelets that I just made. I fell in love with these stones I found at the bead store: pink jade, blue lace agate, and chrysocolla. I loved them so much I put all of the beads I bought into each bracelet. I need to go back to the store asap ;)
After posting these bracelets on my facebook page, my friend pointed out that they look an awful lot like my dad's trellace of grapes back home. Maybe I was subconsciously homesick when I thought these up? What do you think? uncanny ;)
