Happy Handmade!

Back in 944 January’s issue of this year, we wrote an article ‘V is For Vanguard’, entrepreneurs that lead the visionary new school of cool. Out of the sixteen entrepreneurs that were listed, one of them by the name of Rob Kalin came to mind this past weekend. Kalin is the Co-Founder & Board Member of Etsy.com. Honored to meet a couple of the staff members at the Etsy booth this past event at San Francisco’s Renegade Craft Fair including Jesse who works with the business development for Etsy, the Renegade Craft Fair is the largest do-it-yourself arts and crafts fair held with more than 200 artists around the country coming into the bay area after making its stops around Chicago, Brooklyn, and Los Angeles. The fair was first started in Chicago of 2003 and has continued to put on the most exciting event in the arts & crafts. Sue Daly, who was first introduced to crafting by her mom, is one of the brilliants behind the fair. With designing jewelry (www.timberhandmade.com) she also runs Renegade Handmade shop in Chicago, where people can find handmade items for sale from all over. A lot of these handmade items have been seen on Etsy and for those who aren’t familiar with Etsy (which I wouldn’t understand why not, it is one of New York’s most talked about tech start-ups) it is a site where more than 500,000 sellers are registered to sell their creative makings and only employs about 50 people! Like mentioned in our January issue, with more than two million sales in 2008 alone. Their vision is simple, Buy, Sell, and Live Handmade. Pretty similar to that of Renegade Craft Fair only that Renegade puts on THE show like no other! San Francisco’s Renegade Craft Fair was held at the old, much appreciated Fort Mason Center this past weekend (July 18th & 19th). It had its handmade clothing, accessories, plush creatures, mustaches, face painting (callepompon.blogspot.com), piano cyclists…anything you can imagine creative & handmade! Visual above covers some favorites, but believe…there were way too many more favorites. Beginning from #1 is Liverpool’s native, Kate Sutton’s Six 1” Tea Themed Badges, katesutton.etsy.com #2 is Portland’s Elizabeth Soule’s print from one of her magnificent original Polaroid’s of Elephant on Map, esoule.etsy.com #3 is kg & ab’s Three Miniature Forest Animals, Fox, Owl and Deer…handmade from a vintage mold, kgrandey.etsy.com #4 is Hungry Hairbeast, a print of an original ink illustration by laurageorge.etsy.com #5 is Kristen’s True Love Necklace featuring Monkey and Forest. 1.5” charm with vintage beads SuspectShoppe.etsy.com and last, but not least, #6 is San Francisco’s artist, Lisa Congdon’s Mountain Dweller Randolph, gouache on masonite portrait of man, lisacongdon.etsy.com For a complete list of artists that attended the fair, please visit www.renegadecraft.com Hope you all enjoyed our favorites as much as we did! Happy Handmade!

For original post, please go to 944 Magazine.