Look­ing for some­thing to do this sunny week­end, Charm City and D.C. metro read­ers? Then why not check out the High­land­town Spring Art­fest this Sat­ur­day from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Held at Mag­no­lia Designs Gallery in the Skylofts, the Art­fest promises to be a fun way to wel­come the new sea­son and sup­port local artists and craftspeople.

Artists at Saturday’s event will include: Adorn­ments by Ate­lier Beads, Elisa Shere Jew­elry, Joe Den­ni­son, Lana Bella, Robert Funk, Tigerlilyshop and many others.

Sat­ur­day 20 March 2010, 10 a.m. — 3 p.m. at Skylofts 3701 Bank Street, Bal­ti­more, MD 21224, check it out

Liv­ing in the Balto/D.C. metro area and look­ing for some­thing to do this week­end? Well then head down to D.C. this Sat­ur­day (19 Dec) for the fourth annual Hol­i­day Booty Mar­ket! Fea­tur­ing the work of twenty regional artists and crafters, the mar­ket is a great chance to find last-minute hol­i­day trea­sures for your loved ones all while brows­ing among the beau­ti­ful fur­ni­ture avail­able at Design Within Reach. A few of the ven­dors fea­tured Sat­ur­day include:

60 bugs

de*nada

Mary Ellen Doran

Gosh­darnknit

Red Prairie

Jaime Zol­lars

The event will be held in Wash­ing­ton D.C. from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Adams Mor­gan Design Within Reach show­room. Check­out the event Web site for more details.

Images: 60 bugs, De*Nada Design, Mary Ellen Doran, Gosh­darnknit, Red Prairie Press, Jaime Zol­lars

Pop­pytalk Hand­made has just launched their lat­est monthly online “street mar­ket.” Begin­ning today and run­ning through Fri­day, Sep­tem­ber 18, this month’s theme is “School Days: A back to school market.”

If you haven’t already taken a look this month’s good­ies, here is a peek at some of the things that caught my eye:

If you haven’t checked them out before, Pop­pytalk curates a monthly online show­case of inter­na­tional design tal­ent; beau­ti­ful hand­made items are avail­able in this fun and diverse mar­ket­place. Go check it out!

Images: Pop­pytalk Handmade

For the 34^th year in a row, the Amer­i­can Craft Coun­cil (ACC) will hold its annual San Fran­cisco show this week­end at the Fort Mason Cen­ter!

If you have never been to an ACC show, boy have you been miss­ing out! This year’s San Fran­cisco show will fea­ture 250 national artists who have trav­eled to the Bay area to show and sell their lat­est and great­est– fur­ni­ture, cloth­ing, jew­elry, décor (a list of exhibitors is avail­able on the show page orga­nized by medium).

Over the years, I have been to many of the ACC shows in Bal­ti­more and seen an AMAZING range of work and art. By attend­ing these shows, I have met artists whose work has enriched my life, enlivened my home and even inspired my own work.

Details:
• The Amer­i­can Craft Coun­cil Show in San Francisco
• at the Fort Mason Cen­ter (vague direc­tions avail­able here– but if you’ve never been there, it’s a pretty walk along the water past Fisherman’s Wharf– the view from the hill above is gorgeous!)
• Fri­day, August 14; 10am — 8pm
  Sat­ur­day, August 15; 10am — 6 pm
  Sun­day, August 16; 10 am — 5 pm
• Tick­ets are $12/person or $18 for a two-day pass. And since they’ve extended the Fri­day evening hours to 8pm, tick­ets for Fri­day night only are $5 after 5pm; a SCREAMING deal, if you ask me. OR if you know you’re going and want to save a few bucks, why not buy your tick­ets ahead of time at a slight dis­count here.

Not a Bay area res­i­dent? Fear not, faith­ful reader. There are other ACC shows around the nation through­out the year.

For the rest of the 2009 year the ACC shows are as fol­lows:
San Fran­cisco, CA Aug. 14–16, 2009
Char­lotte, NC Nov. 6–8, 2009
Sara­sota, FL Dec. 4–6, 2009

For 2010, the ACC shows are as fol­lows:
Bal­ti­more, MD Feb. 25–28, 2010
Atlanta, GA Mar. 12–14, 2010
St. Paul, MN Apr. 16–18 , 2010
San Fran­cisco, CA Aug. 6–8, 2010

Hope­fully, you can check at least one of the ACC shows in the next year!

Ever since I spent far too many hours Christ­mas shop­ping online last year, I have been nuts for the jew­elry of Rachael Vic­to­ria Adams, also know as Nou­veau Mot­ley. Ever the fan of decon­structed objects from the past, my love for her work should be no sur­prise. Based in the San Fran­cisco Bay area, Rachael’s jew­elry is avail­able at Dark Gar­den Corsetry in Hayes Val­ley and Juniper Tree Fash­ion in Oak­land. Her wares are also avail­able online at her Etsy bou­tique.

A sam­pling of her gor­geous jew­elry:

Images: Nou­veau Motley

For those of you from the San Fran­cisco Bay area, I thought I’d post a reminder that the Rene­gade Craft Fair is in town this week­end on Sat­ur­day and Sun­day. Fea­tur­ing more than 200 artists (TWO HUNDRED!!) this event is not to be missed!

In addi­tion to hand­made good­ies span­ning the spec­trum from wear­ables to con­sum­ables, there will raf­fles and work­shops. Per­son­ally, I’m espe­cially excited to see paper goods from Dandy Lion Press, jew­elry by Mama’s Lit­tle Babies (who I’ve men­tioned before), Bird vs. bird designs’ bags and Stella Nep­tune’s cloth­ing.

And do you know what the best part of all is? The fair is free, yes FREE… as in no money to enjoy a beau­ti­ful after­noon by the bay sur­rounded by hand­made good­ies and the tal­ented peo­ple who make them. So go check out the Rene­gade Craft Fair.

Check­out the lat­est “street mar­ket” over at Pop­pytalk Hand­made. Run­ning through July 10, this month’s theme is “here comes the sun.”

If you haven’t checked out the site before, Pop­pytalk curates a monthly online show­case of inter­na­tional design tal­ent; beau­ti­ful hand­made items are avail­able in this fun and diverse arena. If you haven’t already taken a gan­der at all of this month’s good­ies here’s a peek at some of the things that caught my eye:

Stock­holm by Stephanie Levy.

What a fun col­lage! This piece reminds me only too well of my old apart­ment in Stockholm.

Pink Lemon­ade by Roll and Tum­ble Press

Whis­per Neck­lace by Mama’s Litt­tle Babies
I have been a fan of Mama’s Lit­tle Babies for ages! I tripped over her work on Etsy.com last win­ter and have been tempted time and again to treat myself to some of her delight­ful jewelry.

Cus­tom Mono­gram Sign by Signs by Diane

Ever the sucker for ran­dom let­ter­forms and typog­ra­phy, it’s no sur­prise that I’m drawn to Diane’s signs.

Sim­mer by Yel­lena

Yel­lena is another artist whose work I dis­cov­ered on Etsy some time ago and have delighted in her work ever since; I love the den­sity of her work.

Golden Plover print by Sarah Ahern

These pho­tos are long over­due, but this year’s Cal­i­for­nia Black­smith Asso­ci­a­tion Spring Con­fer­ence in Petaluma was a heck of time! The high­light this year was a visit from a trio of Ital­ian smiths — Clau­dio Bot­tero and the Stenico broth­ers, Jad­ran and Mar­tino. Dur­ing the two fea­ture days of the con­fer­ence, Clau­dio pro­duced a sculp­ture enti­tled “Casanova” work­ing with the Stenico broth­ers as his strik­ers.



Above: Claudio’s sketch… it seemed to serve more as a ref­er­ence for the ever grow­ing audi­ence, as none of the smiths appeared to refer to it dur­ing their forg­ing ses­sions



The fin­ished sculp­ture was auc­tioned off dur­ing Sat­ur­day night’s ban­quet. Just beau­ti­ful. More pho­tos from the con­fer­ence taken by the CBA librar­ian, Whit­ney Pot­ter, are avail­able here.

Set against the back­ground of the Petaluma Fair­grounds, there were plenty of tex­tural details to dis­cover as well. Here’s one of the more play­ful pieces of type I dis­cov­ered dur­ing the week­end: