WA Artisans and Crafters Fair – recap

I had a great time at my first ever West Ashley Artisans and Crafters Fair May 14th. I had an awesome spot right by the food court entrance and closest to the free glitter tattoo lady (perfect for when the little ones wanted to touch something fragile, “Look! Free glitter tattoos!”). It was a pretty good crowd for a random weekend in May. I think I’ll try to do it whenever I can (it’s every 2nd Saturday). I can’t make it in July due to a previous commitment, but I plan to be there on June 11th!

WA A&C Fair May
My spot – they actually gave me an extra table so I spread out a bit.
There was a great singer, Adam Tomcat, near our booth for the fair (you can see him in the background)

West Ashley Artisans and Crafters Fair!

SAVE THE DATE!

May 14th from 11am – 4pm

I will have a small booth at the Citadel Mall for the WA Artisans and Crafters Fair. This will be my first experience with this event, which is on the 2nd Saturday of each month. If things go well, I plan on making this my main selling venue going forward. This is a free, indoor event, so come on over!

Fair
WA Artisan & Crafters Fair

End of Show!

Today is the last day of the Charleston Holiday Market, and it was a busy day. My Mermaid mosaic, Starfish Trio, and Here Comes the Sun mosaic windows all found loving new homes, along with numerous smaller pieces. I’ve made a *little* bit of room to make some new things, so hopefully I will have time to revisit the sunset mosaic I started a few weeks ago with dichroic glass.

Prepping for the Holidays

I haven’t been posting much, mostly because the dichroic window I’ve been working on has now been rethought as a sunset and it’s taking me some time to plan it. At the same time, I haven’t been doing much that is new and different, until this weekend. I decided to sign up for the Charleston Holiday Market at the N. Charleston Convention Center. It’s a big three day craft fair, held November 8-10. I usually do most of my holiday shopping at this event. This year, I’ll be a vendor!

Holiday Market Info

When I was talking with another vendor at the N. Charleston Farmers Market about it last week, she suggested that I make some seasonal coasters for the event. So I decided to see what I can do. I haven’t used any really perishable / organic materials other than shells and beachy things, so plants are an expansion of my repertoire. I headed out into my yard and snipped some cheerful berries and greenery from my plants, then coated them with resin spray.

Festive greenery and berries

I then set about inserting my harvest into some coaster molds with resin. Hopefully they will turn out well – I read a few stories online of others’ experiences with plant based embedding and there were a lot of woeful tales of things turning brown. Fingers crossed that the resin spray helps deter that from happening. I even read that some folks use plain old hair spray instead of resin spray, which I may try when my supply of resin spray is depleted. I have two types of berries on hand, one from I believe a Pyracantha and some others from some Asparagus Fern in my yard.

Boxwood and berries
Leyland cypress and berries
Here are a couple of the first batch I made yesterday.

I like how the Boxwood looks, but it is very thick and difficult to keep small enough for the mold. I used some extra resin spray on the cypress greenery in the batches I did today to see if they hold their color any better.