A day at the Crafters & Peddlers Market

Do you have a garage or craft room full of excess craft supplies?  Perhaps you have orphaned projects that you will never actually get around to finishing.  What do you do with these things?  

Well, a group of local crafters got together to sell their excess craft supplies, unfinished projects and other assorted oddities.  The event that originally started off as a giant yard sale turned into a craftastic opportunity to buy crafting supplies, learn new techniques and try some new things.  The market took place in the parking lot of the “Piecemakers” quilt store in Costa Mesa, California. .  For a very small fee, vendors got a good size booth to display their materials and present them to the public.  There was no charge to the public for entry to the event.  I found a great selection of scrapbooking supplies and kids crafts supplies at this event.  They also had a good selection of crafting tools like: knitting needles, hand looms, scissors, glues, hot glue guns, etc.  There were also packaged craft kits that had spend too many years in a box and were finally going to find new homes.  I even picked up a box of modge podge.  

For those shoppers on the look out for a new craft to try, there were local teachers doing demonstrations all day long.  These featured a variety of craft techniques, which ranged from cake decorating, cooking,

jewelry making, rubber-stamping, and even some fun metal clay techniques.

Multi media Steampunk robot made by Kathy Davis, from an old altoid container

One of the local teachers was Kathy Davis, polymer clay artist,  who teachers polymer clay, felting and metal clay techniques.  

Sculpting classes, metal clay technique, felted creatures and more.

For those who can not attend one of Kathy's classes in person, she also has a cd set on Etsy that combines felting with polymer clay.  Kathy has been a guest on the television show “DIY Jewelry”, written articles for various magazines, and has demonstrated for a variety of manufacturers at the Craft and Hobby Association shows.

Samples of CD class projects

Another fun booth was the “Cheltenham Cottage” booth, where Mariepaule Rossier was demonstrating spinning.  Mariepaule makes some lovely items from yarn that she spins from her own livestock.

 She even had one of her rabbits on hand to demonstrate the source of the roving she was spinning with.  The rabbit had a great personality and seemed to enjoy all the special attention she got. 

 Mariepaule also teaches weaving, felting, and other textile crafts.

 There were the booths with a variety of finished projects.  There was an amazing selection of textile crafts.  Some of the projects offered for sale; included blackwork embroidery, knitted items, recycled fork jewelry, photography, weaving, and more.  I even found some “Swedish Huck Weaving” which was beautiful.

Swedish Huck Weaving

The event provided as a fun way for crafters to clean out their craft rooms, garages, and find new homes for their excess supplies. Some of the booths were filled with new and gently used crafting supplies.  I picked up some great deals (like cross stitch kits for $1 and some paper punches).  There was even someone on hand to sharpen knives and scissors.

This type of event is becoming more popular with the local craft guilds and crafters, as a great way to delete unneeded supplies and pick up new ones without adding to the landfill problem. 

So what are you or your local craft groups doing with their unneeded supplies?

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