Pretty, Pretty, Pretty Penny

Last weekend I had the pleasure of spending the day with ten other East Bay crafters and artists in the Parlour Gallery loft at Pretty Penny, Oakland's favorite vintage shop! Here are a few highlights:

The lovely Monica of Wonderwear. Her work is delicate and really beautiful; just like her! I lusted after a necklace made with a triangle of vintage lace and gems, but foolishly left it behind. My life is a series of regrets!

Lauren Davis of CrookedSister organized the event along with fellow artist Bennykelly; above are Lauren's flowers and bowties, made from all vintage fabrics, many of which came from the East Bay Depot for Creative Reuse, a resource that we are SO lucky to have in the 'hood. I got two awesome hair clips, but also coveted her hand-embroidered bags (she does everything by hand!). Here's me with my seashell hair clip along with my bunny earrings and my sexy tank from Queen of Hearts.



A rare tolerable side-view pic!



My space. It was fun to scale down from the previous weekend's monster space to my good old wee table. It was also divine that all my stuff was already packed and ready. If only it were always this easy!



Laureen and John are the proprietors of Volta Press, a printing studio that just had their open house yesterday! Their work is just seriously awesome, and their studio is cute and tidy, with butter-yellow walls and a kick-ass Vandercook letterpress. They take the art of letterpressing seriously and it shows! Dare I say that if I ever get married, I know who's making my invitations.


I fell in love with these earrings from It's Scrap, my booth neighbor to the left. They are made from scraps of bookbinding leather, and printed using the same kind of machine that prints book covers. Awesome, yes? Lara, the designer, is also a poet and a super-cool lady; I never thought that I could find jewelry emotionally touching, but there's something about her stamped phrases that really gets me!



I made a handful of excellent trades, including a gorgeous pair of bottle-cap bunny earrings from Lea of Salvaged Beauty, and two haunting hand-sewn notebooks from Allison of Abeo Bestia. My table was located next to these two hilarious ladies, and their good cheer made my day. Seriously, I have never encountered such a friendly group of ladies; it was a total party up there; we dished about exciting things like business licenses and sales tax and small-space crafting, which was great.

Below you'll find me yakking it up with Bess from Bird vs. Bird, a famous Etsian and fellow container-gardening, tiny-home-living, full-time-working, Yahoo-News-reading Oakland lady. Yes!



I just had the best time; from time to time a young man came around to serve us ice-cold beers, which may or may not have contributed to my epic slo-mo fall into a pile of my own purses. If that isn't a sign of a great craft show, I don't know what is. But seriously, this event was so well-curated and I left wanting to hang out with everyone again soon. I also sold a lot, which is always a bonus. Cheers to Pretty Penny, Lauren, Kelly, and everyone else who made last Saturday rock!