Renegade Craft Fair NYC

This past weekend I took a trip to NYC with one of my oldest and bestest friends, and to my great joy and surprise the Renegade Craft Fair just happened to be in town. I have always enjoyed craft shows, from church bazaars to the Canadian creme-de-la-creme, the One of a Kind, but the Renegade was in a whole other league than even the OOAK. This show was chock full of hipster type Etsy sellers and the best part is there was no admission fee (take a cue from that, OOAK)! Martha Stewart American Made was on hand, doling out some freebies and giving some free craft lessons. I took part in a wood burning class, which was super cool, although I was a little disappointed with my end product. There was also an old-fashioned photo booth, yummy food vendors and lots of lumbersexuals on hand for eye candy (read cute boys with scruffy beards and checked shirts...seems to be a big trend in NYC) ;)

Other trends I noticed were all things fringed and tasseled and AIR PLANTS everywhere! By far the busiest booth was "Coral & Tusk," who sell textiles embroidered with whimsical animals and natural objects. They had big boxes filled with these embroidered fabric scraps for dirt cheap, and there were about 15 people at any given time trying to crowd into the 5 foot by 5 foot space...yikes! But it was worth getting a few elbows to the ribs to get these amazing finds, which I plan to turn into pillows:

coralandtusk.com

I also couldn't resist this charming little terracotta Geo-Planter:

www.ash-ware.net

And, of course, I had to get myself something tasseled:

rebeccadaryl.etsy.com

Finally, these teensy, delicate wishbone earrings in 14 kt gold rounded out my Renegade haul:

www.alibinyc.com

I was simply lucky that I happened to be in the city when this fantastic event was on, but it happens in different U.S. cities (and London, England) at different times, so if you are ever as lucky as I was to be in the right place at the right time, you must, you must go! http://www.renegadecraft.com/