I had my first day of selling at the Vancouver Farmers Market on Wednesday, and despite grey skies, a bit of rain AND missing the first game of the Stanley Cup hockey finals, it was a wonderful afternoon.

The Vancouver markets take place in 4 different locations on various days of the week, so Wednesday afternoon means the Main Street Farmers Market is in full swing in front of the train station (right across from the Skytrain station).

I was showing my Canucks pride & listening to the game via the radio during the market, but managed to race home to catch the last period. And the only goal in the game! Yay!

Despite the ominous looking grey skies, the sun managed to hold strong for the beginning & end of the market day, with a short cloudburst in the middle. I stayed dry under my tent & was counting my blessings that I didn’t have to set up my brand new tent for the very first time in the rain. Shopping for locally grown strawberries, peppers & tomatoes, however, is just dandy in the rain. I very nearly spent all of my earnings on groceries!

One thing I didn’t buy, but plan to as soon as I get my balcony organized & set up for container gardening, is one of these lettuce bowls. You keep plucking off the outside leaves as they get bigger (leaving the hearts intact) & you’ll have fresh salad fixings grown right at home. How awesome is that?

Next up for me is the Kitsilano Farmers Market on Sunday, June 5th. I’ll be back at the Main Street Farmers Market on June 15th. (Times & locations of Vancouver Farmers Markets.) Hope to see you there!

I’ve been helping the organizers of Got Craft with the upcoming spring market (mark your calendars for May 8th!) & one of my favorite tasks has been collecting all of the swag donated by our talented vendors. Every show people will line up bright & early in the morning, hours before even the first vendor arrives, in hopes of getting their hands on one of the famous Got Craft swag bags. Here’s a sneak peek at what the first lucky 45 people through the door will be taking home:

If you’re not the early morning sort, there is still hope! A few fabulous blogs are doing contest giveaways. Find out more on the official Got Craft blog here.

See you in a few weeks, Vancouver!

I’m slowly recovering from a fabulous weekend at Make It! Vancouver & by “recovering” I mean coming down from one of those exhaustedly happy highs whilst playing with the new treasures I scored at the show. I had very little time to get out of my booth & actually shop & *still* managed to buy stuff from 6 different vendors! Yay!

I launched a couple of new products at this show including the bookmark clips I mentioned last week & a new line of greeting cards featuring my little critter paintings. I made a pile more brooches too, but still managed to sell out of Stanley the Robot (my personal favorite).

Keeping me company this weekend were the fabulous Brandi & Brent from Kukubee, who will also be joining me in 3 weeks at Got Craft:

I finally snagged one of the ridiculously cute notebooks made by the Tiny Fig:

The lovely Christi from Bueno Style (who may have been drinking wine, but certainly not “cougar juice”) scours antique shops all over the world to create her stunning re-imagined vintage pieces:

Bueno Style is also one of the vendors that will be at Got Craft on May 8th. Click here for a full vendor list.

Now for some yummy treats! Hands down the best macarons I’ve ever had the pleasure of tasting were made by French Made Baking, a new vendor on the Vancouver scene. David and Catherine hail from France, which might be why their baked treats are so amazing. At any rate, I’m sure I’ll be stalking their booth at the farmer’s markets all summer!

I also scored 2 big delicious jars of mustard beans & pickled veggies, just like my mister’s grandma used to make. He’s in heaven.

As a thank you to my mister, I picked up these dashing Lego cufflinks from Nostalgic Links:

There were so many other talented folks at this show that I’m missing here, but as much as I hate to leave anybody out, this post is getting way too long & my dog is getting way too barky to continue to ignore. So. Thanks for a wonderful weekend to everybody who came out! See you at the next show!

I love this time of year! The cherry blossom trees are blooming. The birds are chirping. And the craft shows are bustling!

I’m a busy bee getting ready for Make It! Vancouver which kicks off this Friday & runs through Sunday at the Croatian Cultural Centre on Commercial Drive. It also happens to be hockey play-offs, so I guess we’ll see how much overlap there is amongst the hockey fan & the crafty shopper!

One of the new things I’m working on for Make It is these super cute bookmark clips:

I’m also hoping to have some new cards on display, but we’ll have to wait & see what the postman brings me today. I ordered the prettiest blue envelopes ages ago & they still haven’t arrived. The clock is ticking!

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In other crafty news, the Got Craft blog is now sporting a shiny new post penned by <drum roll…> me! Click on over to check it out.

Got Craft spring edition is less than a month away!

I had a fantastic time last weekend at the Portobello West season opener. The new location at Creekside Community Centre in Olympic Village isn’t quite as spacious & beautiful as the Rocky Mountaineer Station (gotta love those huge ceilings!), but it’s so much more accessible that I think it will turn out to be a good move. We had so many moms & strollers & folks who were just out walking along the sea wall & stumbled in to see what the market was all about. New customers are always a good thing!

I didn’t have quite as much time to shop as I would have liked, but I did get to do plenty of chatting with my fabulous neighbors. On Sunday they were kind enough to watch my table for me while I devoured the samples at Cocoa Nymph’s table (& brought some treats home, of course). I also scored a gorgeous pair of feather earrings from Sweet Harriet which I rocked at the dog park today accompanied by Princess Sparkle, the rescue pup that joined our family a little over a month ago. I’m smitten with both, clearly.

Check the earrings! ^^^