Due to summer being INSANELY busy for me, I just got involved with Market Day  this year.  It’s only a few months late …

My first experience this year was last month. They have an amazing new venue this year — the Kirkwood hotel.  It’s bright, clean and has climate control.  And all the booths are indoors.  On carpet.  SUPER fabulous.

Last month I experimented with a new setup. I added shelving, courtesy of my roommates and their video game addiction (normally this shelf houses some of their games — yes, I said some).

Also, I made an epic butt-ton of zippy pouches. Shown here are a small amount of what I had or inventory that day, as well as the last of my wallets.  I’m going to be revamping my wallets for next year.  Wallets 2.0.  There will be zippers or snaps involved.  Potentially lace, flowers or rhinestones.

Sadly, I sold this adorable pouch.  Well, not sadly. I made a sale (this was not ALL I sold that day, thank you — I actually sold about 60-70% of what I brought that day). I love using selvege edges in my zippy pouches to keep the scrappy look going and because the concept behind the pouches is to use EVERY BIT of fabric scrap possible.

This month’s Market Day was a suitcase showdown (ie. they were only able to reserve the front part of the building).  I really enjoyed this idea — for one, I always use a suitcase.  Two — I didn’t have ANY time last month to make any new items, so I just brought what I had left from the previous month.  Three — I didn’t have to bring a table.  Four — it was less expensive for me.  And five — I got to network with so many more people.  We shared a booth, so there was less pressure to stay at your space the entire time as there was somebody there that could talk about your work and hopefully help sell your stuff as well as their own.

That being said, I sold ONE item — to a coworker.  It seemed like that was the general vibe of the day.  I don’t think it was due to a change in format. I think it just happens to be a slow month.  October and November will be busy, but September is kind of weird because it’s too far away from the holidays and the weather is changing and colder so not as many people were probably out at the Farmers Market (which is where a good portion of our crowd comes from).

I shared a booth with Meg, who makes fabulous needle-felted creations. Although she makes hats and other winter gear, this month she brought home decor.  I love that fox pillow. And our stuff meshed so well together!

There was definitely a bird theme at our table.

My friend Kyle, who formerly created White Boy Burritos, had a booth with these really sweet antler decorations.  This one was burnt, painted a bit on the end and clear-coated. Sooo pretty!

Here are more of his creations.

This booth had some beautiful wooden art.  I didn’t catch the vendor’s name, but I love the green piece in the center.

Best part of the day? As usual, the dogs.  Shown here is a long haired doxie WITH A MOHAWK. No, Barney is NOT getting this haircut.  Unless one of my roommates is drunk and has the clippers out.

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Aaand Market Day. Take 3.  Here’s me in my booth with a lovely new hairstyle and some wonderful new pieces. I was pretty well setup.  I also was the FIRST ONE THERE at quarter to 7 and got an awesome corner spot right in front of the big ol’ fan (which, as it turned out, I was so not appropriately dressed for that). So it was hot, but not in my spot. What a way to get some traffic.

Did I mention that I bucked up and got some real price tags? I had some mini-cards made and used them for price tags. Voila! Pretty and functional.

It was extra exciting this month because my friends Adria and Jen had a booth too. I saved them the spot behind them. Adria was selling tampon wallets, which cracked me up continuously all day … Plug Pouches … Curse Purses … Jillfolds … what to call them? And stopping random burly men and asking if they were looking for tampon wallets? Priceless.  This is why she’s still one of my besties from high school.

VOGUE. Check out my hot wind-blown look.  Yeah. That’s from standing in front of a fan for 5 hours.  Turns out it was really a good move for me though.  I felt like crap all weekend, and it would have been super rough at MD if I was as hot as everybody else (haha, sorry).

Check out my cool vintage earrings from my friend Tory. She got a bunch to make jewelry out of and gave me and my friend Shelly a few pieces she couldn’t use. Oh, and the lovely flower is courtesy of Bean and the Sprout.

cool prints from cicada grove

Delicious DarbyCakes

Fabulous earrings from MimiBird

aaand a completely random thing on the back of a door at the warehouse.

Super fun. Super cool. Sweet.

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Hey all!

It’s that magical time again. That’s right. MARKET DAY!

If y’all don’t know what Market Day is by now, you should probably get out from under that rock you’ve been hiding under.

Market Day is a casual monthly market for art, vintage, found items, homemade and handmade goods. Artists are encouraged to look beyond what they traditionally retail and bring a fun and inexpensive mix of items. Think arts festival meets bohemian garage sale. It is always free-to-attend. Six of the seven dates overlap with the nearby Des Moines Downtown Farmers’ Market. It’s is a seasonal event and runs the last Saturday of every month, May through October. We also have a special Black Friday sale the day after Thanksgiving.  Market Day is brought to you by make/break.

So basically, lots of cool people peddling pretty things.

It’s from 9 AM–2 PM this Saturday in a warehouse off of MLK. Here’s a map.

I’m going to be selling a lot of things and offering all of my pieces from 2009 at an INSANELY low price.  I’m having a trunk sale. Everything in the trunk must go. I’m also moving this week, so anything I don’t have to move, I’d be glad to offer at a fabulously low price.

In the meantime, enjoy this video of Cat Rocketship, one of the make/break peeps, chatting with me about Market Day.  For up-to-date info about Market Day, follow them on twitter.

For a preview of what I’m selling, check my etsy or my flickr. I sell things on etsy at a higher price than what I sell at Market Day, so for better deals and steals, hit up Market Day next Saturday!

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I’m participating in Market Day this month (as usual) and a really cool show called Relish The Hellish — on THE SAME DAY!

What was I thinking?

Fortunately, I didn’t have to make a whole lot of new stuff for these shows, so I’m not quite at the level of insanity where I’m tearing my hair out yet. (I did chop it all off though!)

Anyway, here are the details of the two shows:

Once again, here comes another art show where the weird are most welcome. Quickly gaining an awesome customer base, these art shows reflect the talent of folks who you wouldn’t ordinarily see in a Gallery around town.

Butch Von Dreaux is making another trek all the way from Louisiana to be here and Spookshow Pinups has been added to the list of amazing artists as well!

D. Ryan Allen will be there again showing all of his amazing work from zombie sketches to kid’s coloring books for the macabre.

In addition to the fine arts folks, we will also have all kinds of goodies like hand-made leather wallets, re-structured clothing, creepy dolls, hand-bags, pillows and everything else in between.

SATANIMALS will also be unveiling a new line of horror inspired pillows.. the first being an amazing SATANIC RITES OF DRACULA pillow!

This is not just your average art show. Pretentious art snobs are discouraged from coming. Although, it is fun to see them stick their nose in the air and turn on their heels when they see Gregg Bensink’s table of amazing goodies.

Attendees can enter the raffle to win numerous prizes including: original artwork from each of the artists, gift certificates for tattoos up to $100 as well as gift certificates to some local businesses including: Best Place Ever, ZZZ Records, Cup O’ Kryptonite and The Beauty Parlor!

The Raffle is at 9PM and you MUST be present to win!!

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