Thank you to Chop Shop!

Charm City Craft Mafia sends a big thank you to our sponsor Chop Shop!

A one-stop shop for all your hair, skin, and body needs! Ream more about Chop Shop here, or visit them in Hamilton!

Thank you to Clementine!

                           Charm City Craft Mafia sends a big thank you to our sponsor Clementine!

Dine at Clementine and enjoy locally grown veggies and local, responsibly sourced meats.  The menu changes daily! Read more about Clementine here or visit them in Hamilton! 

Holiday Heap Vendor Spotlight: Tasha McKelvey

Get to know Holiday Heap vendor Tasha McKelvey:

What is your favorite holiday tradition? 

Having a big yummy dinner with the whole family.

What do you have new for Holiday Heap?

Whiskey Jugs & Santa Ornaments (they are the cousins of my gnome ornaments).

What do enjoy most about the holidays in Baltimore?

Coming up for Holiday Heap, getting to spend time with all my Baltimore friends and sampling some amazing Baltimore restaurants all in one weekend.

What is your favorite holiday cookie?

Gingerbread (the soft kind, not the hard kind)

Holiday Heap Vendor Spotlight: Open Eyes Press

Learn a little bit about Holiday Heap vendor Open Eyes Press:

What is your favorite holiday tradition? 
Definitely decorating the house. I love putting up the Christmas tree, and displaying cards I get from family and friends on the mantle. It definitely makes me feel closer to all the people I don't see very often during the year.

What do you have new for Holiday Heap?
I have screen printed pillows this year! I've been wanting to do these for awhile, and finally got them printed in time for the holidays.  They're made from linen and organic cotton/hemp fabrics, so they're really soft and durable. All the prints are my original designs, so you won't find them anywhere else.

What do enjoy most about the holidays in Baltimore?
The general excitement in the air, and shopping for gifts for friends and family (at indie craft venues like Holiday Heap, of course!). openeyespress.etsy.com

Holiday Heap is Right Around the Corner!

Are you ready? Holiday Heap is tomorrow!

Here’s a look at last year- this year promises to be just as exciting!

If you’re planning on coming, RSVP over at our Facebook page, and check out the vendor sneak peeks on our blogspot! Come hungry, and get lunch from Clementine, Gypsy Queen, orIced Gems!

Saturday, December 1st, 10am to 5pm, at 2640 Saint Paul Street, Baltimore MD 21218, inside St John’s Church

Thank You to Trohv!

Charm City Craft Mafia sends a big thank you to our sponsor Trohv!

Trohv is an inventive, independently-owned shop featuring home goods and gifts with varied collections of new and vintage goods. 

Read more about Trohv here, or visit them on the Avenue in Hampden!

Holiday Heap Vendor Spotlight: mightMIGHT

Get to know Holiday Heap vendor mightMIGHT:

What is your favorite holiday tradition? 

Lights. Give me a string of lights and watch me go.

Also: eating cookies (but that's not just limited to the holidays)

What do you have new for Holiday Heap?

SO excited to be able to show off my newest project: The Under Appreciated Animals series. I just completed a wildly successful Kickstarter campaign to raise money for printing costs and am so proud of how it all came together. The idea was to make a *new* A-Z for kids (and not so little kids), which featured animals you rarely, if ever, see in children's books & nursery decor. The images from the series are available as prints, but also as a matching/memory card game, flash cards with fun facts about each animal, a coloring book, magnet & postcard sets, stickers and plush!

What do enjoy most about the holidays in Baltimore?

Would I sound too much like a suck up if I said Holiday Heap? Really, though, as grueling as it is getting everything ready for these holiday shows, a GOOD show is sooooooo worth it. I love living somewhere where so many people come out to shop local for the holidays. Also: eating cookies.

What is your favorite holiday cookie?

Oh hey, look! A question about cookies! Well, hands down favorite cookie ANY time of year is the chocolate chip (but i'm super picky about it, so, yeah). Holiday specific? I like those almond-y 3 color cake thingies with the raspberry layer between each color and then its all dipped in chocolate. You know those things? Those. Whatever those are. Yes, please.

Holiday Heap Vendor Spotlight: Block Party Press

Learn a little bit about Holiday Heap vendor Block Party Press:

 

What is your favorite holiday tradition?   
It's definitely trimming the Christmas Tree. I make ornaments each year for my sons, so it's really fun to remember all the memories of Christmases past as we open up each ornament and add it to the tree. By the time my sons leave home, they'll have a tree full of their own ornaments and a lifetime of memories to share with their families every Christmas.
 
What do you have new for Holiday Heap?  
I have some new jewelry designs, but I'm also making more non-jewelry gift items this year; Flasks, compacts, card holders, key chains, magnets and more. Lots of goodies for filling those stockings!

What is your favorite holiday cookie? 
My favorite holiday cookie is old fashioned gingerbread men. They're fun to decorate and even more fun to eat.

Holiday Heap Vendor Spotlight: Little Flower Designs

 

Get to know Holiday Heap Vendor, Little Flower Designs:

What is your favorite holiday tradition?

Each year my family gets excited to put up our Christmas tree. Both my husband and I have a collection of handmade ornaments from when we where children and ones that we have made or bought from fellow makers through the years. It always feels good to get them out and now share them with our daughter. And of course to add to our collection!

       

What do you have new for Holiday Heap?  

This year I will have a sweet polar bear ornament. Plus a lovely assortment of my illustrated pottery.

Holiday Heap Vendor Spotlight: Threeravens Yarn & Fiber

Get to know more about Holiday Heap Vendor Threeravens:

What do you have new for Holiday Heap?

Besides a huge amount of super bulky yarn, I'm pleased to be offering handspun-yarn covered pendant lamps this year! Wool is safe, colorful, and light, and makes the most interesting textured lampshades. I can't wait for everyone to see them!

What is your favorite holiday tradition?

My favorite holiday tradition has and probably always will be putting up the Christmas tree with my mom. She has ornaments from my childhood that always need to be hung while telling some funny story about why she still has it - like the styrofoam gingerbread man that I took a bite out of, in hopes of finding an actual tasty cookie. Yes, we hang it with the obvious bite missing!

What do enjoy most about the holidays in Baltimore (or in your home city)?

All the lights and decorations around the city, hoping for the holiday snow we almost never get, seeing everyone's hand knits come out to play, the holiday train gardens, Miracle on 34th St... this year I want to catch the Merry Tuba Christmas fun, too!

What is your favorite holiday cookie?

My mom [obviously the offical keeper of Christmas in my family!] makes these sugar cookies that are the thinnest, tastiest things EVER. She hits them up with a sprinkle of colored sugar, nothing overly fancy - they are the best. *nom*

Holiday Heap Vendor Spotlight: Baltimore Print Studios

Learn more about Holiday Heap Vendor Baltimore Print Studios:

What do you have new for Holiday Heap?

We're super excited to participate for the first time. We have some new letterpress prints and something we've never tried before and had a lot of fun making - letterpress printed wrapping paper!

What is your favorite holiday tradition?

Pie!

What is your favorite holiday cookie?

See above.

Holiday Heap Vendor Spotlight: Almanac Industries

Learn a little more about Holiday Heap vendor Almanac Industries:

What is your favorite holiday tradition? 

Making food together with our family.

What do you have new for Holiday Heap?

Leather iPad sleeves, holiday gift tags, lots of awesome screenprinted wallets and zip cases!

What is your favorite holiday cookie?

Ginger Molasses

Holiday Heap Vendor Spotlight: pidge pidge

Get to know more about Holiday Heap vendor pidge pidge

What is your favorite holiday tradition?

I love spending the day in the kitchen- cooking with family and friends, snacking and catching up.

What do you have new for Holiday Heap?

Super cozy limited edition infinity scarves with handwoven cuffs are coming with me to the show! I'm also working on some smaller woven items still in design that will debut at Holiday Heap.

What do you enjoy most about the holidays in Baltimore?

When visiting Baltimore during the holidays, I love to spend the day warm by a wood stove with family and nothing to do but relax.

What is your favorite holiday cookie?

Macaroons :)

Bazaart Craft Fair at AVAM Baltimore 11/23-24

BAZAART American Visionary Art Museum

800 Key Highway

Baltimore, MD 212130

410-244-1900

AVAM.org

Friday- 5:30-8pm ($20/$10 members)

Lite Fare, Beverages, Music & First dibs on handmade work!

Saturday - 10-5pm (FREE!)

Open to the public

This weekend, after stuffing yourself so full of root vegetables and trying a slice of every type of pie... You're probably thinking you'll be content lying belly up on the living room floor while family shuffles around you throwing footballs indoors... But know what would be even better? Getting out of the house and coming to the Visionary Art Museum in glorious Baltimore City for a festive start to your holiday shopping at BAZAART - A holiday marketplace of original creations!

Come visit a handful of Craft mafia members & 50+ talented local craft vendors and impress your extended family with your in-the-know status in the visionary arts community. Check out handmade pottery, sewn & knit goods, jewelry, screenprinted tees, printed stationary & papergoods, nifty upcycled housewares and so much more..... then you can carry it all back home and high five each other on Holiday Shopping Spree well done, while you make stuffing sandwiches and fight over who has to eat the cranberry sauce. Blechhhh. See you there, Baltimore!

Holiday Heap Vendor Spotlight: 50/50 Company

Get to know Holiday Heap Vendor, 50/50 Company:

What is your favorite holiday tradition?

The 50/50 Company's favorite holiday tradition is eating giant bear claws early in the a.m.!

       

What do you have new for Holiday Heap?  

New for this year are hoodies!  We've got a dangerously ripped grizzly bear with 6 pack abs that's just screaming to be taken home.

Holy Hedgehog!

Imagine my delight when I saw these cute things in the catalog of Crate & Barrel's subsidiary company, Land of Nod.  Made by our very own Jen Strunge, of Cotton Monster!!

 

The site even has a fun little bio on the featured artist.  

You can get your own handmade Cotton Monster on her shop, or at Holiday Heap!

Seeking Volunteers...

Volunteers needed!

The CCCM needs your help! We are currently seeking some awesome, fun and motivated people to help out with Holiday Heap. Help is needed before, during and after the show. If you are able to lend a hand for one of the following time slots please RSVP to pinkkisspottery@gmail.com and let us know your coming!

Friday, November 30^th

-7pm-9pm (help setting up the church)

Saturday, December 1^st

-7am-9am (help with loading in and setting up)

-11am-1pm (help with lunch distribution)

- 4:30pm-6pm (help with pack up and clean up)

Holiday Heap Vendor Spotlight: Volta Organics

Learn a little bit more about Holiday Heap Vendor Volta Organics:

What is your favorite holiday tradition?

Every Christmas my parents give all of the kids stockings full of little things like pens, gadgets, socks, etc.  My sister and I always get the same gifts in slightly different colors or patterns.  At some point in our 30 years of being sisters, we figured this out and began having stocking races.  We sit across from each other and open a bunch of tiny, densely wrapped gifts as fast as possible, screaming out what we got and what color it is as we go.

      

What is your favorite holiday cookie?

Rugelach

Holiday Heap Vendor Spotlight: Tiny Paper Portraits

Learn a little bit more about Holiday Heap Vendor Tiny Paper Portraits:

 

What is your favorite holiday tradition?

My favorite holiday tradition is going home, climbing up into the attic, and passing old suitcases filled with ornaments down like a fire brigade to the rest of my family. 

      

What do you enjoy most about the holidays in your hometown?

When I'm lucky I get to go to my hometown of Franklin, TN for the holidays. My favorite thing is seeing old friends who also went off to different cities. Catching up with people the way social media can't let you.

 

What is your favorite holiday cookie?

My mom's chocolate chip cookies. The first several batches never make it past the cooling racks.

 

Start Your Holiday Heap Shopping List!

Get ready Baltimore! It's about 3 weeks to go until HOLIDAY HEAP 2012! Baltimore's most exciting alternative craft fair, right here in the heart of Charles Village. While you're pacing back and forth, waiting for your big shopping day - you can now begin to check out all the vendors we'll have at the show, because the show page is now live! Check out all our great vendors and awesomely generous all-local sponsors, and start making your holiday list now! Above you'll see just a small sampling of the crew for this year's heap. For the full list & more details as they come - CLICK HERE!