Renegade Craft Fair

Two weekends ago, the Summer Renegade Craft Festival made it's way to Los Angeles. This year it was held at Grand Park in DTLA. It was a great location except for the weather. It was probably one of the hottest days we had in LA, regardless of the weather, I am so glad I was able to stop by. It is always inspiring to be surrounded by so many up and coming artists, makers, and designers. Here is a round up of some of my favorite companies and links to their sites.

I absolutely loved the Close To The Cosmos booth (photo above). They make the most beautiful dreamcatchers I've ever seen. Check out their website here.

Can't go wrong with colorful wooden bangles from Voz Collective. This company is owned by two lovely sisters Lauren and Jackie.  I admire their simple approach to design and color. Their accessories are very well executed and they are the type that you can wear all year long.  Make sure to check out their Etsy shop, their bangles make a great gifts.

For the inner flower child in you. Gardenhead hand makes these whimsical head bands with synthetic flowers. So perfect for this weather, or if you are a Los Angeles native you can wear these all year long. They are light and stylish. My favorite one was the Arizona style.

Another great jewelry line was Maru. Colorful stones bonded or wrapped with brass and gold metal. Her collection is very abstract and yet elegant, like something you could buy at a museum. 

I fell in love with these planters from Concrete Geometric. They were stylish, simple and small. I really like having succulents around at home because they bring life to any corner of the house and they are easy to take care of. 

Here is a full list of all of the vendors who participated.

DIY: Circus Animal Favors

For our baby shower last month, I was stuck on the idea of gold circus animal favors. I looked every where in stores and online, but couldn't find anything that I really liked, so i decided to make my own. 

Step 1: My first task was to buy novelty animal toys. Much to my surprise, I couldn't find them locally. I checked toy and party stores, but found nothing. I ended up buying them from this online store. I got a great deal and they shipped my order right away. I was thrilled!

Step 2: Separate your animals and only pick the circus related ones. The package came with many assorted animals that were not circus related. I used the elephants, giraffes, zebras, tigers, lions and hippos. 

Step 3: Use a saw or sharp knife to cut all the legs off. Cut the figure like the photo above or you can use the whole thing, depending on the size of your cap.

Step 4: Use E6000 glue to stick your circus animal bust to the cap of your favor jar. You can buy this type of glue at any craft or hardware store. It works wonders every time. I bought my favors jars from DTLA, but you can purchase them at any party store like this one.

Step 5: Spray paint your caps. With all the metallic gold spray paints out there, it was hard to decide which shade to use. The shade I used was the Krylon Brillant Gold. This blog from Chris Loves Julia had a great post on "which gold spray paint is best", I found it very helpful.

Step 6: Personalizing your favors. I went with the carnival ticket look. You can trace a ticket and scan it in or you can download it from a clip art website like this one. The rest was done in photoshop. You can design your layout any way you want, if you are looking for font ideas, you can download them from online font resources such as Da Font. 

Step 7: Filling in your favors. Since this was a baby shower theme, I used these Pastel Pillow Mints. They matched my color story and looked great. Any party supply store should carry various small candy you can use in your favors. Or another great idea would be to fill up your favors with confetti. Just a thought. Also you will need ribbon or twine for the tags. You can find that at any craft store.

The favors were a hit at the shower. I liked that idea of recycling them and using them for other purposes. One of my friends is using them to store spices, I love that! 

Again, here is a list of some of the stores you can purchase all these supplies from:

Beaucoup

Michaels

Party City

Ziggos