Urban Craft Uprising

I took a little jaunt down to Seattle on the weekend to visit my sister & my cute patootie nephews. My bro-in-law & official employee of said nephews (current occupation: driver) was kind of enough to be dragged escort me to Seattle’s massive summer craft spectacular – Urban Craft Uprising.

I had a great time & wish I could’ve lingered longer, checking out all the awesome booth set ups & drooling over goodies that are out of my budget right now. I’m looking at you Fernworks resin ring with a seahorse embedded inside. Oh & you too Stuart Breidenstein pendants. Also on my shopping list – one of these rad upcycled book journals.

One of the best booth displays I’ve ever seen, not to mention über cute stuff – Zomsters!

But with 2 nephews in tow (both under the age of 8), there was no time for dallying & I did my best to limit their sticky finger touching. Considering how rambunctious they usually are, I was beaming proud of my little love bugs. They were remarkably gentle, touching pendants & magnets & things they thought their mom would like with the utmost of care. It wasn’t until the very last row that they started in with the traditional, “How much longer do we have to beeeeee herrrrreeee?”

UCU vendors with bowls of free candy? I salute you.

So what did I buy? Well…who could resist a tote bag made my monsters? Eating the Space Needle? Not I! Our grocery sacks are looking a little ratty & I hate walking into Whole Foods with an IGA bag & vice versa, so this wasn’t really a splurge at all. Definitely a necessity for the house.

I also snagged a couple of super cute pins for my purse from the fabulously talented Berkleys of Berkely Illustration. I read their blog all the time & have ordered prints in the past & hopefully didn’t come off like a total gushing fan girl. Seriously, love love love Ryan’s work, am in awe of their teamwork & general chutzpah for getting out to so many craft shows all across the country. I definitely had a little spring in my step after meeting them in real life. 🙂

My fan girl gushing may NOT have been contained, however, when I first walked in & spied the art of Jenna Colby. She has such a distinctive style & I had one of her images as my desktop for ages, so as soon as I saw it I couldn’t help blurting out “OHMYGODYOU’REJENNACOLBY!”

I am now, of course, kicking myself for not buying anything, but it was right when we first walked in, the trip itself was already maxing my budget for the month &, more importantly, I didn’t think there was any way I could stand there & make a decision as to which one I wanted without looking like a total nut job. I’d be the crazy lady picking one up, then putting it down, then picking up another one up & putting it down for 45 minutes. Total flashback to me as a 7 year old standing in front of those rolls of stickers at the corner store & counting out my allowance:

Well, if I buy the puffy satin ones, then I can only get 2 more shiny ones. But if I get the new scratch & sniffs, I can get 7 shiny ones. But no satins. And I’d have to start a new page for the new scratch & sniffs, because they won’t look good on the old page.

Ah, kids.