New Date & Location Announced for Odd Duck Bazaar 2012

Odd Duck Handmade Bazaar and Indie Craft Fair is moving to a new location. On March 31, 2012, at the downtown Hollywood Central Performing Arts Center, you can expect a day of unique handmade crafts, art, food, live music and more. Admission is $5 for adults and children under 12 get in free. This indoor & outdoor event, with more than 70 vendors, takes place from Noon until 6:00 pm.

Rules are non-existent when it comes to indie arts & crafts and that's what the Hollywood Craft Mafia strives to represent at the Odd Duck Bazaar. Through an extensive selection process, we cherry-pick each vendor, and ensure the audience with a worthy variety of handmade goods. If it can be sewn, cut, painted, glued, sculpted, hammered, drawn, or knotted, more than likely it has been sold at an Odd Duck bazaar. Opposed to mass-produced, local artisans reconnect the mainstream with hands-on activities and aesthetics. The aspect that unites Odd Duck participants are the many creations pushed beyond traditional techniques and boundaries. The Hollywood Craft Mafia is currently accepting applications for artisan vendors, food vendors, and sponsorship. Visit www.oddduckbazaar.com for further information or contact the Hollywood Craft Mafia with questions at info@hollywoodcraftmafia.com.

Sweater Hat & Leg Warmers Tutorial

This up-cycle craft is a great way to continue the love of a favorite sweater. For the tutorial example, we have a child who out-grew last season's winter wear. We took one sweater, transformed it in a few simple steps, and now have a hat with leg warmers for next season!

First, you will need a few tools to get you through this project: measuring tape, scissors, pins, chalk, and a sewing machine. You'll also need one sweater and thread.

GETTING READY: Turn the sweater inside out. Place it neatly on a flat surface.

DETERMINING THE WIDTH: Measure the head of the person, for whom you will be making the hat for. Subtract about 4 or 5 inches then divide that number in half. This will give you the measurement for the opening of the hat when it is laying flat, two sides together. In our example, the child's head is 20" around. 20 - 4 = 16. 16/2 = 8. See figure A to place your measurement. Mark your width with chalk.

DETERMINING THE LENGTH: We made a cone shaped hat, but you can make your hat as long as you want. The standard height is about 8 inches. Determine how long you want your hat, then make a mark at that height, in the center. On our example, we made the center mark at 4" (see Figure B). Then you will sketch a semi-circle with chalk (or cone shape like our example). Go pin crazy on the inside and outside of the chalk line, pinning both sides of the sweater together. This is when you will want to make sure you line up any patterns in the sweater (see Figure C).

LETS GET SEWING: Sew on the chalk line using a strait stitch on the stretch setting. Do not sew the bottom opening of your hat! In our example, we did not need to stitch up one side of the hat because we used the sweater's original stitching.

CUT IT OUT: Trim around your stitches about a quarter-inch. You should now have what looks like a hat inside out! Lastly, use the zig-zag stretch stitch over your quarter-inch edges to keep the sweater from unraveling (see Figure D). Turn the hat right side out and you're done!

MATCHING LEG WARMERS: Cut the sleeves off the sweater, close to the armpit (or at desired length). Sew a zig zag stretch stitch around the raw edge, but don't sew the two sides together (see figure E and F). Turn them right side out, and you're finished.

Looking ahead to the Craft Show Season

Christine and I have been busily working on some upcoming events that we aren't quite ready to announce, but there are some exciting future plans that we can share with you now.  We've committed to vending in a couple of shows this fall and figured we'd tell you about it now so you can get them on your calendar early.  Christine (Belle Adore) will be vending at a new south Florida show called Art: Sunny Side Up which will be held the Hilton 100 Fairway Drive, Deerfield Beach, FL 33441 on September 11th from 10-4pm.  You can find out more on their blog or facebook page.

It is exciting to see new indie shows.  There is no need to tell you how much we love the indie craft scene, so seeing it growing just warms my heart.
I'll be vending my Kitschy Aprons & Softies at Stitch Rock in Delray on October 1st.  Stitch Rock is held at the Old School Gymnasium 51 N. Swinton Ave, Delray Beach, FL  33444 and will be from noon to 6.  You can find out more on their website or facebook page

Then, in December, Christine and I are gonna take a road trip over to Sarasota to vend at the Atomic Holiday Bazaar on Dec 10th & 11th.
Mark your calendars!
Now I'm off to go make stuff....

Free Crafting (plus wine & food too!) in Pompano on Friday night

Please join the Hollywood Craft Mafia Friday evening from 6-9pm at the Uncorked East Village event which is also the grand opening for Swipes Lovin' Wipes. 
Reasons to join us:

• you can paint your own wine glass
• you get to keep that wine glass and even use it to sip some wine
• Hors d'oeuvres (yummy)
• Socialize with good folks
• listen to some good music by the Sosos

Click HERE for the facebook page

2607 East Atlantic Blvd

Pompano Beach, FL

Changes in the Mafia

Dear Handmade Community,

This is not a "Dear John" letter, just a little note to let you know that things are changing for the Hollywood Craft Mafia. First, let us assure that Shelley and Christine are still manning the helm and planning amazing crafty events and goodness for our community.

However, excited to focus on personal projects, Alexis and Tina are planning to move on to other pastures. It is with a conflicted and heavy heart that they both leave, there has been so much success with the Craft Mafia it's hard to walk away. They both plan on still being involved and supportive of the HCM and the handmade community; Alexis will still help create promo materials from time to time and both will volunteer for HCM crafty events whenever they get the chance.

There will also be other changes. The jam packed calendar we announced in April will be re-evaluated and more information will be announced as it becomes available.

Odd Duck was an overwhelming success and we more than doubled the number of attendees from the year before. The positive feedback we got from patrons and vendors alike made all our hard work very worthwhile. With each one of our events, the Hollywood Craft Mafia has contributed to the growing artisan community in south Florida and that will not change one bit. Thank you for your continued support of all things local and handmade.

Mucho!,

Tina / workingirl www.workinggirl.etsy.com
Alexis / When Bunnies Fly - www.alexiscolbert.com / Los Colores - www.loscolores.org
Shelley / By Shelley Faye - www.shelleyfaye.etsy.com / Kitschy Aprons - www.kitschyaprons.com
Christine / Belle Adore - www.belle-adore.com 



Going forward.... If you'd like to stay up to date with the Hollywood Craft Mafia, check back here, like us on facebook, follow us on twitter or sign up for our email list.
If you'd like to follow Alexis on her solo projects, sign up for her email list, like her facebook page or check out her site.
If you'd like to follow Tina on her solo projects, check out her etsy store or email her at workinggirl_crafts@yahoo.com

So, How'd it go?

It has been a little over a week since our big annual event, the Odd Duck handmade Bazaar and I'm still on a little bit of an adrenaline high.  I have begun writing this post several times and I'm just at a loss for words in how to describe the event. It was fantastic!  We had a few glitches that were out of our control, but for the most part... the day went smoothly, the weather was fabulous and most everyone had a great afternoon.
I'm just going to leave it at that and let you hear from some of the other folks how wrote about the show:

http://sflaguy.blogspot.com/2011/04/odd-duck-bazaar-part-two.html
http://opulentodditiesblog.blogspot.com/
http://wantneedxoxo.blogspot.com/2011_04_01_archive.html
http://justbecausebyleelee.blogspot.com/2011/04/odd-duck-bazaar.html
http://anniescupboard.blogspot.com/2011/04/odd-duck-craft-show-2.html
http://mermaidscloset.blogspot.com/2011/04/preparing-for-odd-duck.html
http://thereformatory.blogspot.com/2011/04/blog-post.html
http://www.corvusonline.net/corvuschatter/viewtopic.php?f=3&p=151412
http://belleadore.blogspot.com
http://designedbydiana.blogspot.com/2011/04/odd-duck-bazaar-2011.html
http://rachellovespeace.blogspot.com/2011/04/theres-odd-duck-in-all-of-us.html        

and if you are one for visuals, check out our flickr group page for pics (you can add yours too!):

bit.ly/oddduckflickr

Did you go to our show?  We'd love to hear about how it went, feel free to leave a comment or a link to your blog post.

Cheers!

Lapel Stick

Lapel Stick is a temporary, non-toxic, acid-free, fabric adhesive that goes on in seconds and dries clear for Quilting, Sewing, Crafting, and Embroidery. Lapel Stick replaces baste stitching, pinning, tapes, spray adhesives, and stabilizers. No more messy sprays or getting stuck with pins, and it won't gum up your needles or machines! LAPEL Stick is water soluble and safe to use on cottons, wool, polyester, blends, felt, linen, and leather.

Lapel Stick is also great for unruly collars, gapping buttons and fallen hems. Get one for the craft room, and another one to keep on hand for clothing emergencies. For more info, check out http://www.lapelstick.com/.

If you're one of the first 100 to arrive at the Odd Duck Bazaar, there might even be a little someting in your goodie bag from Lapel Stick!