Urban Craft Uprising

I took myself off on Sunday afternoon for my first foray into the Seattle craft scene. 

The Urban Craft Uprising (what a great name) was pleasantly chaotic - with quite a lot of stuff ranging from the quaintly homespun to the quite frankly bizarre (handbags made out of old vinyl records anyone?) with a couple of real gems, and an awful lot of felt, along the way. Or, as the people at Indie Craft Documentary would say' the new wave of craft is a marriage of your granny's handiwork, punk and the DIY spirit.'

I treated myself to the Christmas decoration above (two sides of the same, made from vintage wallpapers and edged with German glass glitter).  I also bought some vintage wallpaper notecards from the same lady.  She apparently bought 650 rolls of 30s and 40s wallpaper from a farmhouse in Wisconsin a few years back and used it to found her business.  The wallpapers are really beautiful with a gorgeous heavy texture that is nothing like today's wipe-clean vinyls.  I bet Claire Coles would love to come across such a stash!

Other things I loved were the gorgeous soaps from Estrella (I bought the Almond and Lemon Poppyseed which smell divine), some funky changing mats and burp cloths from Ida J Designs and some truly gorgeous hand-felted bags by Jamie Irene.  You'll find images of her bags here. I'm somewhat regretting not splurging on a stunning chocolate brown and turquoise messenger bag.

I stupidly didn't take a camera with me, but you can find some more photos on Not Martha's Flickr page.