Not Your Grandma’s Craft Fair

Thanks to a tip from Sammy, I spent Sunday afternoon wandering around Williamsburg, Brooklyn toward the annual Renegade Craft Fair. Craft fairs usually make me think of old grannies sitting behind tables, pawning off their crocheted tissue box covers or stained glass ornaments. Not this craft fair — it brought etsy.com to life before my eyes.

McCarren Pool Park was filled with tents of vendors who crafted the most ingenious pieces of jewelry. I had to talk myself out of several potential purchases, like earrings fashioned out of pennies or rings made from old buttons. I admired the creativity of whoever thought to construct lamps from upside down tea cups, necklaces from old typewritter keys, and magnets from old bottlecaps.  

My favorite stops were:

1.  Venuszine’s booth — a quarterly women’s magazine that seems to carry on JANE magazine’s quest to find the coolest, most creative women on the planet.

2. A blog/documentary project called 1 Bite 7 Days, which preaches the Japanese proverb “To every new taste, you gain 7 days of life,” and gives free taste testing of unusual dishes. I sampled the vinegar pie, which tasted like pudding and was served with a Vanilla wafer. I haven’t eaten those since snacktime in elementary school! After tasting, we stepped in a camera booth and said how we’d spend our 7 extra days, the proverb’s promised reward. Any guesses for what I said?

3. Not exactly at the fair, but on the walk back to the subway (before a quick stop at Buffalo Exchange), Shelley and I got deliciously refreshing frozen yogurt from /eks/. Much as I love Pinkberry, /eks/ won me over. It was plain without being bland.

Add on my first lunch in Brooklyn at Ella Cafe (I know, have to explore the other boroughs more) and a Rooney concert, and you see I tried LOTS of new things — which means I’ve got plenty of extra living to try even more.