A Weekend in St. Clair

Forget everything you ever thought you knew about Flea Markets! The Cleveland Flea is a whole new ballgame. Once a month, vendors from all over come together in the St. Clair neighborhood to show off their goods to the fine people of Northeast Ohio. This weekend is "The Flea's" big holiday extravaganza, complete with a Sneak Peak Party on Friday night PLUS the grand opening of Collective Upcycle right down the street! We've got all the details for you right here, and remember to follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram for even more updates!

Holiday Flea Sneak Peek & Meet the Makers Party
Friday, November 22, 7-10pm
Slovenian National Home
6417 St. Clair Ave. Cleveland
(Between E. 64th & Addison Ave.)
www.theclevelandflea.com
Get a look at the Holiday Flea a day early! Enjoy complimentary refreshments (including BEER!) courtesy of Sterles Country House, Jeni's Ice Cream, and Piccadilly Artisan Frozen Yogurt. Tickets are $20 and shopping starts at 8pm.

Collective Upcycle Holiday Grand Opening Party
Friday, November 22, 5-8pm
6202 St. Clair Ave. Cleveland
(Between Norwood Rd. & E. 64th)
www.facebook.com/CollectiveUpcycle
You like local, you like handmade, how about adding a sprinkling of eco-friendliness? Collective Upcycle is a pop-up shop of Cleveland-area artists who specifically use recycled materials. The party Friday will feature live music from Ansambel Dvojčki, food from Impassioned Baking and Catering, and Slovenian cocktails!

The Cleveland Flea Holiday Show
Saturday, Nov. 23, 10am-6pm
Sunday, Nov. 24, 10am-6pm
6417 St. Clair Ave. Cleveland
(Between E. 64th & Addison Ave.)
www.theclevelandflea.com
The main event! Peruse the dozens of local vendors selling their handmade goodies including jewelry, clothing, food and more! The Flea also features a "Maker Center," that connects local talent and the community like never before. We also hear there will some of Cleveland fabulous food trucks in attendance at this most treasure hunt-esque show!

Map courtesy of The Cleveland Flea

West Side Avant-Garde Art & Craft Show Review

We warned you! Even though we're still a week away from Thanksgiving, Christmas is creeping its way into our psyche. Thankfully, we eased our way into it the best way we know how - with a good ol' fashioned craft show! The West Side Avant-Garde Art & Craft Show last weekend had vendors and shoppers from all over Northeast Ohio flocking to Rocky River Memorial Hall buying and selling goodies of all sorts. We had a blast on Saturday and are here to show you what we found!

Even though there were two entire huge rooms of vendors, we made purchases at the first three booths we hit! #1 was the hand-sewn originals of Aunt Jeannie's Attic. Brightly colored patterned purses caught our eye, but it was this black wristlet, made from vintage men's suits, that had us sold!

I recognized the nautical pillowcases from Avant-Garde's blog when we came by IndoDesign's booth. Our second stop had even more fun patterned fabric goods but we couldn't help but fall in love with these wooden Christmas trees! So unique, this will definitely be a conversation piece hanging at the house around the holidays. Gives off a beachy vibe even amidst the cold Cleveland November/December temps, thanks especially to the starfish tree topper!

Nestled by a window was the soothing smells of Peripeti Home. Also sold at one of our favorite spots, Salty Not Sweet, these handmade soy candles and wax melts have the most unique yet satisfying scents we've ever come across! Orchard Picnic will be great to have wafting around the house on Thanksgiving and Sherwood Forest was too calming to pass up. These layered fragrances are also available in large tins and crackling wooden wicks.

I'm a sucker for fun and unique jewelry - anything that has a story and makes people ask, "where did you get those?" I could have bought every ring, necklace, pendant, and pair of earrings displayed at Diella Jewelry's booth! Her handmade, handpainted, mixed media pieces are not only to die for, they're very reasonably priced! I picked these sparkly earrings for myself along with a few other Christmas presents that I'll have to keep hidden for now...two words: rhinestones and chevrons.

Last but not least, we have to give it up to Colleen Smith and her amazing mixed media, Cleveland pride art! I would totally be down to furnishing my home with Colleen's large scale collage prints but let's start with what we bought from her at the show... we went with the coolest Cleveland Christmas cards EVER and a Browns inspired ornament! Hard to say if we'll be gifting these or maybe even framing them for decorations at the house!

Needless to say by our fabulous finds, the West Side Avant-Garde Art & Craft Show was a success! If you missed out on the fun, fear not, there's an East Side show coming up in December! More details on that to come...

Ingenuing on the Lake

Another Ingenuity Fest done come and gone! A few weeks ago artists artists of all kinds gathered at Docks 30 & 32 on the shores of Lake Erie to share their innovation, ideas, and more to the people of our fair city.

Always a highlight of the year and fall must-go, this year's Ingenuity did not disappoint. An arguably different, however no less creative vibe was felt at this location versus those of the past, which include the underbelly of the Detroit-Superior bridge.

There were acrobats, light installations, vaudeville acts, lake views, and more! However my favorite part of the Ingenuity fest were all the handmade and other goods to oogle at, be inspired by, and spend a few bucks on.

Flip through the photos below from this year's festival and be sure to keep up with Ingenuity Cleveland's web site and social media pages for year-round creative Cleveland awesomeness!

Links:
23 Skidoo
Ape Made
The Vaudevillian
Ingenuity Cleveland

Dredging down East 4th

Last week I posted event info for the Made in the 216 and Dredgers Union grand opening event that took place on Friday night (and all weekend!) If you didn't have a chance to hit it up, you missed a great event for Cleveland fashion. It was so great to see so many people downtown, and even though I know some of the crowd was from the Tribe game, I know a lot of people were there for this event! Even Channel 3 was live from E. 4th during their 7 p.m. news!

Unfortunately we didn't get there until later, but I'm so glad we got to stop by. The Dredgers Union store is located on the east side of the street right across from the Greenhouse Tavern. The set up of the store is really cool. There was a very Anthropologie vibe. I was expecting more of a boutique, which is more common for locally owned shops. But I can definitely see the Dredgers Union becoming a national chain! Not that it ever would or would ever want to but it had that type of vibe, like you could plop it in any mall in America.


Of course me being me, the first thing that caught my eye when I walked in was this navy blue tote bag with a vintage map of Cleveland on it. It was just $20 and I just might have to go back and snag one!

A lot of the apparel was on the higher price end (again, like Anthropologie) but they were really chic and unique.  There was everything from shorts to tops, dresses and more. On the upper level stage area were all home wares. Each little area was like a separate room in someone's house. There were some really great shower curtains that my friends and I wanted in our future apartment! I also loved some of the cups, bowls and plates around. As I've always said I'm a sucker for interesting set ups inside stores and the housewares area had a really cool set up. I wish I could live there!

Now the real party was hopping down stairs in the basement level. That's where the Made in the 216 event was going on. It was like a mini craft fair with racks and racks of Cleveland T-shirts (including some from my favorite CLE Clothing Co. and their new summer tanks), tables of accessories and Cleveland-themed art on the walls.












We were really feeling the jewelry pinned up on this bulletin board. A lot of them were made from old watches and clocks from Aviaire and were so unique.

I, personally was totally into the Cleveland art up everywhere. My favorite would have to be the black and white text prints by Arterx with street names from various neighborhoods. I loved the Lakewood one featuring "Warren," "Bunts," "Detroit," and "Riverside" as well as the Ohio City and Tremont ones. Another adorable print I loved was by Rachael Novak reading "Lake Erie Love."




Even though I didn't buy anything I'm really glad I went. Like I said in my preview post it's so good to see some retail coming to downtown! Even though a lot of the Dredgers Union stuff was a little expensive for my kind of income, I can't wait to do a little East 4th shopping once I get a little dough (whenever that might be!) I would definitely suggest checking it out, and maybe to give Made in the 216 a follow on Twitter to keep up with their pop up events. And of course, one of the best things about both Made in the 216 and the Dredgers Union they are dedicated to locally produced items - spreading the CLE love one shopping spree at a time!



***Check out the links on this page to see the web sites for some of the items I saw at the event!