Five vendors to check out as spring craft market moves online
1 EAST VAN JAM
Established in 2007, Got Craft? is held in the spring and holiday season. For its latest edition, the curated marketplace is going online. Visitors to the virtual market can scroll through products from 65 local small shops like the Make Merry Party Shop (festive, curated party supplies) and artisans such as East Van Jam (low sugar, artisanal jam and fruit leather).
2 MANA JEWELRY
Founder Nicole Beck uses reclaimed pieces of Hawaiian Koa, locally sourced Cascadian hardwoods and sustainably harvested bamboo to create necklaces, earrings and rings.
Each piece is individually hand-sawed and laser-cut before being sanded and finished to highlight the underlying wood grains and textures.
3 ROBBIE VERGERA SCREENPRINTING
Using 18th- and 19thcentury biology and historical drawings, Vergera creates surreal images for prints and T-shirts. Every print is individually hand-pulled and shirts are silkscreened using water-based non-toxic inks.
4 SRIRACHA REVOLVER
For those who like it hot, the company offers locally made small-batch hot sauce. The sauce comes in five flavours:
Beets + Tequila Sriracha; Cilantro + Lime Sriracha; Clean Mango Sriracha; Avocado Ginger Sriracha; and its new Tiger Man Double Hot Sriracha sauce.
5 CATALINA SáNCHEZ
Are you looking for a special place for your thoughts related to COVID anxiety? Sánchez hand crafts notebooks to, in her words,“preserve the art and the feeling of the oldfashioned paper notebook.
I am looking to inspire people and give them a blank page, to dream, to create, and to remember. And end up with a journal that will be the reflection of their work, goals, accomplishments, thoughts, emotions.”