craft ninja

this weekend, with the hub down in mexico building a house for a needy family, the girls and i were free to do whatever the hell we wanted to. and there were several different fun-looking activities to go and check out, the first being unique la, a fabulous indie craft fair in downtown L.A.:

i'd bought our tickets online already, but the line to get in was still pretty damn long. i was excited, as this was my first time - previous shows just conflicted with other shit in my schedule. i'm a busy girl, you know. and as we waited, we checked out the program and venue map.

we admired these cool boots, worn by a super-chic fashionista in line ahead of us.

of course, when we got to the front of the line, we found out that we'd gotten in the wrong one - the folks in our line were buying their tickets at the door. because our presale tickets entitled us to a free t-shirt and other fun stuff, we ended up having to get in the other (equally long) line. damn.

luckily, it went pretty quickly and we found ourselves checking in and accepting our free tote bags within a few minutes.

through this fuzzy entryway (which this dude looked super excited to be in) were the elevators that took us up to the top floor.

once the doors opened into the crafty wonderland, we spotted this sign and meandered over.

tons and tons of cute stuff for little girls - and as i snapped away, i noticed that a lot of the items for sale were easily recreated at home, especially with my newfound sewing skills and snazzy machine.

this booth featured playclothes and costumes that are reversible. kind of pricey - average cost for a dress was about $50. yikes. the lady at the booth handed us a freebie scarf, perfect for twirling around or something equally foofy.

these tees and hoodies reminded us of the teen's recent "action" event at school. hey, whaddaya know, you can hoochify little girls, too. heh.

we were hungry, so we headed towards one of the "cafe" areas, where grub from several local food trucks was available.

we grabbed a free bottle of green tea at the "bar."

i was kind of digging the idea of a pastrami sandwich, but after standing at this table for a few minutes and being ignored, i just walked away. dumb move, fresser's - it was lunch time, lots of folks were milling around, and your shit wasn't set up. way to go.

we ended up ordering food from the next booth over - gram and papas. the dude there promised some amazing chicken tortilla soup, and the teen settled on a nice caprese sandwich with homemade chips.

as we shared the bowl of soup (which was, as promised, quite delicious), the bean munched on the freebie bags of pop chips we'd gotten at the entrance.

afterwards, i was excited to find the cool haus booth - gourmet ice cream sandwiches made to order, right in front of you. can you guess what kind of frozen treat i got?

well, okay, maybe it's not that easy to read the menu from that picture. i went with candied bacon-brown sugar ice cream surrounded by two fresh chocolate chip cookies. it was handed to me wrapped in edible paper adorned with the event logo - so cool! and yes, the sandwich was fantastic. the bean and i shared it while the teen munched on a whoopie pie from the next booth.

see?

a little later, she scooped up a strawbery lemonade popsicle from pop shop.

i am a doofus. not news. so you're not surprised to see me pose in this silly ninja mask, right?

there were even free craft "make & take" workshops.

by then, the bean had had enough of the sensory overload. having been up since about 6:30, she was done and finally gave up fighting naptime.

this left me free to participate in a workshop run by that cute little sewing studio i found a few weeks ago. too bad it was super packed with no room for me.

oh, well. we moved on and wandered through more aisles of fun stuff. the teen (who was instrumental in the selection of the pri-YES) bristled at the sight of this bag:

dudes, look at what they were charging for reusable sandwich bags! granted, they were super cute, but holy hell, i'm so making some of these myself. and, um, for a shitload less than this:

this booth featured the cutest little handmade charms in the shapes of all sorts of yummy treats and fun stuff. there were tiny balloon animals, little burgers, snow cones, ice cream sundaes, pancake stacks, bacon & eggs - you name it, it was miniaturized in full detail.

you KNOW i had to pick one up for myself. i went with this funny little ring adorned with bacon and a sunny side-up egg, modeled by the teen because i have super ugly hands.

this table caught the teen's eye as she spotted magnets with her beloved nick jonas. and i'm a sucker for my kid, so i forked over the cash and bought her this one.

this booth featured upcycled clothing, refashioned from other stuff. sounds familiar, huh? after inspecting the handiwork on some of the garments, i knew what my next project needs to be. heh. i still let the teen pick something to take home, though, and after checking out other booths, she came back to the brown dress she'd been eyeing.

no, i didn't buy the bacon socks, but i thought about it.

by the time we were over it and headed out, the bean had woken up from her nap and made silly faces at us from the back seat.

so much fun! i managed to get out of there without spending a giant wad o'cash, but that's mostly because i kept thinking to myself, "i could SO make that myself with shit i already have at home." yup. i think craft fairs are ruined forever for me.

well, maybe not quite - i can still get inspiration for fun projects. i'm actually thinking about making a li'l suh-in suh-in to do another giveaway. any requests?