The 5th Annual Brooklyn Renegade Craft Fair

The 5th Annual Renegade Craft Fair in Brooklyn was held this past weekend at McCarren Park, located on Bedford Street to Bayard Street, between N.12th and Lorimer Street, in the Williamsburg neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York. Over 300 indie crafters from all over the USA participated in the fair, and the vendor list with links to their websites, can be seen at this link

Lots of local resident shoppers were there, as evidenced by all the bicycles chained to the fence.

The vendor tents surrounded the whole McCarren Park

The park is well loved by the surrounding neighborhoods of Greenpoint and Williamsburg, and is actively used for soccer, baseball, bocce, handball, basketball, football, and tennis, and running meets, and has a playground for children. In the photo above can see how the craft fair tents circled all around the park's 35 acres.

Information from the Renegade Craft fair web site:

"The Renegade Craft Fair is a unique, DIY event showcasing over 300 of the most talented Artists and Crafters around. The fair takes place in cities across the US, including Brooklyn, Chicago, Los Angeles & San Francisco. At RCF you’ll find all sorts of cool handmade stuff - including plush items, jewelry, posters + prints, craft kits, clothing, stationery + more."

If you're a fan of the Brooklyn-based Etsy web site site, and like shopping for handmade goods, and are young at heart, you would find it fun to browse and shop at a renegade Craft Fair.

Some examples of the offerings at the Berkley Illustrations booth above.

The Renegade Craft Fair event is sponsored by Etsy, Juxtapoz Art & Culture Magazine, VenusZine, Yelp, and The Village Voice.

There was so much to see and almost an overload of booths to visit! They were selling messenger bags, paper goods, pottery, whimsical stuffed dolls and animals, handcrafted jewelry, knitted and felted items, framed sketches, soaps, teas, screen printed tees and baby onsies, etc.

The crowd was, for the most part, young and hip!

Johagi was selling one-of-a-kind handbags made from recycled, retro and vintage materials.

If you like squids Cleo Dee's had cards and pins and other things with their image.

Click on to enlarge this photo to read the clever sayings in the designs of the tee shirts in this booth.

Pretty fabric towels and dolls for sale at the Murdoch Designs booth.

Catnip stuffed fabric mice and sticks, and cute paper cards and place mats at Kitty Jones

I spent a long time browsing at the Pretty Theory booth.

They make pretty pins, earrings, magnets, bookmarks and small pieces of art work from pieces of old discarded books and old game boards and game pieces.

Click on to enlarge to see all their wonderful little pieces of collage art works.

Look at all their amazing purses made from old books! I loved looking at all the titles, and if I was a person who carried just a few things in my purse I would have purchased one of these just for the novelty factor. You can see a selection of their purses made from book covers on their website.

This was a fun booth called Something's Hiding In Here. They sold stuffed moustache pillows, moustaches on a stick, papergoods, handbags, and yo-yos.

Another booth selling drawstring bags.

I don't think many would use this unusual china unless it was Halloween! Click to enlarge to see the bizarre patterns.

Vintage and unusual hand painted luggage for sale at the Final Approach booth.

The Etsy information booth at the craft fair.

Pottery from Bow and Arrow
PinkyPunk was selling her unusual stuffed pillows/dolls.



Charlie and Sarah's, a husband and wife team, had adult shirts and baby tee shirts and onsies, many with British themes like wellies, brollys, prams and mini coopers screen printed on them. Charlie is from Brighton, England, and Sarah is American and they live in NYC.



As I walked around the fair I found it was almost as much fun to people watch, as shop, as many of the other shoppers were creatively dressed.



Tiburon, a Brooklyn based store in Red Hook had racks of cute summer sun dresses made from men's shirts.

They also were selling cute, hand painted, canvas market bags such as these.




The Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, where the Brooklyn Renegade Craft Fair is held each year, is home to a thriving art community Many ethnic groups have enclaves within Williamsburg, including Germans, Hasidic Jews, Italians, Puerto Ricans, and Dominicans. The neighborhood is also a magnet for young people moving to the city, and is an influential hub for indie rock. The old immigrant housing style shown in the photo above .......

...was rapidly changing to one of high rise expensive condos that have a views of the Manhattan skyline. As a growing young population of artists and hipsters moved in, the look and feel of the old neighborhood was quickly changing.

Whether the nation's economic slowdown will also stop the rapid development of the Willaimsburg neighborhood remains to be seen. An interesting New York Times article about the parent subsidized young of Williamsburg can be read at this link.

I hope you enjoyed this little peek into the 2009's Brooklyn Renegade Carft Fair!

I have been really busy the past few days preparing for a few special occasions we have coming up, with my grandson's visit amongst them, so I'm sorry that I have not been able to visit many blogs or answer all the comments made to mine. As soon as things go back to normal I'll be back to blogging more frequently and visiting all of your wonderful blogs.

In the meantime I'd like to offer this cute, large, handpainted muslin market bag seen in the photo below that I bought from the Tiburon booth at the Brooklyn Renegade Craft Fair as a blog give away to someone who comments on this post. I will chose the winner by picking a random number and then matching it with the same number blog comment. If you do not have a blog please leave an e-mail address in your comment where I can reach you in case you win!

I think everyone is trying to cut back on the use of plastic and paper grocery bags that end up in landfills and ruin our environment, so using a bag like this instead makes sense, and adds a touch of humor to the chore of grocery shopping. I think I may even incude a few surprises inside the bag!

I'll be announcing the winner next week. Thanks to all for being such great blog friends!