So the kid and I went to Crafty Bastards after church today. We were overdressed and underinked. Still, we got to meet Spooky Daddy in person, which was awesome.
He was working the puppetmaster thing pretty spectacularly, and it was amazing to see how irresistible a well-done puppet is to any kid passing within range. Even the kid went from wary and shy to engrossed and entranced within about 90 seconds.
Spooky Daddy must know his market, because he left his more fantastical creations at home and brought mostly his greatest hits: Skull Bunnies [with variations] and stuffed eyeballs. This lone giant eyeball would be an awesome pillow, but at $150, it would have broken my self-imposed Bastards Budget with the first purchase.
We did get K2 her own little travel-size Skull Bunny, though. After going to a few sprawling hipster craft fairs, the people who actually sweat the details of their craft really stand out. Spooky Daddy is one plush master like that; Lemon Cadet is another, and her clothes are also very well made; we got the girls matching Yeti plush pillows and bodysuits. Sewing Stars is another creator of very high quality stuffed toys, though we didn't buy anything.
The Tofu for Obama, on the other hand, is mostly a fun, not-so-serious piece of desk fluff. Chris Creatures' creatures are made of roughly stitched felt, with tiny felt bits glued on. They're not very well made, but they are the best-made Obama tofus out there at the moment. [The kid noticed that there were a lot of people in crafty Obama shirts. Which made me wonder what McCain-related craft would look like. Hand-painted circular saw blades, perhaps. update: well, these mockups of McCain hipster duds are halfway there. I'd be totally unsurprised to see the Supreme colabo turn up, though.]
Scion was a fair sponsor, and while the kid bounced around on the inflatable sofas in the Scion Lounge area, I couldn't help thinking--as I looked over the mountain of Scion tC drink cozies--what a hip and edgy brand Scion is. It's exactly the kind of innovative brand that trendsetting influencers who march to the beat of their own drum machine would associate with.
Then kid's last big score: an Owly Shadow Puppet. I'd seen and admired these at the Renegade Craft Fair in Brooklyn a couple of months ago, but I wasn't sure if the kid'd go for them. She loved them, and when she chose the T-Rex over the mermaid, I was only too happy to oblige her. T-Rex has been home learning how to do backflips ever since.
