Lovely Day Designs » Markets of New York

Weekend Market Picks October 29-30, 2011 + Lovely Day Designs

Louise Lasson is the artisan behind Lovely Day Designs. I saw first her work at the Brooklyn Flea Gifted Market in 2009, and she keeps on adding more creative designs and products to her line.

She is known for her extremely wide array of switch plate covers! Everything from Buddhas and Mermaids, to Flowers, Cats, Pinup Girls and beyond to dress up your walls in a fun, unexpected way! She also sells delightful magnet sets. Her lovely soy wax candles are hand-poured into Depression Glass pieces and vintage teacups, and they are beautifully scented. What I love about Louise’s work is that it is creative, lovely, and practical, the essence of fine craft.

Louise is a member of the {NewNew} Etsy Artisans Street Team. Check LovelyDayDesigns.com for all her Holiday Market events. Her pieces are perfect for hostesses and for anyone who has light switches in their home.

Here are this week’s Market Picks! Meh to snow in October!!!

Saturday and Sunday

Artists and Fleas: Artists & Fleas is an excellent choice for this ridiculously snowy weekend! It features amazing vintage clothing and craft vendors, and it is indoors! Plus it’s a great place to get a groovy Halloween costume that you might actually wear again in real life!

Antiques Garage: This large indoor flea market has not one but TWO floors of antique and vintage treasures, including clothing, jewelry, home decor, artifacts, rare antique books and prints, and many more things that cannot even be categorized!

Saturday

Grand Army Plaza Greenmarket: Halloween comes to the Greenmarket! Bring the kids for Pumpkin Painting, the Pumpkin Carving Contest (bring your already carved pumpkins, winner gets a prize!), and an Apple Cider Donut Eating Contest!

Hester Street Fair: CANCELED due to impending weather! Double booooo!!! Thanks for another great season!

Smorgasburg: For true food lovers, it doesn’t matter if it’s snowing outside. They will still flock to Smorgasburg for some of the tastiest, most innovative food in the city. Serious delciousness going on here, with around 75 food vendors, plus the Williamsburg Waterfront Greenmarket!

Sunday

Fulton Stall Market: Another great place to bring the kids, the closest thing I’ve seen to matching Boston’s SOWA Market of the Living Dead for Halloween fun is at the Fulton Stall Market! In addition to their great lineup of food, craft, and farmer vendors, the market will have pumpkin painting, appearances by Berenstain Bears, Curious George and Maisy with readings of their favorite spooky stories, trick or treating, and a dance party with DJ Jonathan “Scary” Toubin (2pm). Kids kids kids!

Grab your tote bag, pull on your boots, and head to the Markets!

Markets Events & Announcements!

Book Signing This Weekend:

Sunday, November 6, 2010: Abingdon Square Market - 9AM to 12PM. Finally hanging out at my market! Come out and say hello!

A HUGE THANK YOU to the wonderful people who contributed to the IndieGoGo.com project to add video to this site!

We exceeded our $1500 goal for a total of $1690! I am so excited to get the equipment and hit the markets to take gorgeous videos for fall and the holidays!

Pre-Publication Book Launch at the Brooklyn Lyceum This Weekend!

I will be at the Brooklyn Lyceum’s Spring Food and Craft Market with The Little Bookroom this weekend! Please stop by, say hi, and pick up your advance copy of the guidebook!

Many of the wonderful vendors featured in the guidebook and blog are also going to be at the Lyceum, and they are offering awesome special discounts with your book purchase:

•Alison Tauber: $5 off one shirt

•Bacon Marmalade: Discount on Jars or Baked Goods

•Fine and Raw Chocolates: Chunky Bonbon 2 for $10 (regular price $7 each)

•KnitKnit Knits: 10% off one item

•Lovely Day Designs/LuCrafts: 20% on total purchase

•McFlashpants : 10% discount on total purchase

•Meow Meow Tweet: $1.00 off total purchase

•Miss Wit Tees for Good Times: 15% on total purchase

•Nordea Soaperie: Free 1.5 oz Body Polish with $45 total purchase

•Off the Mat: 20% discount on total purchase

•Pumpkin and Honey Bunny/P&H Soda and Syrup Inc.: $.50 off purchase of sodas and greeting cards

•Rocks and Salt Design: 10% discount on hats

•Sour Puss Pickles: $1.50 off a jar of Green Tomato Relish

•Take Me Homeware: 20% discount on total purchase

•Virginia Kraljevic Illustrations and Cards: 20% discount on total purchase

•Yona’s Gourmet Delights: $1.00 off your purchase of any two combos

There’s A Giant Pink Squid Under the Christmas Tree

What happens when artisans sell their creations at the markets or pack them up and ship them to all corners of the world for the holidays? They never get to see where their handiwork ends up or who opened the packages on Christmas morning. After talking to artisans at the holiday markets recently about this subject, I decided to show them where the gifts I bought ended up.

We spend the holidays with my husband James’ family, and I can honestly say that every single gift from a New York City market was received with much happiness. One particularly special piece was placed at the top of the tree.

I picked out Squidfire’s hot pink giant squid T-shirt for myself, and James wrapped it up for me. I loved the way it glowered up from underneath the tree. Dainty earrings made by Martin Lopez at AdornmentsNYC from vintage beads and findings got placed immediately in my sister-in-law Judy’s ears. They make a faint hypnotic jingle for her ears only. She also adored the tiny sandalwood candle in a gold pressed glass vase from Lovely Day Designs.

For my nephew, I chose one of my favorite T-shirts to add it to his growing collection of Gnome Enterprises designs. It’s the one where the tree gets its revenge on the lumberjack. My lucky husband got the fluffy black sweatshirt from Fleisher’s Grassfed Organic Meats that says, “Bacon: The Gateway Meat.” It’s a classic.

James made all the holiday cookies this year. (Tip: He added bergamot oil to the icing – amazing!) Anyway, he burned his hand several times taking them out of the oven using our pitiful oven mitts. So I gave him a gorgeous handmade oven rack pull from Meb’s Kitchenwares. It’s in the shape of a fish, and it was a bit of a mystery to everyone until I explained what it was. They all agreed it was brilliant.

Speaking of brilliant, the crayon apron from Pickleboots was the runaway winner with my two-year-old niece, although the pink handbag with a furry mouse in the pocket got a lot of love too.

And finally, there were two piéces de resistance for my brother-in-law Thom. The four of us recently went on vacation to Paris. All Thom wanted was unusual French salts, but he didn’t get any. So when we saw this beautiful collection of salts from Gneiss Spices at the Brooklyn Lyceum, we thought of him. The cute jars are magnetic, and you can store the salts (3 of which are French, and 2 of which are pink) on your fridge.

We also gave Thom a beautiful sign from Yee Haw Industries that says, “Carve that Possum.” He placed it at the top of the tree. We’ll frame it for his workshop after the holidays.

This New Year’s Eve brings us a full moon, a blue moon, a partial lunar eclipse! A lot of great things are going to happen with the Markets of New York blog in the new year, and I am already excited about the book’s release in June. Visit often!

Have a safe and happy new year. And don’t forget to look up!

Brooklyn Lyceum Holiday Craft Market – A Procrastinator’s Paradise

Yes, I left some of my shopping until this weekend. But I totally scored at The Brooklyn Lyceum Holiday Craft Market. In addition to cupcakes, chocolate, and sandwiches that kept me going, the handmade merchandise was impressive. The Lyceum is an excellent space for a market, and I heard a lot of people saying that they liked the way the crowd could easily flow through the aisles this year.

To see all the wonderful exhibitors, you’ll have to brave the snow yourself on Sunday. But I’ll give you a few examples of some of them.

Lovely Day Designs has hand-poured soy candles in vintage teacups, pressed-glass votives, and porcelain gravy boats, and other decorative items as well. One of the more unusual things I came across was the living jewelry from McFlashpants, tiny plants rooted in eensy vials hanging as pendants on a necklace. McFlashpants also makes unique jewelry made of vintage cutlery. Everything Tiny creates laser cut accessories using bright colors and fun images like dinosaurs, Leggos, deer, and (my favorite) dachshunds. Fortunately for my little nieces, I came across Pickleboots and got some really great kid things for them.

I really liked the graphic images printed on pages torn from unusual books by Girls Can Tell. The soaps from Nordea all smell divine, and her felted scrubber soaps in bright colors would be great stocking stuffers. The framed prints from Raw Toast Design are colorful, skillfully drawn, and darkly funny, like the “poor calamari” being eaten by seagulls. For really great T-shirts, I couldn’t resist the bright pink giant squid from Squidfire. And Miss Wit lives up to her name with some really great shirts, like the one that says, “I can’t stop googling myself.” For the nostalgic people on your list, definitely stop by Another Work In Progress for handmade spiral notebooks made from vintage board games, like Candy Land, Bingo, Monopoly, and more.

Brooklyn Lyceum: Saturday and Sunday, December 19 – 20, 11A – 7 P

Tomorrow is the last weekend day to shop! So pull on your ear grips and mukluks and hit the markets!