Every booth tells a story at a craft fair like the one put on Sunday at the Croatian Cultural Centre in East Vancouver.
The Great Canadian Craft event, which began Saturday and continues through Monday, attracted vendors of everything from soap to nuts, or at least bowls in which you could keep nuts.
Steve Shelley of Campbell River makes those bowls, along with platters and bigger items such as benches and tables, out of maple, arbutus, alder and yew wood he finds washed up on the shores of Discovery Passage.
“This is my winter work,” said Shelley, who focuses on his Island Tides Outdoor Lodge fishing expeditions the rest of the time.
He’s only been doing the Nature’s Edge Wood Design items for about three years, choosing to stay home to labour on his unique creations instead of heading to Alberta to work while his fishing lodge is closed down.
Shelley goes to more home shows where he can exhibit larger creations such as tables that sell for $1,000 or more. But his one-of-a-kind bowls and platters are popular at craft fairs, selling for $40 to $80.
Kathryn McGregor is another part-time craft fair-goer.
Her main business is dog walking and boarding, which she was advertising Sunday along with many dog accessories — including the Dube, a tubelike sweater for little dogs.
The Vancouver native, 35, came up with the idea one particularly rainy day — cutting two leg holes into a spare leg-warmer and transforming it into a sweater.
“I’m a child of the ’70s and ’80s,” she explained when asked about the leg warmers.
As crazy as it sounds, explained McGregor, “it worked!”
She has the Dubes knitted in the U.S. and manufactured in China.
“The goal is to get them done here,” she said.
Kathy Lind, 43, of Golden,doesn’t go offshore for her Apple Island products. She makes them herself in her living room, which she turned into a workshop.
Lind, a former nurse, works full-time creating soaps and scents that are all natural. If the items aren’t vegan, they’re at least vegetarian.
“I’ve always loved natural products and I wanted a new career path,” she explained.
“Now I’m an aromatherapist,” she said.
But there’s no Apple Island, said Lind, except “in my mind. It’s my happy place.”
In fact, the entire craft fair was a happy place as patrons ducked out of the rain to spend a part of their Easter Sunday shopping.
They’ll get another chance to shop Monday, when the event runs from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The first 25 people through the door will get a free swag bag of goodies.