Here are some pics from Crafty Bastards! Amanda and I had a great time. Here are some of her strawberry sachets. So adorable (and smell great too).

Her sister Kristina also had some awesome items like stationery and bike seat covers made from recycled sweaters!

Don't you want a cute little birdie or mushroom for your hair? People were buying these up like mad!

Some of my dog collars. I have to find a better way to display these next time. The big collars were pretty popular. From what I hear there aren't many stylish options for the full-figured doggies either. I feel your pain, sisters.

I also had some paw balm, stationery and leash bags (they hold the plastic poop pickup bags and attach to your leash). You can see Amanda's sweater creatures in the background, she sold almost all of them!

Our little booth. I'm so grateful Amanda's mom provided us with the tent. It got HOT. Her whole family came along, it was fun hanging out with them!

Amanda's gnomes and felted sweater tissue cozies. So cute. I'm so glad I own one now!

Her gorgeous hand dyed, screenprinted vintage slips. These were way popular.

Here's my little dog friend Annabelle Blanche who stopped by to say hi and try on some collars. Yay for Bostons!!!

The crowds were insane. All day, the booth was packed. I was told that last year there were 15,000 people in attendance, and it wouldn't surprise me to hear there was at least that many on Sunday. I've never, ever been to a show like this!

In addition to all the awesome crafty goodness, there were walking parades of people on stilts, a hip hop spoken word show, a fire breather, a snake lady, crafty workshops and demos all day, and a breakdancing competition which was so packed I couldn't even see it.

So many cute, creative items!

Stuff from Woolarina and the Cupcake Girls - who were giving out free cupcakes, how cool is that?!

You know I made off with some of these awesome letterpress postcards. Love!

Saint Bob and an awesome monster.

Cards & things from a bardis and vinyl zippered pouches from Miss Alison (I got one of these, I love it).

We had a blast, thanks to everyone who came by and supported the Norfolk Craft Mafia! We would LOVE to do this show next year, and if you've never been I highly recommend checking it out!! The City Paper did a great job with it. I only hope Handmade Parade is half as awesome!

{Food}

• How to make these super fun monster cupcakes for Halloween.
• Make your own preserves

• Video: how to make a hoodie from old t-shirts. Shows you a bit of patternmaking too!
• How to make an oilcloth lunch bag
• How to sew even corners
• French seams 101

{Business Tips}

• How to describe your handcrafts to boost your sales
• How to take and edit professional photos of your crafts! Some GREAT and concise information!

What a morning! I'm still recovering from our little adventure. But I'll stop talking in vague terms and just tell you what's up! We (we being myself and Amanda) filmed a little segment this morning with Vanessa Coria from WVEC Channel 13 about handmade gifts and the Norfolk Craft Mafia!

I got an email last week from Vanessa saying that she was doing a story about holiday gift giving on a budget, she had stumbled across our website and wanted to do a segment about handmade! With a trembling voice I called Amanda and blurted out, "Do ya wanna be on TV?!?!" We decided to do it and I called all the mafia troops together to get some great handmade items to show off.

We filmed it all at Amanda's house this morning. Here she is getting mic'd up like a pro.

Vanessa and her cameraman (I'm so embarrassed I don't remember his name) were consummate professionals and made us feel totally at ease.

I was surprised how much time and filming goes into what will ultimately be a two-minute segment. We were there nearly two hours! I did the "talking head" part of the interview and blabbered on about the craft mafia, handmade gifts and the craft community in general. I talk so fast, but maybe that's finally a good thing if we have to squeeze it all into under two minutes. I didn't get nervous until after, and then my face blushed bright red. Ha.

Then Amanda walked her through all the awesome handmade fantasticness that the Norfolk Craft Mafia has to offer. She was so great! Amanda's a natural. As Twiggy says, "The camera loves you!"

Then we both demo'd how to make marble magnets/bookmarks/hair accessories. I guess I just sort of stood there dumbly while Amanda did it because then the camera man wanted me to "do something". The horrible knitter that I am, I didn't have any knitting with me. So Amanda tried to teach me to crochet on camera. We were brilliant. Hah.

Vanessa recorded her lead-in and then we wrapped things up!

It was a great experience and I'm so glad we had the opportunity. Thank you Vanessa!

And an extra-special thank you to all the mafia members who rallied so quickly to get me their lovely handmade items! We had mixed media collage by Jeannine, handmade plush and a quilted pillow by Cassie, more plush and accessories by Charmaine, pottery by Ashley, knitwear by Tasha, everything from tissue cozies to hair clips to plush by Amanda and also a few of my doggie items.

Be sure to tune in to watch our TV debut! It will air next Friday, October 19th on WVEC Channel 13 as part of their Daybreak show. Vanessa's segment is at 5:23 and 6:24 a.m. It will also re-air on LNC 5 from 7 a.m. to noon, so please check us out!

In conjunction with the Wonder Art show, Symphonic for the City is hosting a craft show Saturday, October 20th from 10am to 3pm. It looks like lots of fun, plus there is no charge to have a table and sell your crafty wares! If you are interested in participating in this event, you can contact Shaula at shaula@symphonicforthecity.com
Also, there will be fliers and more information at the Crafter's Roundup this Sunday.

(PS: The Seven Cities Mafia and the Norfolk Mafia are, in fact, the same group. Seven Cities was the original title, but the head Mafia in Austin preffered that we choose just one city name....so Norfolk it was! Sometimes we are still referred to by the old title, no biggie. Just wanted to let everyone know!)

The Norfolk Craft Mafia is super-pleased to announce our amazing lineup of vendors for Handmade Parade! We have over fifty talented artists and crafters from Canada to North Carolina that will be showcasing their wares on Saturday, November 10th! Come get your holiday shopping done in one place! Forget the malls and their crazy parking lots and the same old mass-produced items. Buy handmade, support an independent artist!

The Norfolk Craft Mafia is proud to bring you another Skill-Sharing workshop: Learn to Knit! The workshop will be held this Sunday, October 21 at 6pm at Amanda's house in Norfolk. If you need directions, please email Amanda.

At this workshop you'll learn to cast on, make a knit stitch, and bind off a project. All supplies will be provided. Please bring a snack to share! The workshop is free to all Norfolk Craft Mafia members. Non-members may attend for a $15 fee or may join the craft mafia that evening ($20 yearly) and attend for free.

We also will be having our Monthly Crafter's Roundup on Sunday, November 4th at Drawn to Art in Ghent, which is free and open to the public! Please see the events page for more info!

Hope to see you there!

Good morning and welcome to any new visitors who are clicking over from WVEC.com! We're so glad you're interested in the mafia! Please check out our events page to see what's coming up crafty in Hampton Roads or sign up for our forum and introduce yourself! Interested in making the marble magnets that were briefly featured on the TV segment? Here's a step-by-step tutorial guide to making your own!

The Norfolk Craft Mafia made our television debut this morning! Check us out in a story by WVEC Channel 13’s Vanessa Coria.

Click here for the full story online and to watch the video segment.

We plan to have a high-resolution clip of the segment on our website as soon as possible. Thanks to all the mafiosas who submitted items for the shoot, your stuff looked gorgeous on the table. I wish the clip could have been a bit longer so we could have seen more details!

We’d love some feedback on the video, what do you guys think?

Here's a report on the Wonder Group Art Show (October 20-21) by Shannon! The Wonder Group Art Show displayed the work of local artists through out two rooms of The Warehouse. One room featured live music throughout the day on Saturday. Bands alternated throughout the day, providing new music. Snacks and hot cider was provided, along with couches to create a great atmosphere. The walls were lined with work from talented artists.

In the other room were members of the Norfolk Craft Mafia. Crafts ranged from custom portraits, photography, primitive designs, ribbon keyfobs, to pottery and stuffed creatures. Participants were: Danica Zanetti, Annie, Charmaine Panares, Candace Filip [and boyfriend, Chris], and Shannon Eppers. 

Overall it was a fun day and I'm thankful for the hospitality- everyone was really great to provide a FREE venue.

Shannon's lovely wares. You can check her out at Virginia Design Company. Thanks to Shannon for taking photos and the guest blog post!

Sunday, October 21 we had another one of our skill-sharing workshops and lots of mafiosas left with a new skill - Knitting! A big thanks goes out to Deva, Vero and Tasha for being willing to share their knowledge and love of knitting with the rest of the group. We had a great turnout - about 15 people - and ate some yummy snacks, hung out and knitted!

Thanks also to Amanda for the generous use of her home to host the workshop. It was perfect!

All the ladies who attended learned to cast on, knit knit knit and bind off. I heard some are making scarves now, who knows, this could be the start of some great holiday gifts!

Be sure to keep checking our events page for our next upcoming workshop. We're planning a Colonial Christmas-themed craft extravaganza for December so you won't wanna miss it!