Etsy: Made in Canada, Sept. 24 and 25, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. at the Pipe Shop, 115 Victory Ship Way, North Vancouver. Admission: $5 at the door. For details, visit etsy.com/ca/madeincanada.
The third annual Etsy: Made in Canada marketplace returns to the Lower Mainland this weekend and this time it’s landing on the North Shore.
The coast-to-coast pop-up event, which will be taking place in 38 communities nationwide, gives members of the e-commerce website Etsy the opportunity to sell their handmade goods at a brick-and-mortar venue. After two years at Robson Square in Vancouver, the local edition of the artisan fair is relocating to the Pipe Shop in North Vancouver.
“It fits really well with our handmade and vintage style and at the same time it’s indoors so we can control the crowd a little bit better,” says organizer Crystal Ho.
The new, larger venue can accommodate more than 90 vendors (Robson Square had space for just 75) and, for the first time, the market will run over two days instead of one.
With so many applicants hoping to secure a table at the event, Ho says there is a juried selection process. First and foremost, all sellers must run an Etsy shop and their goods should be high-quality and handmade. Jurors also strive to bring in a mix of new and established vendors, as well as a range of products in a number of categories: art and design; craft and jewelry; fashion and accessories; home and living; beauty and skincare; and baby and kids.
This Saturday and Sunday, shoppers will be able to meet artisans such as Fox & Fancy, which will be selling cheeky paper goods and stationary, Fable Naturals, which will have plant-based skin care products on display, and Cabin + Cub, which offers a line of laser-cut wooden jewelry.
Returning for her second Etsy: Made in Canada market is long-time North Vancouver resident Krista Luney, who opened her Etsy shop White Lies Jewelry at the end of 2014. Luney makes metal jewelry and geometric glass terrariums. The mostly self-taught metalsmith says she has been fascinated with jewelry from a young age and started beading as a child before advancing into wire-wrapping and soldering. She ventured into terrariums after taking a stained-glass class with her mother.
“I ended up becoming more interested in 3D models rather than a flat panel,” she says.
Selling her White Lies Jewelry collection in a physical space, as opposed to on the Internet, means shoppers can examine her creations up close, touch them, and ask questions.
“The nice thing about selling it face-to-face is the connection that you build with your customer and the compliments that they give you about your product that makes you feel so good about what you can do and how you can make them happy,” Luney says. “Online it’s a different story because you don’t get that same connection that you do interacting with somebody one-on-one.”
Stop by Luney’s table at the Pipe Shop this weekend, or check out her online shop at etsy.com/ca/shop/WhiteLiesJewelry.
Part proceeds from admission to Etsy: Made in Canada will go to the KidSafe Project Society, which provides nurturing safe havens for vulnerable inner-city children when schools are traditionally closed.
