Craftopia!

I love buying local whenever I can, but Craftopia made me claustophic this weekend. I set out on Sunday morning in search of some great Christmas gifts, but I left overwhelmed and disappointed. The vendors are great and there was a lot of merchandise for sale, but it was so crowded that I could barely see anything. Sadly, I left empty handed. All vendors were crammed into one side of Hope Artiste Village and given the high traffic we could barely move through. I’d strongly recommend that in the future they space out vendors and use both sides of Hope Artiste Village like they do for the Farmer’s Market. It would greatly alleviate traffic issues!

Can’t beat shopping for cool local art and jewelry at Craftopia!
Hope Artiste Village hosts this local craft event a few times a year. It has a ton of vendors from all over RI and MA selling all sorts of wares including (but not limited to) candles, jewelry, unique clothing, ceramics, painting/​prints, pet and baby stuff, accessories, and on and on. It is awesome at wintertime for unique holiday gifts, but this past spring one was had a lot to offer as well. It was an opportunity to refresh my spring/​summer accessory drawer, and pick up some unique items for my kid’s teachers!

Craftopia! is a yearly shopping event of handmade wares held at Hope Artisite Village. Admission will cost you a buck. For 2013 there were a lot of interesting vendors and we ended up scoring some amazingly adorable items for little baby, a couple of sweat treats for the hubs and me, and mother’s day gifts for the family. Edie and Fin had the most fun baby shoes, bibs, and burp clothes! Sweet Lydia had her always amazing marshmellows and sweet treats. Sweetest Hue had cute handpainted onesies and hats. Stella Marie was selling their always awesome bath products.
And to fill your tummy after a hard day of shopping Mijo’s and Rocket Street were there to please! Can’t wait for next year’s craftopia!

This was a great event. I don’t think they should charge admission at a shopping event though. The vendors should be the ones paying the booth rentals. Good food trucks outside as usual. There were many great vendors as well as the artiste village stores open. I do find it to be a turn off when some of the people running the booths are too busy playing on their cell phones to care about interacting with customers like they should be doing. I pass those booths right by, very unprofessional. Technology has affected peoples social skills in a serious way, oy