Renegade Craft Fair, one of the most renowned arts & crafts marketplace events, invaded the Palmer Events Center in Austin over the weekend of May 19th and 20th. The third annual Renegade Austin featured hundreds of DIY indie vendors from around the country hawking everything from beautiful screen-printed posters to hipster teddy bears (Let’s Be Friends).
Renegade has held fairs in Brooklyn, Chicago, San Francisco, LA, and London, since its inception in Chicago in 2003. Austin is the latest city to host Renegade, and with good reason – the Austin craft scene has blossomed over the past decade. It’s almost impossible to drive within a twenty block radius without seeing a local boutique full of Austin-made goodies.
There was something for everyone within the hundreds of booths at the fair, including jewelry, stationery, clothing, goods for babies, bath products, home goods, fine art, and so much more. In addition to the shopping, Renegade featured tons of extra activities, music, and take-home craft stations. The WonderCraft Airstream trailer made it’s annual appearance, with a free do-it-yourself screen printing station and Magnolia Photo Booth brought along a digital photo booth and a trunk full of props for attendees to pose to their hearts content, and take home high-quality images as souvenirs.
Wandering through the swarm of attendees, some of whom seemed to be in a dazed state of craft-overload, I certainly feel like I missed some things, but from what I did get a chance to see, some of my personal favorite vendors included: the whimsical creature paintings of Dallas, TX based artist Rachel Davidson’s 3 Bears Studio; the cupcake-clad product line of art, cards, and gifts by Cake Spy Jessie Oleson, who made the trek to Austin from Seattle, WA; the beautiful geometrically painted jewelry of Austin’s own Son of a Sailor; and although it’s almost summer and wearing long sleeved anything is completely out of the question, I was definitely coveting the lovely jackets that the Mother-Daughter team Rebe had for sale.
In case you missed Renegade this year, you can find the full line-up of artists who participated (most of whom have online shops) here.
