On a day packed with some of Ottawa’s biggest summer festivals, Urban Craft, an indie craft show in the city, was drawing plenty of people inside the Glebe Community Centre on June 20.
“Our theme is kind of hip, modern, handmade goods, so we’re just trying to give something a little bit different than what other shows are doing,” said Robin Sidhu, one of the show’s organizers.
“It’s great to see more and more people come through the door each year, and to see tons of more vendors creating new things we’d never seen before.”
One of the vendors putting her own spin on crafts was Victoria Lubbers.
The recent University of Ottawa health sciences graduate said she loves going to arts shows because it has been her lifelong passion.
“I actually wanted to go into art, but my parents were like, ‘You aren’t going to make any money off of it!’ And now, here I am, graduated and making money,” Lubbers said.
She and some friends created Frontier Collective, which she described as a craft collaboration of “woodsy, natural” products that is inspired by the Canadian wilderness.
“[Crafts] mostly started out for me just as a hobby. After studying I’d grab a piece of wood to paint on, and it’s grown from there,” Lubbers said, pointing to her handmade wood slices.
“A lot of these slices with cheesy inspirational messages came from when I got my wisdom teeth out. I was so loopy and somehow they turned out beautiful.”
Apart from the crafts, there were also food stands for gourmet vendors inside the community centre, and a place for kids to get their faces painted.
Carleton doctorate student Amanda Dookie was one of the face painters for Yelp Ottawa.
“I’ve been to the shows before, so it’s pretty special to actually help put it on this time,” she said.
The festival featured homemade crafts from about 60 indie and gourmet craft makers across Eastern Canada, including some from Quebec and Nova Scotia in this year’s edition, according to Sidhu.
Sidhu said the show has experienced significant growth since it began in 2011, and they have had to modify the planning of the event as a result.
It started out as a monthly show in its infancy before evolving into a quarterly show, but now it happens twice a year, one in the summer and another in the winter.
“Now with so many more people wanting to participate and attend, we realized we should just hold two big events a year instead to attract even more people,” he said.
“The best part is seeing so many people here having fun.”
The second Urban Craft show will take place in December, according to Sidhu, and many people are already preparing for the next event.
“I can’t wait to come back again in the winter, especially since it’s so close to [Carleton],” Dookie said. “I just love seeing the community support every time I come here.”
