christmas shopping

Cancer-killing Megan was in Portland for Thanksgiving, so I got to spend some time with her. I dragged her over to the workshop of Queen Bee Creations, a great company that makes vinyl bags and accessories. I have admired their work for some time, so I was pretty excited to discover that they are now based in Portland and that they allow visitors to the workspace. They sell a lot of seconds there for great prices, so how could we resist? I got a messenger bag and wallet, and Megan got, well, a whole bunch of stuff (my two items are on the left):

They do really great work, so please keep them in mind for your holiday shopping.
Speaking of holiday shopping, I was thinking it might be good to buy from the indie crafters of the world instead of The Man this year. Here are just a few vendors you might want to check out:
-The aforementioned Amyville, home of miniature clay creations
–My Paper Crane, an amazing shop offering donut and toast and other plushes (totally love the donut hole plushes), as well as handspun yarn and fun fleece scarves (I have the striped one, and I love it!)
–Tania Howells, who sells really, really, really cute bird stuff, including necklaces, silk purses, mugs, etc.
–Buy Olympia, a collective of artists based in or near Olympia, Washington. Queen Bee is part of this pack, along with Stella Mars and Nikki McClure
–Giant Robot, publishers of Giant Robot, an Asian pop culture magazine. The store has great T-shirts and tons of wacky Japanese goods.
I’m sure there are plenty more, but this a good start! If you know of any others you’d like to plug, feel free to leave them in comments.