Aitor and Becky have been cranking away at our first ever in-store event, and have been such a huge hit that they’ve decided to come back tomorrow and do it again!  Reservations for Unflattering Portraits are highly encouraged, so please call or email us to sign-up for an appoitment.  Check them out in action!

Sweetie Pie Press :: Button-making Demos –>

Rev. Aitor :: Sketching an Unflattering Portrait –>

Finished Portrait of Unsuspecting Couple!

Hope to see you soon!

That’s right, Misanthrope Specialty Company and Sweetie Pie Press have been on a massive tour of North America and they are finally coming to Chicago.  They’ll be in town and at our very own Renegade Handmade Shop this weekend on Saturday, August 15th.  They will be doing in-store demos and making Unflattering Portraits for donation from noon to 6pm.  If you’d like to sign up for an appointment for your portrait you can call the shop (773-227-2707), email the shop (info at renegade handmade dot com), or do so on Misanthrope Specialty Company’s blog.  Don’t like making plans, more of fly by the seat of your pants type? Just show up and we’ll fit you in!

We’ll see you Saturday!!!

Recently, we at Renegade Handmade have had a lot going on!  We’ve had 4 fairs out of town, a backroom renovation, and we’ve expanded the whole operation by hiring new employees, broadening our internet presence (follow us on Twitter, be our friend on Facebook), and carrying lots of new vendors.  Since we’ve been out of town we’ve had what we like to call Mt. Merch piling up higher and higher in our backroom.  In the past couple weeks we’ve been busy little bees working like crazy to get all this new stuff on our shelves and in our online shop.  We are happy to say Mt. Merch has turned into more of a mole hill and our shelves are chock full of new items… Like these:

Working from left to right, top to bottom, these are some of our favorites:

1.  Kate Pugsley sent us some prints that I am totally in love with.  This one of a swimmer clad in cap and fifty’s style suit is so great.  Click on Kate’s name to see my other favorite of a girl with a paper bag over her head.

2.  Essimar’s paper cuts are so awesome it is hard for me to share.

3.  Memo is a new artist we just started carrying.  Her little items are fun.  We also have guinea pig brooches, corgi dog paper dolls, and a few greeting cards, but you’ll have to come into the store to see those!

4.  iWood 3B made this state of the art, best in it’s class, cutting edge, new “phone.”  Call your wireless company to cancel your account now and come get your own iWood.  It’s the wave of the future.

5.  We’ve carried Mogo for quite sometime but we just got a massive restocking shipment of their items including this art pencil case, snap wallets, passport covers, baby kimonos, pencil boxes and more.

6.  Ross + Leo makes these really cool magnets.  They are the old 1″ button kind with really nice strong magnets on the back.  We have so many more designs I can’t even list them, you’ll have to come in to see them!

7.  Another personal favorite is Mama’s Little Babies’ brooches made from Victorian illustrations.  This one is called Plump Joe Joe and he is my new friend.  He comes with me wherever I go.  Or rather wherever my tote bag goes.

8.  I recently got a big-girl coffee table that requires that I use coasters.  Sesame Letterpress has come to the rescue, teaching me that I can own coasters that make both me and my grandma proud.

9.  These are the cutest little love cards ever by Munaluna.  I’m not entirely sure what their purpose is, but I’m sure I can come up with some good ones.  If you’re already following us on Twitter you may already be familiar with Munaluna’s totally adorable robot plushes, since I may have made 3 tweets featuring pictures of them.  We only have one left in the store so come and get it before I am forced to take it home with me.

That’s it for now, but I probably won’t be able to contain myself much in the next week or two so you’ll be hearing about more new stuff as it comes in.