Gingerbread House Design Contest

Here is a sneak peek at one of our artists’ entries for our annual Gingerbread House Design Contest.  Artist Jessica Coates submitted this yesterday.  The deadline for entries is 6pm Friday December 4th and judging will begin at 3 pm Saturday December 5th 2009.  The judge is the Butter Bean’s personal chef, Alys Herrick.  Entries do not have to be edible.  The entry fee is a $5 donation to the Humane Society to make our local animals lives better. 

Upcoming Christmas Craft Festival

Saturday December 5th will be our Handmade Christmas Festival.  We are still accepting artists but space is very limited.  All work must be handmade by the artist.  We’ll be announcing the awards for our Gingerbread House Design contest at 3 pm during our Christmas show.  The judge will be Alys, our very own personal chef.  All entries must be brought to the Butter Bean by 6pm on December 4th.  The winners do not need to be present on Saturday to win.  We will have Three Categories: Most Creative Design, Best Group Entry and Best Individual Entry.  All proceeds will benefit the Humane Society.  Entry is a $5 donation to our charity.  Your design can be in any medium from felt to paper to carved from ice.  It must fit through our doorwayand be created by an individual or group.   Fifty dollar cash prize for Most Creative Design, $25 for Best Group Submission and $25 for Best Individual Design.

Classic Car Show Nov. 14th 11-4

Can’t get enough of antique and vintage cars? Check out our upcoming show, the Annual Show and Shine at the Butter Bean November 14th from 11am to 4 pm.

Make Cash on Ebay

The Butter Bean Antique Market now offers consignment selling.  If you have items to sell, especially vintage jewelry or antiques, email Heather at butterbeanmarket@gmail.com or call 704 992 1851.  We offer free pickup within a 25 mile radius.  Items to be sold must be over $35 in value. 

Weiss brooch and earrings just sold for $60

We are currently brainstorming ideas for our Christmas show at the Butter Bean.  Author Barbara Lawing has come up with some great ideas for us.  She teaches Creative Writing at CPCC and the Jewish Community Center.

Art at our Fall Festival

The rain held out for Saturday’s art market.  Among our vendors were two new artists whose work we will be selling in the shop this winter.  Rebecca Caridad makes whimsical hats and scarves and lots of other neat stuff.  Look for her scarves and hats for sale at the Butter Bean very soon.  Carol Richardson, a graphic designer who lives in Indian Trail, makes the best blank greeting cards.  We will be selling her cards in the shop, now that we have a card rack to display them.  Thanks to Terri Dudash, interior designer and artist, for finding us a perfect card display rack.

one of Lisa M's paintings

pottery by Rudy McGee

Wine Tasting and Fall Festival Saturday

Old Stone Winery, of Salisbury, will be at the Butter Bean hosting a wine tasting on Saturday from 11-2.  They were voted Best Muscadine Wine in 2008.  Outside, we’ll have our art market and will have some new faces joining us.  Among these will be Barbara Lawing, a Huntersville writer who teaches classes at CPCC, Lisa Murdock, a gifted painter, and Kathy Hulla, who creates unique baskets. 

Little Red House by Terri...aka PumpkinDoodle

I’m also pleased to add Terri Dudash’s work to our great selection of art available inside The Butter Bean.  Terri is an interior designer and home stager who runs Rustic Modern Design.  Check out her photos, paintings and Scrabble charms next time you are in our shop.  The Scrabble charms are about the size of Scrabble tiles and have a little screw eye on top so you can add them to your bracelets, necklaces or even take two and make a pair of earrings.  Terri’s work is also available on Etsy.  Look for pumpkindoodle.

Halloween Display

We’ve gotten some neat artwork in the shop in the past few days.  Marti McElroy created these vampire heads that are just amazing out of polymer clay.  You can stick them in a pumpkin, a plant, or even just a glass since they’re on dowels that are wrapped in ribbon and beads.  We’ve got 3-D cards by Jessica Coate who is a graphic designer.  Jessica has worked in animation in the movie industry and was involved with episodes of Southpark.  She’s now a freelance designer here in Charlotte.   Debbie Maddox has created a set of paper mache ghosts, adorable little black spiders and witch hats.  And we have an amazing Halloween tree created by artist Hannah Barnhardt which is the perfect display for her assorted oddities.  She just sold the man’s torso (felt creation, I mean) off her Etsy site but we’ve got other awesome delights still available.  

We also have a new artist…Brittany Pitts…whose wooden creatures are in the store.  She’ll be at our Fall Festival on October 10th so you can meet her.  Today (Saturday) Frank Cribbs brought in his hand-carved wooden decorations.  Pictures of those will be posted in the next week.  Flyers for our October 10th show will be in the Butter Bean this week…think Thursday…for artists to stop in and grab so we can all promote our show.  Looks like we’ll be having a local winery that same day so we will be running FREE WINE TASTING in our ads.  That should bring quite a few people in.  We’re also hoping to have some rescued Great Danes at our show.

Punk'In Heads

Awesome Artists at Our Show

We had a lot of returning artists at our September 12th show including Hannah Barnhardt, Amy Leigh Rochester, Barbara Bechtel, Sammie Orr, and potter Becky Terry.   Marti McElroy stopped by to show us her wicked Halloween creations which will be available in our shop starting next week.  My favorite was the toothy vampire.  Some of our new artists included sculptor Nik Radovanovic, who is also an architect and his wife Angie.  Nik is working with Black Hawk Hardware on arrangements to sell his work in their garden shop.  Kay Burklin, a fabric artist showed off her creative quilt boards which can be used to display jewelry or even as a bulletin board.  Brooke Powell, an artist who lives in Huntersville, and an amazing painter, will be painting pumpkins live at our next show, October 10th.  She paints wine glasses, Christmas ornaments, front door banners, and accessories.

Amy's latest painting

new button necklaces by Amy

Becky Terry's pottery

Calling All Ghouls

I’ve been gearing up for the upcoming art market, grouting the floor in the antique shop and printing up flyers.  And I’ve been thinking of ways to add more art in our shop.  Right now I’ve posted an ad on Craigslist looking for Halloween artwork.  I’m meeting with a local artist named Marti on Monday.  Can’t wait to see what she will bring.  We’ll definitely have Hannah Barnhardt’s creepy delights for sale but I am still looking to add other artwork.  If you would like to submit photos or ideas please email them to me, Heather, at butterbeanmarket@gmail.com .

 

I was searching Etsy today, to see what kind of Halloween art is on the site and I found these darling little spider tags.  I would love to see something similar in our shop. 

spiders from Etsy

New Artists Joining Us

I am so proud to say we have two young artists who will be at our next Art Market.  Candace is a jewelry designer and photographer and she will be sharing a booth with one of our newest artists, Maggie.  Maggie, a painter, goes to North Meck High School and previously attended Northwest.  She informed me that a fan of the Butter Bean has been talking up our event at school and recruiting artists.  That is great news.  Whoever you are, please stop by the shop so I can thank you in person. 

 Any other artists who would like to save money are welcome to invite an artist friend to share tent space.  I definitely recommend this option because it helps fill out your display and that way you have a friend to watch your stuff while you wander around.  

mystery lady