The popular Santa Cruz Mountains Makers Market — which allows locals to display and sell homemade goods — will be returning to Felton on May 3.
This year’s Market will run from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and there are two other markets scheduled for July 19 and Sept. 13, said Makers Market Coordinator and Boulder Creek local Bree Karpavage.
“We invite the public to come out, it’s a free event there is no admission, there’s lots of parking, we’ve got permission from the surrounding lots, and its going to be a lot of fun so come out and shop local,” Karpavage said.
Karpavage and her partner Erik Waage — both artists — put their heads together to create this event for locals who make their own stuff.
Makers Market has teamed up with Mountain Community Resources for the second year in a row to host the event in the parking lot of MCR, located on Highway 9 in Felton.
Jennifer Anderson-Ochoa, program director for Mountain Community Resources, said that the event will benefit the nonprofit through a silent auction.
“The deal that we have made with the Makers Market vendors, is that in order for them to come they have to give us an auction item for our silent auction,” Anderson-Ochoa said.
Makers Market is an opportunity for MCR to get their name out there and allows for the community to get involved, Karpavage said.
“We are just really excited to have the partnership,” Anderson-Ochoa said. “Another benefit for us is that it brings awareness to people that are coming to the Makers Market and we set up a booth to educate people about the work that we do so its a lot of awareness raising for our program.”
Three bands are lined up to perform at the event including The McCoy Tyler Band, Drifting Compass, and The Crooked Branches.
“They will probably each have a two-hour set, so it’s pretty much live music going on all day,” Karpavage said.
Last year, there were a total of four Markets in Felton, including an indoor Christmas event in November. Many of those vendors are returning to offer their crafts this year.
“You can expect a little bit of everything, we really try to keep a really cool variety of goodies out there so you’ll see some up-cycled crafts, some local clothing, jewelry, we’ve got some painters coming out, we’ve got some people doing clay works, and we’ve got the artisan food,” Karpavage said, adding that bakeries and fresh food vendors will also be present.
Peggy Dillon of Twins Kitchen, a returning vendor with the Market, said that the event allows people like her and her daughter Natalie, to get a foot into the artisan food movement.
“We make gourmet artisan jams and mustards we are a cottage food producer so that’s what we bring to the table,” Dillon said. “We make some really unusual flavors like one of our jams is strawberry balsamic with rosemary black pepper and our mustards are like horseradish with onion and garlic.”
Twins Kitchen will be offering a variety of jams and mustards at this year’s event.
“This time around at the Market,” Dillon explained. “we are going to have salted grapefruit, Mayer lemon orange jam with thyme and ginger, we will have our strawberry balsamic, we’ll have all three of our mustards, which are the horseradish, a honey with caraway seed, and a champagne herb mustard that is really fabulous too.”
Under the cottage food law, California small producers can prepare certain food items in a home kitchen instead of a commercial kitchen. Many other cottage food businesses will also be present at the May Market.
“Its just got this great vibe, there are so many families and little kids and people are walking their dogs — its got this really relaxed feeling,” Karpavage said. “It’s just marvelous and we also love to go to see what the other vendors are doing — we always find really fun things to try and look at, and often buy.”
