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Monday, March 18
The Indiana Daily Student

arts

Artisans sell holiday presents

17-year-old Susannah Hall sells her knitted apparel at the Last Minute Gift Fair hosted by Gather Here on Sunday at the Fountain Square Mall. Hall's booth, called Zanna Knits, is made up entirely of items she made herself.

Last-minute holiday shopping and local artisans came together Sunday for a late-season gift fair.

Talia Halliday, owner of Gather Here, a local handmade wares shop, said she hosted the fair in hopes that it would provide people a chance to catch up to the fast-moving holiday season.

“I think that the holiday season has happened quickly for a lot people,” she said. “I wanted to give another opportunity to sell late in the year.”

The fair took place from noon to 6 p.m Dec. 14. The event featured 21 vendors. Most of them came from Bloomington, and half were already sellers with the store. The other half were new to the Gather Here family, Halliday said.

Of the vendors involved in the fair, Halliday said Bearmojo was the constant top seller within the store.

“They have been with us almost since the beginning,” Halliday said.

Bearmojo is owned by Andrea Bear and Todd Handlogten. They sell furry, monster-themed novelties.

They described Bearmojo’s products as something that blurred the line between functional and fun. Their store started off as a company that focused on furry and eyeball-emblazoned wallets, then quickly grew into products that ranged from monster wallets to monster-themed toys and dolls, tote bags and Christmas ?ornaments.

Though the fun-fur products attracted nearly every child that passed by their stand, Handlogten said Bearmojo produces for an older age group.

“We make things that we would want to buy,” he said.

Each item has a name, whether it be their “Meeple” line (monster-people) or Squidlings, a squid-inspired series of stuffed monsters.

Additionally, a lot of what they sell also has a back story. For example, Handlogten pointed to a set of flannel stuffed dolls. They were in the shape of a gingerbread man cut out but decorated to look like a multi-colored ninja. The thing that makes them special? They are ?chubby.

“Our chubby ninjas,” Handlogten said with a laugh. “They are off their games.”

He added that the reason they became chubby was that our society today no longer needs the ninja but instead goes to lawyers when people have problems.

Essentially, Handlogten said if a product idea makes them laugh or smile, it’s a done deal.

“We just bounce ideas off each other,” he said about the creation process. “It connects us with the inner child in everyone.”

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