Whether festival-goers wanted to decorate themselves, their
homes, their gardens or their pets, vendors at this year
’s Mushroom Mardi Gras had lots to offer.
Whether festival-goers wanted to decorate themselves, their homes, their gardens or their pets, vendors at this year’s Mushroom Mardi Gras had lots to offer.
During the two-day ode to ‘shrooms, vendors sold items ranging from toe rings to henna tattoos, from garden sculpture to homemade dog treats.
“People appreciated high-quality handmade goods,” said Jess Nguyen of Bamboo Chic, whose booth sold vibrantly colorful Vietnamese silk lanterns and other Asian decorative items including lacquerware platters and wooden model ships.
But the bright lanterns were the items that caught shoppers’ eyes.
“The idea came to my mind when I visited Vietnam and other Asian countries,” Nguyen said of his brand-new business.
The Mushroom Mardi Gras is Nguyen’s fifth show. He said he had recently been at festivals in Stanford and Sausalito.
The lanterns, which are used for weddings in Vietnam, sell for $25 to $120, depending on size.
Another popular spot – especially with the younger crowd – was Scott King’s booth featuring chairs, shelves, desks and benches made from skateboard decks and snowboards.
King’s business, R.U. Skatebored?, got started when a friend asked the then-cabinet and furniture maker to craft a chair out of skateboard decks for her 16-year-old son.
When King, of Reseda, was delivering the chair, he got quite a reaction.
“People stopped me on the way to deliver it,” King recalled. “Her son’s reaction was, ‘This is tight,’ and I thought I was on to something.
Besides participating in the Mushroom Mardi Gras, King was in town to deliver a custom-made bedroom set for his nephew – made from snow boards.
King will use any action sport board – snow boards, surf boards, skate boards and wake boards – to make custom-crafted furniture that runs from $45 for a shelf to $300 for a lounge chair to $400 for a display tower.
Patty Prine of www.notjustglass.com started making glass and concrete stepping stones years ago when she saw one she loved but couldn’t afford the price.
Her Merced-based business, which is full time for her husband Mark and part time for her, sells a wide variety of stained glass garden art, including turtles made of concrete and stained glass. The turtles sell for $95.
Paul Harding, of San Jose, was peddling skull-topped Indonesian Ooga Booga sticks.
“They’re like lamb’s blood – they keep death from your door,” Harding said. “If you use them as a walking stick, they’ll keep you alive as you go from point a to point b.”
If the sticks are used indoors, Harding said Indonesians face them toward a door or window. That way, if death comes calling, he’ll see the stick and figure he’s already been there, Harding said.
“They’re charming little things,” Harding said of the sticks. “People walk away with these things and somehow it makes them happy.”
Looking like a log cabin sprouted inside a tent, the Rocky Mountain Fine Log Furniture and Cabin Decor booth featured log furniture and scores of carved wooden bears.
Paula Kelly, of Gilroy, the owner, said people buy her items for a variety of uses.
“Some have cabins they use them for. A lot of people have cabins in Tahoe,” Kelly said, noting that others like to decorate their suburban tract homes in log cabin style.
The bears ranged in price from $80 and up. A queen-size log bed cost $1,360, while a floor lamp made from white tail deer antlers was priced at $1,310.
Kelly sells her furniture and decorative pieces at two shows each year – the Mushroom Mardi Gras and the Taste of Morgan Hill – and on her Web site at www.rmdecor.com
Most vendors reported moderate sales this year.
“It was very good yesterday,” Nguyen said of his sales, but noted that Sunday was starting out a bit more slowly.
“We’ve had a very nice weekend,” Prine said.
For shoppers looking for one-of-a-kind wares, Mushroom Mardi Gras was a nice weekend as well.
