Babies and mamas-to-be with proudly prominent baby bumps were everywhere at the second annual Little Bean Market held Saturday at the Roll-A-Dome geared for those with children.
With 30 vendors at the event there was plenty of handmade children's items from which to choose.
Shortly after the market opened there were about 100 people already filling the aisles.
Browsers found hundreds of items to choose from like felt cupcakes, unicorn hair bands, baby ball caps, mobiles, wooden shelves, bibs, diapers, new and used clothing and baked goods.
Nicole Roy, owner of Fun Felts Factory, was inspired to start making felt items when she purchased a play kitchen for her daughter, Emma, who is now 5 years old.
"I thought I'd make her some felt food to go along with it," Roy said. "So I made her donuts and cupcakes. Then I just kept getting inspired by other food and creating more stuff and it kind of expanded from there."
The Roy family, who's been in Prince George for about a decade, loves to fish. Almost every weekend there's a fishing trip that ends with a campfire so the next things Roy created were pint-sized magnetized fishing rods sets complete with fish. Soon there was a campfire created to complete the felted outdoor theme. Roy also does custom orders and fondly recalls the reaction of delight she got when she created felt animal-themed masks for a little boy's birthday party and an infant's mobile filled with high-flying airplanes.
This is Roy's second time at the market and said she finds it a great place to network and meet online customers face-to-face.
Ellice Whitford brought her new son Wilde, four months old, to the event, along with her mom Wendy Clement from Vanderhoof. Whitford is here from Kamloops to celebrate her birthday with Clement who said each of them are three decades apart. Wilde was born 30 years after Whitford, who was born 30 years after Clement.
"We really like upcycling and sewing for ourselves so we decided to come today to look for ideas," Whitford said, who made the jumper Wilde was wearing from a T-shirt. "There's a lot of great ideas here and it's great to see all the babies."
Small business owner, Jessica Quinn, is the organizer of the Little Bean Market, along with her sister, Nicole Gibson, who owns Yellow Ribbon Photography.
Quinn owns Live Love North apparel, which offers a variety of items for all ages with unique silk-screen images and sayings on them. She started with making items only for babies but when she heard her customers asking for adult versions, and for items to match baby, she began expanding her inventory to meet demand.
"We're very passionate about supporting local," said Quinn, who said the majority of vendors were from Prince George while there were others from as far away as Kitimat and Williams Lake. "We wanted to show off the great, amazing handmade creativity that our local businesses and artisans have and give them a place where they can showcase their work and gain a bigger customer base. When you've got a small business it's really hard sometimes to get your name out there because you've got all the social marketing tools but it's a big ocean of other people doing that too, so to actually have some face time with your customers and be able to show your best work is really special."
Entry to the market was by donation to Friends of Children, a non-profit society that assists northern BC and east Kootenay families with children in medical need. Last year the event raised $2,100 for the non-profit, which assists families with travel, groceries and accommodation associated with children's medical needs, and hope to raise the same or more this year.
