KARACHI: Exclusively handmade crafts including gift items, decoration pieces, linens, cotton, apparel, fashion accessories, jewellery, stationery, skincare were on display and up for grabs at the day-long Crafter’s Expo organised by the Crafter’s Gild at Area 51 in DHA Phase-8 on Sunday.

With the theme ‘Happiness is handmade’, this year marked the 10th anniversary of the Crafter’s Expo, which also saw savoury foods and sweet treats making their debut at the Munch Market set up right across from the hall with crafts where there was also plenty of activity for children under way such as storytelling sessions, painting sessions, games, etc.

Altogether there were some 100 stalls. This time around the Crafter’s Expo also had the most talented, creative and gifted young entrepreneurs aged 16 and under brought together by Young Creatives/Bluebird Arts.

Young Mehreen Ahsan herself looked a lot like the dolls she had stitched pretty dresses for. Her stall was named ‘My Mini Stitch’ and although she was not selling anything at the Crafter’s Expo this time, she was taking orders from customers to design and make clothes for their children’s dolls. She said she also has an Instagram page where she was taking more such orders. “I want to be a dress designer when I grow up,” Mehreen informed Dawn.

Customers of all ages throng the day-long exhibition

Another brilliant young man, 15-year-old Muhammad Eesa Bin Imran, was an author selling his novel, Humanity Edge, about humans interacting with an alien race, along with some very pretty bookmarks that one of his mother’s friends had requested him to keep at his stall.

At another stall, nine-year-old Natalia Sarmad was selling her paintings. Just next to her were sisters Syeda Tayba Agha and Syeda Sakina Agha dressed in identical red shalwar kameez selling pebbles they had hand painted.

“We collected several pebbles of different sizes from the seashore here, from Balochistan, Hunza and also Saudi Arabia to paint on,” said Tayba, the older of the two girls.

From the kids to older entrepreneurs, Sharmeen Sajjad was happy and proud of her sparkling resin art creations displayed at her stall. Under her brand ‘Sharmeen’s Artistic Impressions’, one could buy pretty trays, platters, decoration pieces, clocks and other multipurpose stuff.

Meanwhile, Sidra Mumtaz of Artistry by Sidra Mumtaz’ had taken the opportunity to hold a soft launch for her little business of handmade mugs, fridge magnets, coasters, earnings, hair accessories, etc. She had also used real daisies and roses to preserve in her resin art pieces.

The resin art pieces were quite pricey but selling still. “A one litre bottle of fluid for resin art is imported and costs about Rs4,000. So can imagine why all resin art products here are slightly on the steep side,” explained Syed Mohammed Taha at the ‘Living in Art’ stall.

Ruba Ilyas had her hand-painted imitation jewellery, some also gold-plated, purses, clutches, vases, etc. She also said that she had been running her little business through her social media pages in 2016.

Another imitation jewellery stall was being managed by Sahar Zakir whose designer collection business is named ‘Kohenoor Collection’. “You’ll find all my jewellery being worn by characters in our recent television plays, especially in the serial Meray Humsafar, which brought me fame,” Sahar announced proudly.

You could get baby nests, cushions, stuffed toys and handmade woollen booties at the ‘Tiny Feet’ stall where Hiba Mansoor was happily serving new moms as well as people looking for gifts for baby showers.

The linens, cottons and apparel stalls had block prints, hand-embroidered material. Kaniz Fatima was selling full embroidered suits, two-piece suits and one-piece, meaning just shirt material at her stall representing S.K. Attires.

Zainab Nazeer was selling thick hand-embroidered autumn tote bags for grocery shopping, something very much needed in this world of too many environment-unfriendly plastic bags. One of her bags had a cute embroidered honey bee with the wording ‘Busy Bee’ embroidered underneath.

Some other stalls had some of the most fascinating stuff to offer such as the ‘Irma Herbals’ stall where Irma Naz had carrots, orange peels, papaya, rose petals and neem leaves displayed in different plates on her table.

“I make thick and smooth purees of these to make herbal soaps,” informed Irma, who told Dawn that she has been selling her products through pages on social media for the past seven years.

She also had some pan masala on the side to offer to her customers as a mouth freshener though some of them mistakenly thought that it was also to be rubbed on the face, bringing up several funny encounters.

Customers, who came and bought a lot of things from various stalls, said that they were so glad to support the crafters’ community and also get some very unique and beautiful items for their homes and personal collections at the Crafter’s Expo. Happiness for them as well as the crafters surely was handmade!

Published in Dawn, November 14th, 2022