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December 2, 2012

Gift and craft show aims to help prevent child abuse

Mounds Mall donated space to aid Family Resource Center

By Baylee Pulliam The Herald Bulletin

ANDERSON, Ind. — There are some things even Santa’s elves can’t make.

Thankfully, there are plenty of artsy, crafty locals to fill in the gaps.

Around 80 of them were on hand for the Anderson Noon Exchange Club’s fifth annual Christmas Gift and Craft Show at Mounds Mall this weekend, breaking out their hot glue guns and glitter to sell unique and often handmade gifts.

Proceeds were to benefit the Family Resource Center, which aims to prevent child abuse by providing resources to at-risk families.

Ellen Durr was selling everything from chocolate-dipped cake pops to hand-painted, plastic carousel horses at her company’s booth — Alexandria-based Rosellen Creations, which she runs with her mom.

“Can’t you just see this being a great Christmas gift?” asked Durr, holding up a glass serving dish she re-purposed from candle holders and cigarette trays.

The vendors were selling candles, little painted snowmen, bags of coffee, ornaments, and other one-of-a-kind and often handmade stocking stuffers.

Mounds Mall donated the space, so 100 percent of the $50 booth rental went to benefit the Family Resource Center.

That makes the rent worth it, said Christy Davidson, who owns New Castle-based Christy’s Mix It Up dip company.

“It’s a really good cause,” she said. “It kind of justifies it (the expense) and the drive out here.”

Plus, she said, in the four years she’s been coming to the fair, she usually makes that rent back in the first day.

There’s also the business exposure, said Kim Crist, who co-owns Pendleton’s What Workz re-purposed and refurbished furniture store.

The booth rent goes to help kids, while at the same time “you really get to expose your business to a wider audience,” she said. Crist’s husband buys beaten up furniture then reimagines it into something useful and unique — think suitcase turned to coffee tables and birdhouses made of license plates.

Another booth selling knitted scarves in a rainbow of funky colors caught Ashley Sharp’s eye.

Sharp came back for the craft fair Sunday, after taking her kids to see Santa at the mall the day before. “I just really wanted to check out all the stuff,” she said. Those scarves, for example.

She walked away with three — “not for Christmas gifts, though,” she said. “These are for me.”

But as to whether she’d be buying gifts for anyone else ... “we’ll see,” she said.

Find Baylee Pulliam on Facebook and @BayleeNPulliam on Twitter, or call 648-4250.

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