GIFT GUIDE 2012
By LIZ PELLY | December 4, 2012
One of our favorite holiday-season craft fairs is the Boston Bazaar Bizarre, an annual tradition within the DIY crafting community. Now in its eleventh year, the one-day pop-up market is a great place to pick up handmade scarves, candles, artwork, and trinkets directly from independent artists and crafters. Expect to find everything from knits, jewelry, ceramics, and stationery to quirky knitted monsters and custom-printed posters. The Bazaar Bizarre makes a point of avoiding corporate sponsorship and is a totally community-oriented and non-profit event, showcasing dozens of vendors from Boston and beyond. Here are a few highlights.
UNION PRESS:: unionpressprints.com :: Union Press carries on the tradition of letterpress right in Somerville, making posters, art prints, business cards, stationery, and more. Stop by their table to order a custom-printed poster or chat about any of your letterpress needs.
Related:
Photos: Cambridge Carnival International | September 12, 2010, Photos: Gabbie's Goodies in Hanover, MA, The Peabody Essex explores Native America, More 
- Photos: Cambridge Carnival International | September 12, 2010
Crowds enjoy multicultural crafts and music at the 18th annual Cambridge Carnival International at Kendall Square on September 12, 2010.
- Photos: Gabbie's Goodies in Hanover, MA
Gabbie's Goodies in Hanover, MA is bringing back the bon bon.
- The Peabody Essex explores Native America
The Cree artist plays his drag show for laughs, but underlying it are serious questions about white genocide of Native American societies, about the stereotyping of Natives, and about gays in America, as well as Native American society.
- The Gardner gets crafty
Art museums are designed to celebrate the end results of the creative process. But one of Boston's most highbrow institutions, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, has developed new programming to foster that process on-site.
- Bipolar Babies: Leonard Cohen and Rod Stewart in misery and delight
"Every night and every morn," wrote William Blake one afternoon in 1803, "some to misery are born."
- Boxed and Ready: CD Box Sets
Hey, the Rolling Stones’ 50th anniversary isn’t the only ancient history to get hopped up about this year — here are some other treasures from the vaults.
- Musical literary stocking stuffers
The choices for books by and about rock stars are almost endless this season. Here are a few.
- Hip-Hop: Get On Down
The record industry has always treated hip-hop as a disposable commodity, so that even iconic work has gone without the slick packaging of archival rock and pop projects.
- Apocalypse, Now: Gifts for doomsayers
You still haven't started your holiday shopping? Don't bother.
- Boxes for the Box: DVD sets for the holidays
Call us homebodies, call us lazy, but the plain fact is that most nights we're more than happy to stay at home on the couch in ratty sweats, cozied up to a box of wine.
- Guiltless giving
Re-gifting is a practice that's only acceptable in certain circumstances — namely the annual office-party Secret Santa ordeal.
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Lifestyle Features
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