Marketplace Preview: Handmade Housewares

Grab your reusable shopping bags and floppy sun hats, it's almost time for the 5th Annual Boston Handmade Marketplace in Union Square, Somerville! The event is coming up on Saturday, June 30th (rain date Sunday July 1st) from 3-7pm.

Thinking of sprucing up your home with new decor? Check out these handmade housewares designed and created by local Boston area artists...

Got wood? We do! For the first time at the Boston Handmade Marketplace we have wood represented by sculptor and wood turner Ken Lindgren of Walk Softly Wood Art. No live trees are used to create his work; all Lindgren's vessels and sculptures are carved from fallen and found limbs. A sculptor and a gentleman.

Returning favorite Tanner Glass will be exhibiting this year with her sparkling glass magnets, paperweights, key and jewelry hooks, bud vases, bottle stoppers and other objects to beautify your space. Don't stop at one bud vase - - collect them all!

As their motto says, "Your neighbors don't have this." Toiluxe touches your fanny and tickles your funny bone with their wild, retro, outrageous, and always original toilet seats. Toiluxe "could possibly be the best thing to hit your bathroom since two-ply toilet paper."

City by the Sea Ceramics is a fixture at craft shows all over New England and we are delighted to have her functional and decorative works at the Marketplace again this year. Of her work, potter Karen Mahoney says, "I want my work to be picked up and admired between uses, for someone to put it right in their face to see the beautiful and subtle variations in the glaze, to run their hand around it because it feels comfortable, and to always grab for their favorite piece when choosing from the cabinet." Marketplace favorite: Mahoney's Raku and sawdust pots.

Hankering for housewares? Be there on June 30th in Union Square, Somerville.