This weekend is the 41st Annual Montrose Arts and Crafts Festival held along Honolulu Avenue in the Montrose Shopping Park. 

By Mary O’KEEFE

This year the annual Arts and Crafts Festival along Honolulu Avenue will host more than 270 artists, crafters, food vendors, California Certified farmers, musicians and entertainers. Vendors are not only local; some travel from throughout the state and other states, like Arizona and Nevada to offer their wares. 

One of those vendors who has been at the event for many years will return again, despite having to adjust to lost inventory and items due to the Eaton Fire. 

René Amy’s business is Altadena Maid Products. This year he has had to become even more creative with the items he sells. Shoppers will find his traditional native wildflower seeds – just not as many as in the past. He will also have some unique artistic items on hand that were formed by the fire. 

He discovered the fire had taken some of his belongings but he turned them into creative pieces of art. He also has created “challenge” coins for the fire. Right now he offers three types of coins but is expecting there will be many more challenges in the future for those struggling through the aftermath of the Eaton Fire. 

Challenge coins are often shared within military personnel but Amy has taken on the description of the coin’s “challenge” as a way to remind people of the continuing struggle for those who were affected by the January fires. 

“I am not related to the military in any way,” he said. “[But] more than anything I don’t want people to forget. This [fire] isn’t the ‘disaster of the month’; it changed a lot of lives in ways I could never imagine.” 

Amy is also a strong proponent of the Altadena Not for Sale rallying cry that many residents are bringing to the forefront in their efforts to keep Altadena away from corporate property raiders. He added there seems to be a new issue every day that those affected by the fire are coping with including the recent information that many of the properties, including his own, have extremely high levels of lead in the soil. 

However, despite the fire he continues his mission of educating as many as he can about native plants and their importance. So he will have seeds at his Arts and Crafts booth.

“I will have some seeds this year … Things are getter better,” he said. “I am coming back – maybe not roaring but not with a whimper either.”

Amy’s business is called Altadena Maid Products. He invites all to stop by his booth while shopping at the Arts and Crafts Festival this weekend. 

Michael and Kristina Lipchitz’s Sophisticated Soap & Body Butter has been at the Arts and Crafts Festival for 23 years. It offers “homemade, ultra-moisturizing glycerin ArtSoap.” The couple also sells beautiful art glass dishes, pure shea butter,  soap slabs and “grateful bar soap” and No Mosquitoes Body Butter (NoMo), which was developed five years ago.

“A customer asked us to blend two of our body butters for her – lemoncello and peppermint. Kristina loved the fragrance of the unique, proprietary blend and began using it as her daily moisturizer,” Michael said. 

Kristina went hiking and was swarmed by mosquitoes but when she returned home she was surprised to find she didn’t have one single bite. 

“No Mosquitoes Body Butter was born, and Kristina has been bite-free ever since,” he said. 

Kristina was actually the one who discovered a formula for a homemade glycerin soap that healed her adult onset acne. Then in 2002 they bought a booth space one weekend at an art festival in Laguna Beach and the demand was very positive, thus launching their company. 

When asked what he liked about the Montrose Arts and Crafts Festival he said, “Wonderful customers who are like family.”

He praised the organizers, including Dale Dawson, event coordinator, and the charm of Montrose. 

These are just two examples of the hundreds of talented and unique companies that will be at the Arts and Crafts Festival. 

The festival is on Saturday, June 7 from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and on Sunday, June 8 from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m. The Montrose Arts and Crafts Festival can be found in the 2200, 2300 and 2400 blocks of Honolulu Avenue; the Montrose Harvest Market (Sunday only) is located on Oceanview Boulevard.