Brooklyn Flea

Thanks to all the vendors and visitors who came out today. It's great when it all comes together!

Beginning this Sunday Fleasters will have yet another reason to visit the yard every week: our new weekly Scavenger Hunt.

Every Friday, we'll post photos of 3 items donated by our generous (and wonderful) vendors here on the blog, and will also have photos of the items at the entrance to the Flea. If you're lucky enough to find one of the items among the treasures inside the market, it's yours absolutely free!

Then we'll snap your photo with the winning item and its friendly vendor and post it here on the blog that Monday or Tuesday. You can only win/find one item per week, and the Hunt starts when the Flea opens at 10am.

So without further ado, here are this week's Scavenger Hunt at Ze Flea items. Happy hunting!

From left:

1. Awesome winking owl cookie jar--vintage

2. Pretty porcelain bowl by a ceramicist from upstate New York--new.

3. Collectible Picture Disc vinyl edition of Blondie's 1978 classic Parallel Lines, featuring such smash hits as "Heart of Glass"--vintage/unopened.

It's gonna be a banner Flea this Sunday: great new vendors, gorgeous weather (jinx!), the launch of "The Stoop," and the capper: tasty new treats.

We were waiting for our pal Tessa from Chida (Mexican kid slang for "cool") to perfect her amazing Mexican-style ices before going public with her Fleadom, and that time is now! With insanely awesome and unique flavors like goat's milk dulce de leche (cajeta), wild strawberry, and hibiscus with chili peppers, Chida is based on Mexican street and market vendors who twirl ice or milk in spinning metal canisters inside large wooden barrels (right) surrounded by a mixture of ice and rock salt until they form "nieves" (snow) of light airy frozen goodness. Rather than explain it away, just go try one and it'll all make sense. Andale! (She'll be in W1 near the lavender folks.)

In a similar vein (of ice?), the upstart People's Popsicle guys will make their Flea debut Sunday, serving up frozen pops made with fresh, organic fruits and herbs from NYC Green Markets. Strawberries and cream, rhubarb, blueberry, and yogurt and honey (yum!) are some of the sweets to slurp. Say hi to Joel and David in E4.

As the Wafels folks take a summer hiatus, we'll be rotating in some new hot-food vendors in coming weeks. PaPa Lima, the Williamsburg sandwich shop (Bedford + S. 4 St.) that nymag.com succinctly says "bridges the gap between the once great but now rare old-school Italian hero style and the more modern raised-pinkie panini parlor." They'll also be rocking a Mexican fruit salad with spicy spices, mini ice-cream sandwiches (banana ice cream betwixt peanut butter cookies hello!), and fresh basil lemonade. Good peeps, and owner Pete is a Red Sox fan to boot. F5, near Blue Marble.

To top it all off, the fine folks from The Brooklyn Kitchen will be back with their sizzling array of vintage kitchen cookware, tools, and gadgets, like the enamel number at right. They have good stuff, check 'em out. L14, to the left of the Lafayette entrance.

Before we launched, Senor Flea made the rounds of top Brooklyn handmadens like Lotta Jansdotter, Lena Corwin, and Alyssa Ettinger, begging them to join the nascent Flea. They obliged--thanks gals!--but we remained sad that Red Hook's Perch! couldn't also join us.

Boomerang!

We're psyched to have Amy and Perch! in the mix this Sunday, as her design pieces for the garden, tabletop, fridge, and wall strike such a pleasing balance between warm/soft, tactile, modern, functional, and, well, cute. Check out the cool canister and planters at right for a couple of examples.

Amy will be over in B1 on Sunday with lots of stuff to peruse and ogle. Enjoy!

Because of the holiday, we were remiss in welcoming new Boerum Hill shop Fact & Fancy to the Flea last week. Danielle and Christine cut through the crafty clutter with a super-sharp eye for clean lines, inventive imagery, and unique useful stuff. Their spanking new shop is at 75B Hoyt St. between Atlantic and State. Great for gifts! We hope they'll be back soon.

Lest we lose sight of the big picture, ze Flea is first and foremost a destination for vintage and antiques goods/stuff/items of all kinds: fancy and cheap, rejuvenated and raw, primitive and modern. We're building a good crowd of collectors to be sure, and the more folks who appreciate objects, collectibles, furniture, farm instruments, pottery, porcelain, housewares, horsies--you get the idea--the merrier. (We're just trying to live up to our new slogan: "An Acre of Treasures, Tchotchkes, Chocolate, and Cheer!" Whaddyathink?)

Summer has brought a refreshing turnover in vendors, so we figured it would be a good time to play a little catch-up.

Don and Chuck of Red Barn Antiques (right) hold it down in W31 every Sunday, bringing a fresh trove of painted fireplace inserts, lamps, wicker, knick-knacks--the full gamut of classic fleadom. They're sweeties to boot.

Brian of Metro Orange Art plies his trade in artwork of all kinds, with a Flea specialty in old Brooklyn pics like the Fort Green [sic] fishmonger photo below at right. He'll be in W3 this week.

After a too-long hiatus, our pal Adam Forgash--he of the venerable vintage-camera and -photo collection--returns to his spot by the handball wall (B15) to work his magic (and pleasant sarcasm) this Sunday.

Cuties Nam and Amy from Deco Haus are back after a brief respite as well, with their really cool and totally affordable collection of well-restored dining sets, lamps, vanities, and the like. Clermont fence, in the double-booth that looks like the coolest apartment you've ever seen.

Just down the fence from Deco Haus you'll find Frank and Diego from Grandma's Attic, who specialize in mid-century furniture of all kinds that's tied together by its blasts of color, affordability, and Frank and Diego's eye for offbeat larger pieces. Nothin' like 'em in the market.

We are grateful to tall guy Bayo for bringing in a rotating crop of antiques vendors from across the region every Sunday: books, art, planters, lots of green things--you never what to expect in what we're now calling "Bayo's Corner." B21 and B24, by the Vanderbilt-side handball wall.

Doug Anson is a friendly rocker-type whose dazzling array of pins, medals, flags, pennants and ephemera of all kinds always warrants the once-over. Think '70s Stones concert tours, war memorabilia, owl clocks, that kinda stuff. W12 on the midway, weekly.

For the sake of space, here are some other folks to seek out:

Pals Sam Hotchner and John Bal (aka "eBuy/Sell") have side-by-side double-booths in W4 and W5 this week, check 'em out and be ready to dig.

A fellow known to us only as "Long Island Eddie" is back with 2 spots this week, and we feel good about his stuff.

Michael of Accentiques, the longtime shop on Flatbush Ave. in the Slope, has been parlaying his old stock into a well-curated booth most Sundays for awhile now. Look for Michael in his shades and straw hat around W28/29.

Sweet Phyllis from Reclaimed Home has been a reliable Flea fixture since Day One in C4, and she's paring down to a monthly schedule for summer. She always has the coolest mix of stuff: painted baby bed frames, cinema seats, mantels, what have you. She's a hoot to chat with too.

Friendly Sydney of Baxter's Bazaar holds it down in W24 with a classic eclectic mix, and we like his eye a lot.

Local guy Tadd pulls together clothes, clocks, canisters, cookie boxes, basically all manner of collectibles--even if they don't start with "C." Check the map for his location on Sunday.

Nothing New (cool name!) is Valerie's mix of furniture, porcelain, glasswork, and art, and she's one of a few vendors that have made their way to the Flea via the Summit Antiques Center in Summit, NJ. She's in V12, go say hi.

That NYC summer stink getting stuck in your shnozz? Fear not, for ze Flea has a cure in store.

The folks from Lavender by the Bay, located on 17 acres out on the North Fork, make their Flea debut this Sunday, where they'll be purveying sweet-smelling fresh lavender, along with their crop of lavender lovelies: honey, essential oils, soaps, and dried-lavender sachets. Drop by, say hi to these flower farmers, and go au natural. They'll be in W1 by the long-jump sand pit.

Make sure to visit some of our regular vendors who make scents:

MJ's Herbals, who make heavenly salves for bruises, burns, baby care, or just plain relaxin'. They're super-sweet, and will be in the E's this Sunday.

Lovely Laura Headley lives in the nabe and--like MJ's--has been with the Flea since Day One, spreading out her pretty soaps, oils, and shea butters with a friendly smile. Over in the E's most Sundays, including this weekend.

And Megan and Eddie Enriquez from Australian Scent just moved to the BK from Australia to take their organic soaps, scrubs, and other all-natural stuffs (bug spray!) to the next level. The Flea is their weekly base, and we dig how ingredients like oats act as a natural exfoliant in their fragrant soaps, serving as form and function. They're generally around W44 or so.

Stroll the bucolic streets of Fort Greene-Clinton Hill on a Sunday and you'll find that a cottage (brownstone?) industry of mini-Fleasters has popped up around the hood. Vanderbilt Ave. between Lafayette and Dekalb has a bunch of stoop sales, including the folks who've been setting up at the corner of Vanderbilt and Lafayette since long before the Flea was even in its pupa stage. And for five Sundays starting July 27, our pals at the Myrtle Ave. Revitalization Project will be doing an Afro-Punk outdoor market on the Myrtle service road over by the Pratt store. It's pretty awesome--no Atlantic Yards to be sure.

The Flea is already pretty loaded with locals--at least 60% of our vendors are Brooklynites--but we want to make it even easier for anyone to join the fun. So if you live in Brooklyn and want to hold your stoop sale at the Flea some Sunday, we'll be holding a few spots open each week for anyone who wants to clean out their closet/attic/storage space and enjoy the market's good vibes for a day. You'll get a big local's discount on the fee for a 10x10 space ($20 cheap!), in exchange for inviting all your friends and family to come to the Flea that day. (You can't use the discount again until at least 3 months later.)

This arrangement has worked well with several local schools that have held one-time rummage-sale fundraisers at the Flea--the new Greene Hill School has one July 13--so we figured we'd open it up to more folks.

If you're interested, email us with the subject line "The Stoop" and include the Sunday date you'd like to hold your sale. Spread the word!

So the Flea will be in full swing this Sunday in case you're wondering, and really what's more independent and American than a gaggle of free spirits selling the things they love?

All of America, it turns out, now knows about the Flea, thanks to a snazzy full-page profile in this month's issue of House Beautiful, which picks our little weekly pow-wow as its favorite "store." Nice pics of vendor faves like War Rug, Rand Furniture + Design, Ginfor's Odditiques, and Brown Bag Industries adorn a Q+A with Senor Flea (which bears some semblance of a resemblance to the actual interview).

There was a also nice blurb on the Flea in the Sunday Guardian, which will hopefully translate into a few pounds sterling for our vendors.

And our fab jewelry designer Gabriela De La Vega will not only have her gorgeous work featured on an upcoming episode of Gossip Girl, but Kyra Sedgwick--a recent visitor to the Flea by the way--picked Gabriela's necklaces as one of her "guilty pleasures" in this month's InStyle.

Now if only someone knew someone who knows Oprah....