The One of a Kind Show, the twice-yearly event featuring unique, hand-made items from various vendors across the country and continent is once again at the Direct Energy Centre. As with previous shows, this is a great place to find stocking stuffers for your friends and family. As usual, vendors this year will be selling kid-friendly items, cosmetics, clothing, jewellery as well as food and art, with many well-known and returning favourites, including Froosh, which we have profiled in the past and well-known Canadian designer, Melissa Nepton. Most of our favourites this year fall either into the food or beauty category, including:
Forbes Wild Foods (booth H-49): Delicious spreads (including jams, jellies and mushrooms. They will have samples for you and I urge you to try the birch syrup, which is great as a marinade for savoury meat dishes. The rose syrup is also delicious, so give that one a try too.
Les Caprices D’Angeline (H-53): More food, this time from Quebec. Definitely dry their chocolate and caramel spread mixture (also comes separately) as well as their orange honey. I bought both! Les Caprices D’Angeline is also selling various types of gourmet gift sets with spreads as well as salad dressings and honeys.
Lesley-Anne Green (P-33): Lesley-Anne has an absolutely adorable collection of plush critter figures including pigs, foxes, bunnies and elephants. Great for decoration, but not really something for very young children.
Hilary Cosgrove (T-31): Hilary’s collection of woodland critter cushions and figurines are absolutely adorable with a menagerie of foxes, owls and squirrels among others. Owls are available in two different sizes.
Dave Murray Illustration (R-21): Dave known for his Toronto neighbourhood typemaps – maps of the city created with words that describe the area. For example, Queen West/Parkdale would have words like “CAMH”, “gallery” and “Drake” (as in the hotel, not the musician) while Leslieville includes “film studio”, “lofts” and “antiques”.
DaLish Cosmetics (U-53): A favourite of DelectablyChic!, featuring beauty products and skincare made with natural ingredients. DaLish is very well-known for their lip/cheek balms as well as their full make-up kits which contain their foundation trio, lipglosses, eye shadows, highlighter, eyeliner and mascara. DaLish also has a line of skincare products (above) including eye creams, scrubs and baby products.
Urban Venus (X-30): Another skincare line with products that include lotions, hand soaps as well as body butters on a stick and gigantic bath bombs. Their products have interesting scents, including delicious and holiday-themed gingerbread, pumpkin pie and cranberry. If you are interested in a slightly gentler smell, green tea is highly recommended.
The One of a Kind Show runs until December 2. Note that some artisans are only going to be at the event on select days. Please check the website for details.
