The wooden chalet huts at Lock 3 Park in downtown Akron are open for business as the annual outdoor Holiday Market has begun.
Vendors hoping to tap the seasonal shopping spirit again include bakers, a candle maker, a ceramic artist and a jewelry maker.
New this year is a honey maker from Augsburg, Germany, as well as a quilter who creates quilted ornaments and other crafts.
German glassblower Mario Hausdorfer has returned for the ninth year. Along with his chalet full of glass ornaments, he’s operating a hut featuring traditional German wooden items, such as whimsical figures of smoking men emitting puffs of incense.
Back this year is a wooden, German-made ornament featuring a carved scene of downtown Akron, complete with a Goodyear blimp.
Hausdorfer is one of the market’s original vendors, selling a big selection of colorful glass ornaments at the outdoor shopping event since its days as a Chriskindl Market. That was when it featured vendors from Chemnitz, Germany, Akron’s sister city.
Akron, as part of budget-trimming moves, stopped hosting artisans and entertainers from Chemnitz in 2009. The city had paid for hotel stays and some meals.
Hausdorfer said he now returns on his own to see his “friendly customers. Really, many people come and say ‘Thank you for coming back.’ ”
He said times were lean in 2009 and 2010, but he’s never thought of not returning.
“My start was here in Akron.” His enterprise — which uses a facility in Akron to store items — has expanded over the years to offer items at winter markets and gift fairs in several other U.S. cities.
Hausdorfer also is an Akron Holiday Market ambassador. He met Sabine Korger of Augsburg, Germany, at another U.S. market, and now Korger has a booth at Lock 3.
She sells a variety of honey — including lavender honey and mulberry honey, as well as candy, body lotion and carved candles made with honey.
Among other vendors returning is Lit Wick Candle Co., which offers dozens of scents, traditional as well as offbeat (bacon, campfire and more).
Owner J.M. Tkalec began the business several years ago, converting his West Akron basement into a miniature candle factory. Last year, Tkalec expanded, opening the Lit Wick Gallery in space he leases at the Merchant Square shopping center in Fairlawn. The gift shop, on Ghent Road, across from Summit Mall, features Tkalec’s candles, as well as items made by others.
Tkalec, in his fourth year at Lock 3, said the annual event has been a big boost to his business: “I’d have never dreamt in four years I would have gone from selling out of my trunk to opening a gallery.”
Other returning vendors include Bob Williams, owner of Pushing Tin Studio, who makes pewter switchplates and angel ornaments, as well as what Williams calls “pewter-framed charms’’ — various images framed with metal.
Highland Baking Co.’s Beth Straubhaar, of Ravenna Township, is back at the market with an expanded selection of shortbread. HomeMade Delites’ Miriam Trice of Fairlawn has returned with more than a dozen cookie varieties. Both of these baking enterprises have sold goodies at warm-weather Lock 3 events.
The other returning vendor is Tindercraft, which offers ceramic arts pieces, including pots to owl ornaments.
New vendor Kre8ivLizard (pronounced “creative lizard”) sells the quilted ornaments and an eclectic assortment of other handmade items such as beaded jewelry and fleece pet blankets, including one for guinea pigs that features a pouch and a fabric tunnel. Kre8ivLizard’s owner and seamstress is Dawn Mihailovich of Ellet.
Hours for the market are 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sundays in December. For information on all Lock 3 events this month, visit http://www.lock3live.com.
Katie Byard can be reached at 330-996-3781 or kbyard@thebeaconjournal.com.