Skilled artisans to showcase their creations in Crafters Cove

The Madison Street Festival will be held this Saturday, Oct. 5, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. in downtown Madison. For more information, check out www.madisonstreetfestival.org.

MADISON – A welcoming wreath for your front door. Irresistible crocheted ‘plushies.’ A shiny bauble for yourself. Handy, attractive additions for your kitchen. Maybe the frightful-but-friendly Halloween decorations.

Whatever type of arts-andcrafts merchandise that you want to find, Crafters Cove at Madison Street Festival or MSF will complement your home or delight you or a son, daughter or grandchild.

BROWN SUGAR BAKING

Learning the art from her grandmothers, Nickie Davis is perpetuating their legacy with her tempting, make-your-mouthwater bakery creations. She owns Brown Sugar Baking.

Davis will sell bakery creations at Madison Street Festival on Oct. 5 in Crafters Cove (corner of Maple and Church streets across from Madison Methodist Church).

Her Cottage Food License grants permission to bake items from her home. “The process isn’t difficult, but it can be a bit tedious,” Davis said. “February 2025 will mark Brown Sugar Baking’s third anniversary.”

However, deciding on a name was a challenge to show she is a baker and a black-owned business. “I love the subtle double entendre, and my clients find it clever and amusing,” Davis said.

Her great-grandmother, Emma, sold cakes locally in Georgia. Davis remembers visiting when Emma was about 80 “and she’d be in her kitchen baking away. I was a faithful taste tester.”

Davis’ Grandma Josephine taught her to bake . . . cakes, cupcakes and brownies for school bake sales, birthdays and ‘just because.’ Ironically, Davis never thought about baking for a career until six months before she founded Brown Sugar Baking.

With her Cottage Food License, she bakes cookies, cakes, cinnamon rolls, pies and muffins. She’s learning about custom cakes. “Everything is scratch-made. My portion sizes are much bigger than the ‘standard.’ Most bakers tend to find a niche with only a couple of items, but I love having the variety,” Davis said. That variety prevents monotony for Davis and gives flexibility for even more flavor combinations. Her clients love that she usually has a new product or flavor. She bakes a different menu for every market/pop-up event.

For Madison Street Festival, Davis will offer giant cookies, cake slices, cinnamon rolls, muffins and brownies/blondies. “I’m challenging myself this year; I’ve sold out for the past years,” she said.

Her customer favorites are Banana Pudding Cookies, Banana Pudding Cake, German Chocolate Cake and Peach Cobbler Cinnamon Rolls with homemade peach-cobbler filling on top. Davis’ new favorite, Turtle Blondies, is a chewy, buttery blondie, drizzled with white chocolate, caramel and toasted pecans.

Davis’ favorite treat currently is a tie between cookies and cinnamon rolls, which allow for crazy flavor combos. Cinnamon rolls are the most difficult to bake, Davis said, and the most time-consuming because she hand-rolls each batch.

Her major challenge is operating as a home baker — not a brick-and-mortar shop. “I have two young boys and love being a stay-at-home mom, BUT . . . it throws a kink in any plans/schedules business-wise. This year has been especially difficult because my eldest, Judah (who has autism) has therapy four days a week,” Davis said about juggling a baking schedule.

“It’s not uncommon for me to arrive at a big event with only two to three hours of sleep. That’s the cost of being a (primarily) one-woman show. I’m the baker, marketer, graphic designer, content creator, social media manager, accountant, planner and more.” Luckily, friends sometime help with packaging.

Davis offers bundt and layer cakes without decorations. Her best-sellers are pound cake variations, red velvet and German chocolate. Her most unusual order– ironically from a personal trainer – was red velvet cinnamon roll with crushed Oreos and creamsicle icing.

Surprisingly, she’s not a ‘big sweets person.’ “Unless it’s German Chocolate Cake. I always steal a slice,” Davis said.

Her husband Ezra works as an installer for Geek Squad. Their sons, four-year-old Judah and three-year-old Kieran “keep us on our toes but are truly the sweetest kids.” Salem, their sassy Great Dane mix, is 18 months old.

CHEERY LOOPS CROCHET

Give it a try. Look at Michelle Hazlewood’s designs for Cheery Loops Crochet at Madison Street Festival and resist a smile. It’s next to impossible.

Hazlewood first sold her outstanding crochet designs as a vendor in 2023 at Madison Street Festival’s Crafters Cove. This year, her merchandise will include plushies, or small, cuddly stuffed animals made with the softest yarn and stuffing; key chains; car mirror charms and irresistible figures, like a nativity scene. For animals, she created pot-bellied dinosaurs, pigs, bears, cows, bunny rabbits and huggable elephants.

In July 2020, Hazlewood started to crochet to have a worthwhile hobby during the down times with COVID-19’s outbreak. “I learned how to crochet by watching YouTube videos of crochet tutorials. To improve on my work at the beginning, I sometimes got help from Facebook crochet groups,” she said.

“I had to use the correct hook for whatever yarn I was working with and have the right tension for stitches to come out consistent and neat,” Hazlewood said. “I just practiced until I was able to make plushies good enough to sell.”

Her work’s focus is “pretty much only crochet plushies. The majority are animals. I enjoy making plushies because they are not repetitive, like making a blanket or scarf,” Hazlewood said.

Her most challenging design for crocheting is a floppy-eared bunny rabbit and a nativity set with Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus in Mary’s arms.

She enjoys her crocheting hobby- turned-enterprise, because she “gets a sense of satisfaction when yarn gets transformed into a beautiful plushie. It’s also relaxing for me,” Hazlewood said.

She has not joined a crochet group. “I prefer to crochet alone. I can watch TV shows at the same time.”

“Before I started crocheting, I never paid attention to anything related to crochet. But in recent years, I have noticed crochet plushies becoming very popular and many people are doing it,” Hazlewood said.

In Craters Cove, festival visitors will find 60 booths with crafts creators. The inventory of merchandise covers most shopping lists, with jewelry, home decor, accent pieces, kitchenware, blacksmith- forged heirlooms and crocheted items:

• ACSquared Jewelry

• Aloha LeRouge

• Army Sisters Handmade Jewelry

• Athens-Limestone Rescue Squad

• Bags, Bows and Doll Clothes

• Blackthorn Trading Co

• Blind Dog Biscuit

• Brown Eyed Girl

• Brown Sugar Baking

• Busy Beadz

• Carpenter Carpentry

• Charismata Boutique

• Charm Cityyy

• Cheery Loops Crochet

• Craft & You Will Find

• Creatin Sumthin

• Critters and Things

• Cryptid Crochet

• Glitterific Creations by Jenny

• Handmade Kreations by Karan

• Heisey Designs

• I Sew Mean

• It’s Art, My Dear Watson

• J & C Local Farms

• Joyful Gem Designs

• Kim’s Home Decor

• Kreations by Sandy

• Lady Mae Candle Company

• LD Creations

• Let’s Get Personalized

• Lionheart Forge

• Living my Dash Art

• Luna Bella

• Mando Market Shop

• MarkedClay Jewelry

• Mojana

• My Crafty Hook

• Nomad Hot Dogs

• PlumCotton Apparel

• Pookies Crafty Things

• Pyro Pop Up

• RileyBDesigns

• Sew Original by Carol

• ShopMOSS

• Studio 11 Home and Body

• Superior Wood Art

• Sweet Peas Cottage

• Tammy’s Twighlight and Trinkets and Things

• Tanyard Creek Creations

• Tara’s Crafty Creations

• The 29:11 Story Ministry

• The Craftie Niffie

• The Elysian Creations

• The Milan Nicole Collection

• The White Willow

• Twigles Designs Co

• Twisted Beads

• Wash Ashore Soaps

• Wearable Art

• Wool Haus