Christmas shopping season is here, and some new faces have arrived at the Enderby Farmers’ Market just in time.
Meghan Alton and Brett Andrews moved from Ontario to the Grindrod area little over a month ago and already they’ve each launched their separate product lines — Creative Nutmeg and Big Bear Woodshack.
The couple’s product lines are a decidedly unique mix: Alton handcrafts beeswax candle holiday decorations, while Andrews specializes in hand-carved wooden utensils. The one similarity between the two is that their products use locally-sourced materials made with as little waste as possible.
“I think that’s what we try to promote, as well as not using a lot of chemicals and plastics and things like that for environmental purposes,” said Andrews.
Last Friday was the couple’s first market at the Splatsin Centre, and their first impression had them looking forward to the many markets to come.
“We were looking forward to it all week long,” Andrews said. “It’s a local market but it was fun and there were a lot of great people.”
Alton’s Creative Nutmeg re-purposes and reuses old materials to make environmentally friendly candles and decorations.
“I’m using beeswax from this area, and the decorations I’ve made have no glue in them,” she said. “We’re trying to be as non-toxic and as organic as possible in everything that we do.”
Instead of an adhesive, Alton uses wire wrapping to hold her decorations together.
“If it doesn’t wire up, I don’t want to use it.”
The Enderby Farmers’ Market runs Fridays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Splatsin Centre, but there are only two Friday markets left in the 2019 season.
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