Renegade seller

One of the most fun, random jobs I've had so far was as assistant seller (read: barker) for one of the artists at the Renegade Craft Fair here in Chicago.

I found the job on Craigslist, my trusted source for odd, weekend gigs.

The deal was pretty simple: I get paid $10/hour to help this awesome artist, Tyler Bender, sell handmade journals. The journals are made from old library books, most of which come from the discarded-book-pile of the Los Angeles County Library system.

Priced between $30-$50, the journals may seem a little pricey at first, but when you see how meticulously done each piece is, you'll realize they're worth much more than the cover price.

To say that the process is tedious would be an understatement: Tyler hand-cuts the pages, drills the binding holes and sews the pages in place using fishing line.

Even the non-journaling types were really impressed with how polished the journals looked.

The books sold themselves...although, I'm pretty sure our spiel: "CHECK OUT THESE HANDMADE JOURNALS MADE FROM VINTAGE LIBRARY BOOKS," helped a lot.

Ah, the library-books spiel...I was seriously barking those lines in my sleep! Who can blame me?!? I spent a good 11 hours screaming the words "recycled," "vintage," "journals" in a tourette-like fashion.

I was definitely exhausted by the time we closed shop! BUT, it was worth it! Tyler and his books were awesome!

I just wish I had a chance to check out the rest of the fair.