Glam Slam: Homemade Style

I love my go-to big brands as much as the next person, but I also love to buy homemade things from little mom and pop businesses whenever I can. I’m a HUGE Etsy fan. Obsessed! I could spend hours on there.

So, I was excited when I stumbled onto a cute children’s clothing booth at a Farmer’s Market in Charleston, SC, when I was visiting family there last week. (Sorry, my photo does not do the booth or the clothes justice!) Urbane Baby is the name of the line, which includes homemade dresses, onesies, tutus, bibs, hair ties, head bands and those popular fabric pennant banners you can hang in your kids’ rooms.

We met Liz Reeder, a Midwesterner who moved to Charleston a few years ago and started Urbane Baby back in 2008. An avid collector of vintage patterns, she loves to sew and be creative and it shows in her designs.

I ended up buying three super-cute, vintage-looking print dresses that are perfect for summer. One bicycle print was a bit more on the modern side, but the other two prints, red white and blue sailboats and pink whales, are quite Southern. I got two dresses for my 4 year old and one for her baby sister, who is due in July.

Liz suggested I could also get matching dresses for the girls, a very Southern thing to do. Growing up, my sister and I had matching dresses. Even my mom and I had a matching dress or two back in the day, but I decided to go for different looks this time around.

The dresses were a very reasonable $25 dollars… or two or more for $20 each. Can’t beat that! Liz also does custom orders and I may have her make a cute pennant banner for the nursery.

I love that Charleston is really big on the “Buy Local” movement, which is awesome for small business people like Liz. Way to go, y’all!

For more info, check out shopurbane.com

— Ryan Patterson