Meet Stacey Marshall from Crochet Haven Studio...
What inspires us... We want to be a force for good in our community by providing delicious treats that you can feel good about. We only use all natural ingredients and everything is allergen friendly, so everyone can join in the fun.
How we discovered our talent.. Desire for a better treat drives our innovation. I am a foodie with a background in fitness, wellness and herbal medicine so I love to create delicious treats that look amazing, taste even better and contain the best possible ingredients.
Our creative process... We have a lot of fun and play around in the kitchen. Some of our creations are perfect at the first go and some are revised many many times before we share them with our community.
Our five year goal.. We are mobile by choice, so we can meet the community where they are. We show up at festivals, backyard BBQs, weddings, birthdays and more. We plan to continue growing in the Cincinnati area and beyond.
The message behind our work.. We are on a mission to build, grow and support healthier communities- one treat at a time.
Meet Alaina Paszt from Hive and Comb...
Tell us a bit about yourself.. We are beekeepers in Northside in Cincinnati, Ohio right outside of Spring Grove Cemetery. It has such a wide range of tree and flower stock we have found our plastic and chemical free beekeeping approach to offer the best quality raw local honey to our customers.
My husband Steve Paszt and I (Alaina Paszt) have a combined history of 28 years of experience in the hives.
What inspires us.. Our team loves food to the next level, so adding infusions to our honey to bring it to life in all different ways just like the bees visit different flowers or trees based on what is available. We like to do the same by offering seasonal flavors that match what we have a taste for preparing or cooking at that time. From spices to citrus and more.
How we got into it.. Steve’s had always admired bees at his late Uncle Henry’s house when visiting. Uncle Henry was a beekeeper and to honor him after a sudden passing in his sleep from a massive heart attack at a fairly young age, Steve took on beekeeping. After marrying Alaina’s in 2012 she had the same inquisitive and curious mind wanted to get entangled in the hives.
How we discovered our talent.. It takes a while to feel one with the bees. But, after several years of experience it becomes a bit of second nature to learn how to tend to them through the seasons. We also try to nurture new beekeepers in the area. By cutting out all the fluff and selling just what you need to get started with our free beekeeping classes in the Spring (March).
Our creative process... It is a year long activity, from inspecting for pests, allowing for space for the bees to grow, processing the honey to prepping equipment for the next season in winter. It is not for the faint of heart. Losses are hard, work is laborious heavy and sometimes very hot in the weather we had this year.
Our five year goal.. We hope to continue our passion, keep growing our followers, delivering only the best quality honey to our community.
The message behind our work.. Don’t take short cuts and work hard to get where you want to go. Kindness is king.
Meet Alayna Ozdil...
I’m Jill and my business is J. Tresa Comfort! I am 25 and recently married! I make hand knitting blankets in various sizes and can do customized lettering, designs, and colors! I am located just over the river in Dayton, KY! I love to craft and knit and I also work for a wedding coordination team and do wedding florals! I am originally from just outside of Philadelphia, but moved to Cincinnati in 2019! Can’t wait to meet everyone!
I have been knitting for 3 years now, my grandmother and mother taught me! I have been selling my blankets now for 6 months!
This is my first Avant-Garde Art & Craft Shows! I am so excited to participate and be a part of such an amazing experience! I am most excited to see the other vendors work!
What inspires me to create? I find that when I knit I like to use my hands to knit the chunky yarn. With that said, I find it very satisfying to be able to produce items people love and use with just my hands and the yarn! It motivates me to create more as I see people happily using my blankets, seeing others happy makes me happy!
How I got into my craft.. My mother, she is the most creative, crafty woman I know. She was a pastry chef and now works in the medical field, but she taught me how to scrapbook, crochet, knit, needlepoint, sew, and so much more. So I think through doing all of this with my mom, I just found a love for it!
How I discovered my talent.. I am not one who has many things in life that ever felt like they came naturally to me, but when I started to craft and knit it felt like my hands already knew how to before even my brain did.
How I describe your creative process? My perfect creative process can rarely happen because life gets crazy, but I love to knit completely alone with mellow music and will stay seated there knitting until the blanket is complete.
My five year goal... I can’t quite say where we will be in 5 years, but I can say I hope we are still hand knitting blankets for our community and providing a quality good that makes people happy!
The message behind my work.. We like to say ‘May your day be all the more cozy’, we just want people to feel the love that went into each and every J. Tresa Comfort blanket!
Meet Erica Vaught from Reignbow Bites Custom Cakery, LLC...
I am a one-woman-owned, multi-award-winning cake artist! I won the Great Cincinnati Bake-Off in 2023 & 2025! I'm also a 1st Place Blue Ribbon + Best in Show winner of the Ohio State Fair Decorated Cakes & Desserts Division 2025! I have had my small Cottage (home) Bakery based in Loveland, Ohio going on 11 years! What a journey it's been! My business was featured on Now in the NATI & featured in Voyage Ohio Magazine! How exciting! Click the Links below to watch & or read about your baker!
FOX19> https://www.
Magazine> https://voyageohio.
https://boldjourney.com/meet-
I have a rare genetic bone disease called Osteogenesis Imperfecta with a PHEX gene mutation x2, which results in X-Linked Hypophosphatemia! What a mouthful! This has led me to another chronic condition- CRPS Type 1 & 2! I am mildly disabled, but this doesn't stop me from creating beautiful desserts for all of you! This is my PASSION!
Everything I create is made to order & from scratch! I use only the highest quality ingredients while creating my own extracts! Every order is baked with fresh eggs from my own backyard, as well as fresh farm milk! Each order is very special, no matter how big or small. I create custom gourmet treats for weddings, birthdays, milestone events, & more. If you just have a sweet tooth, I have something for that, too! Stay connected with me to get all my updates, events, products, availability, & much more!
I have been baking my entire life thank to my Mamaw! I started my "business" 11 years ago coming up Feb 2026! I decided to go full time by 2018! This will be my first one! I am excited to opportunity to be a part of such a beautiful show!
What inspires me to create? The happiness it brings to other people! I provide for a lot of weddings b/c I specialize in buttercream flowers, and I get a lot of feedback from the families and the brides! The fact that I am a part of such a special day in someone's life and I contributed to that happiness is what its all about!
How I got into my craft/hobby... I actually started staying home to homeschool my oldest son who was in fourth grade at the time. I started watching a lot more TV and I started seeing these baking shows and I thought how cool would be to get my son a Lego Star Wars cake because he was really into that at the time! I sought out a custom baker. She was out in Harrison. And when I got the cake, it wasn't really what I expected and so I thought for my other son's birthday in August, I would give it a try! It was not easy! Not even close!! I have the pictures of my very first cakes lol and we all have to start somewhere. I was so intrigued by the entire process, that here I am 11 years later doing it as a full-time profession! I've never done anything for more than a year much less almost 11 lol This has become more than a job. It is my passion and I enjoy every single design that has left my home!
How I discovered my talent... I have always been crafty with other mediums like wood, paper, cardboard, anything with glue... really just any arts and crafts that I have always done, including knitting. I don't really see this as food. I see it as an art medium, and I think that is what helps me create!
How I describe my creative process.. I need significant advance notice for any complex, custom designs. I have to have time to plan think gather material or build. What I do cannot be ordered and done in one week two weeks or even a couple of weeks.
I am not much of a sketcher and I never really know what I'm going to do until everything is in front of me. I do get inspiration photos, but I do not copy. At this point, people just give me a theme and colors and tell me they trust my design process, and I just kinda do whatever... It's really nice that people have that trust in me 
Where I see myself in five years... Well, lol as long as my body holds out, I would like to be creating for large events and weddings! I would love to have just a little studio for my CAKES consultations and maybe a little rentable party area for classes! I would love to be able to have an internship program, and teach upcoming kids and bakers!
The message behind my work is summed up in the quote by Julia Child... "Find something you're passionate about and stay tremendously interested in it!"I think everybody should have the opportunity to have something special or unique created for them on their special day even if it's just one time! To create a core memory with the dessert is something special!
Website:
A few random facts:
- I work as an Instructional Designer for the University of Cincinnati.
- I previously lived in China for 10 years, where I taught English at a university in Changchun.
- My husband and I are currently converting a school bus into a tiny home - we are about to install bathroom fixtures and kitchen cabinets!
- I love to travel...we recently got back from an amazing trip to Iceland.
- We enjoy spending as much time outdoors as possible - hiking, biking, camping, gardening. (You'll find that most of my prints are nature-inspired.)
My inspiration to create comes mainly from wanting to remember a particular moment or place. It's a way to capture and extend my experience of that beauty, and hopefully share it with others.
I've enjoyed "doing art" for a while, but I got into printmaking specifically after seeing a few printmakers' work at an art fair in Ann Arbor. One of them spent some good time showing us how his woodblock printing process worked, reducing a block down to nothing, layer by layer, but building up the prints layer by layer at the same time. That process captured me and stuck in my head for a few years until I found myself with the time and opportunity to try it for myself.
I suppose I discovered my talent for art and drawing in elementary school art classes and through the encouragement of many teachers along the way. I would say my talent for printmaking is still developing print by print!
One thing I love about printmaking is that there's a lot of room for creativity, but there's also structure and limitations to respect. I'm constantly learning new techniques that expand the way I can use and blend colors or build layers, but I'm still confined to the number of layers I'm printing. Between carving each layer, there's a period of puzzling out exactly what part of the block to carve away. And even though I have an idea of what I'm trying to accomplish, there's always an element of surprise when pulling the first print of a new layer to see what it really looks like. I love both the calculated planning and the surprise reveal!
My five year goal.. I would love to be doing more shows and sharing my work through local businesses. However, I'm also careful to keep it as an enjoyable hobby without adding the stress or pressure to grow the business side.
The message behind my work.. I hope my work helps inspire people to slow down and enjoy the beauty around them!
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