Jennicakes' Interview with Jessica of Future Momo

Jennicakes' Interview with Jessica of Future Momo and the San Francisco Craft Mafia!

Here in Sampler Town, we're really excited to be heading to The San Francisco Craft Mafia's Mafia Made Winter Trunk Show to do some selling and shopping! Mafia Made will host over 40 vendors this year, including organizers/famiglia members Barbe Saint John, Leslie of Feisty Elle, Craft Gym, and Wendy of my windup bird!

Joining them in both the SFCM and Trunk Show organization is Jessica Neaves of Future Momo! And because she's been a Sampler Contributor, we decided to ask her a few questions about her work, and about the upcoming event!

Hi Jessica! I'm sure you're going crazy getting ready for Mafia Made! How much preparation goes into putting on a trunk show?

It is way more involved than I ever thought! We really wanted to put together a great show, complete with goodie bags and raffle items, so that has taken us quite a lot of time. There are just so many details that I never thought of in the beginning, like fire permits, event insurance, and securing people to teach workshops and demos. We started work on the show back in June, so it's been a long process.

There are lots of holiday craft shows in the Bay Area. How does the SFCM plan to put its own stamp on Mafia Made?

We're really trying hard to put the focus on the vendors instead of just the SFCM members as the event producers. Last year, we had less than 20 vendors, so the spotlight was on both the SFCM members as well as the other vendors. This year, with 44 vendors, SFCM members are the supporting cast to a great group of local talent. We're also dedicated to creating a diverse mix of vendors, since we didn't want the show to be overwhelmed by certain products. We wanted a distinctive collection of products that would appeal to the wide variety of Bay Area demographic groups.

With so much planning and organization going on, how do you find time for Future Momo?

It took me a long time to finally be able to actually make new things for the show. I was feeling pretty burnt out creatively with all the work I had been putting into the show the past few months, but I made myself take some time off and make jewelry. Once I started playing around with all the pretty, sparkly gemstones, it wasn't too difficult to find inspiration once again and make some new necklaces!

I love the story of your business name - can you share it with the Sampler fans?

With a name like Future Momo, I get asked this question a lot! Momo, which means peach in Japanese, is the name of my cat. The "future" part comes from a line in a song by my ex's band, which says "Every future moment, we may take them as they come..." He would change the "moment" part to "momo" when singing to me, and the rest is history. I guess it's a bit corny, but it's sentimental and cute to me.

If you have any time to shop on Sunday, what will you look to pick up for the holidays?

I definitely plan on making time to shop! There's so many amazing vendors, but I'm especially looking forward to NifNaks's felted creatures, 3P-3's lovely dishtowels, Planet Tokki's plushies, Mediums to Masses glassware and you and The Sampler, of course!

Other than selling at craft shows, do you have a favorite holiday tradition?

I love Christmas because I get to spend so much time with friends and family. Two top Christmas faves are decorating my tree with friends and going to a yummy Christmas buffet dinner with my parents.