POCATELLO — Area residents can do their part to help the local economy on Small Business Saturday by making some purchases at the Crafts and Drafts event held at Portneuf Valley Brewing, 615 S. First Ave.

Hosted by Lucas Bunzow, co-owner of Bunzow Glass Co., the eighth annual Crafts and Drafts event will be held from noon to 6 p.m. this Saturday with the goal of helping to support and celebrate Pocatello’s talented artisans and small businesses.

Bunzow said Crafts and Drafts is unique in that many of the items being sold are made by hand.

“We wanted to have an event where it was literally people using their hands to make creative, artistic products,” Bunzow said. “There are all sorts of different things that I would say that generally don’t get a lot of a spotlight because they’re overshadowed by a lot of the bigger box stores.”

Shoppers can grab a glass of wine, a refreshing beer or a soda at the event and spend the afternoon exploring the unique offerings being sold.

“We have people that do a lot of pottery and that pottery is definitely a little bit different than your normal pottery, where some of it has a little bit more of a macabre vibe,” Bunzow said. “We have a gal who’s coming that makes these handmade weighted blankets, where they use knit or material that’s about as wide as a quarter and hand weave these big, beautiful blankets that are incredibly soft.”

Bunzow continued, “We have some people that do a lot of glass melting, where they create (an image of the state of) Idaho out of glass pieces. There’s a gal who does stained glass antler chandeliers. She finds antler sheds and creates lights and all sorts of different home decor by using stained glass that weaves in between the actual antlers and they’re just some beautiful creative pieces. There’s a gal who uses old material to make some of the most comfortable and artistic mittens and she also does a lot of beautiful paintings.”

Also for sale at Crafts and Drafts will be custom woodworking items like artisan cutting boards along with an interjection of holiday centered gifts like ornaments and a custom Bigfoot adorned with a Santa hat.

Over 18 vendors and artists will be selling their goods at the event.

“The biggest thing for us is that, as small businesses, especially handmade small businesses, this is always a really hard time of year to try to fight for your business,” Bunzow said. “We don’t have the marketing budgets of Walmart and Amazon and places like that. At the same time, Walmart and Amazon don’t have the things that we offer. I think that a lot of times we get forgotten, because there’s just so much stuff put in people’s faces, whether it’s online, on social media, whether it’s on the television or watching football games. There are so many different product placements that we just can’t get into.”

Bunzow continued, “It’s really important to support these small local businesses to help keep the money in our community and help bolster our own local economy. Having an event like this is just huge for the local small crafters.”