Andy Klindt Woodcraft | #CDM2019 Vendor
Tell us about your business
Andy Klindt is an Iowa artisan who creates using wood and iron.
Andy uses native Iowa timbers for his wooden creations, utilizing anything from chainsaws to traditional hand tools. When blacksmithing, Andy uses time-honored methods to forge his metal art/pieces.
Fanciful , functional, or a fusion of each…watching Andy craft original pieces is sure to delight people of all ages!
What inspired you to get involved as a vendor at Christkindlmarket Des Moines 2019?
Christkindlmarket Des Moines is an AMAZING event! You can’t beat the festive holiday atmosphere and there is something for everyone…traditional Christmas market foods, live entertainment, wonderful shopping for unique gifts, and Glühwein! We love being a part of Christkindlmarket Des Moines!
What products will you be selling at Christkindlmarket Des Moines 2019 and why did you choose them?
This year we will have a variety of gifts to choose from! Of course there will be chainsaw carvings, but you’re also likely to find things like handmade wooden spoons and cutting boards, tradition wooden boxes for whatever you can imagine, wooden Christmas ornaments, hand forged hooks, bottle openers, grill accessories, and decorations. You just never know what Andy might decide to make next!
Three In One Artworks | #CDM2019 Vendor
Tell us about your business
For four years, I’ve been developing my skills and style in pottery and sculpture. My work consists of three thematic elements: agriculture and rural heritage; Celtic and Irish Dance, and contemporary geometric and abstract designs. I enjoy making functional items that contain subtle symbolism.
Every bowl or mug is created by hand via the wheel or slab and coil techniques. Special attention to decorative embellishments or glazing ensures each piece is one-of-a-kind. I welcome commission work.
What inspired you to get involved as a vendor at Christkindlmarket Des Moines 2019?
I first attended the Christkindlmarket in 2017, when my daughter’s Irish dance troupe performed on stage. I really enjoyed the atmosphere and ethnically diverse elements of the event. This past December, we attended the event again as part of the Foy School of Irish Dance and I felt confident that I had enough stock to be a vendor at the 2019 Christkindlmarket Des Moines. I’m excited to be part of this growing, unique offering on Des Moines’ thriving entertainment and cultural calendar.
What products will you be selling at Christkindlmarket Des Moines 2019 and why did you choose them?
My products will consist primarily of mugs, trays, boxes, and bowls, as well as other small items with European historic and cultural designs. I will also have a collection of items celebrating Iowa with agriculture motifs. I am choosing items based on size, price range, design, and relation to the theme of the event. I aim to make it affordable and easy for the shopper to carry their purchases while enjoying the event.
Dakota Tinworks | #CDM2019 Vendor
Tell us about your business
Now in its fifth year, Dakota Tinworks is a family-owned business, specializing in traditional, handmade tinware and tin decorative items. Karl, the tinsmith in the family, uses mostly 19th century tinsmith’s tools in the creation of his tin goods. He trained as a historical tinsmith with Loren Miller at the Stuhr Museum of the Prairie Pioneer in Grand Island, Nebraska, and with master tinsmith William McMillen at Historic Eastfield Village in New York. He’s also taken an advanced tinsmithing workshop co-taught by Steve Delisle, head tinsmith at Colonial Williamsburg.
What inspired you to get involved as a vendor at Christkindlmarket Des Moines 2019?
We were invited to participate in CDM 2017, and we all enjoyed it so much, we wanted to come back the next year. People seem to really like the tin goods we produce and sell. We enjoy meeting everyone who stops by our pop-up tents. We’re looking forward to Christkindlmarket 2019, with a new and larger location!
What products will you be selling at Christkindlmarket Des Moines 2019 and why did you choose them?
Our tin ornaments and tree tinsel remain very popular, so we will, of course, have plenty of those on hand. We also plan to offer some new items for sale, including pierced tin candle shades, with traditional designs. These can be used with tea lights to highlight the design. And, of course, we’ll have a full range of other tin items for sale — cups, lanterns, candle sconces, and cookie cutters, among many other items.
Anything else you’d like to share?
We’re excited to be a part of this wonderful event once again. We unfortunately had to close one day during CDM 2018 because of storm damage to our set-up, but we have plans in place to strengthen the pop-ups and we’ll be ready for whatever weather comes our way!
Curbin’ Cuisine | #CDM2019 Vendor
Tell us about your business
Jarrod and Misty reside just outside of Polk City, Iowa, right off Saylorville Lake. They started Curbin’ Cuisine in May 2013 with just a food cart & a huge dream. Over the next five years, Curbin’ Cuisine grew more popular and has been requested by numerous businesses & event coordinators in Des Moines and in surrounding towns. Curbin’ Cuisine is a featured food vendor at several Des Moines and surrounding area events, breweries & festivals. Check out the “Where is Curbin’ Cuisine” section for full details on dates, times & locations. Curbin’ Cuisine has been voted Best of the Best Top Three Food Trucks by City View Magazine two years in a row.
What inspired you to get involved as a vendor at Christkindlmarket Des Moines 2019?
Misty loves Christmas anything. We visited this market a few years back and knew we wanted to be apart of it with our food truck. We serve Globally Inspired Foods and this market brings European/German heritage right here to Des Moines, that we knew we could serve delicious eats to customers. This market made our “Hogfather” very popular.
What products will you be selling at Christkindlmarket Des Moines 2019 and why did you choose them?
The Hogfather Sausage Sandwich w/ BBQ Bacon Kraut; Corned Beef Reuben Sandwich or The Rachael w/ Turkey; German Style Mac N Cheese “Spatzle”; German Skillet Bowl; Garlic Parm Pretzel Bombs W/ Cheese Sauce; CinnaBomb Pretzel Bombs w/ Frosting Dip; Coffee & Water.
#CDM2019 Vendor Announcement
Christkindlmarket Des Moines 2019 Gift and Specialty Item Vendors
An der Weihnachtsecke (At the Christmas Corner), Imported from Germany
Offering: advent calendars, imported chocolate, baumkuchen, Mozart kugeln, Asbach filled chocolates, assorted marzipan, Haribo, Pandoro, Pannetone, butter cookies, stollen, beer steins, beer mugs, beer glassware, shot glasses and Christkindlmarket Des Moines merchandise. Price Range: $1 – $200
German Imports, Germany
Offering: Steinbach nutcrackers and smokers; INGE glass ornaments.
Price Range: $5 – $400
DamonLayne Woodworking, Earlham, IA
Damon will be selling unique, hand-made cutting boards, cookie molds, and cheese slicers.
Offering: Woodworking: cookie molds, cutting boards, cheese slicers
Price Range: $20 – $200
DSM Foundry, Des Moines, IA
Ornaments, lanterns, signs, maps, and any other decorations we can cobbler together. Hand made in Des Moines with a laser cutter, woodworking, and a host of other mediums.
Offering: Lanterns, ornaments, decorative signs and maps, laser cut artwork
Price Range: $1 – $100
Pickle Creek Herbs, Fairfield, IA
At Pickle Creek, we use organic herbs we grow on our Iowa farm to handcraft artisanal herbal products, including infused olive oils and vinegars, soaps, salves, salts, and balms.
Offering: Herb-infused olive oils and vinegars, soaps, salves, salts, and balms that we handcraft ourselves using original recipes and the herbs and other produce we grow in our garden.
Price Range: $3 – $25
Held Companies, Corcoran, MN
At Held Companies we make handmade wooden snowmen and deer of all sizes. We also create laser cut decor such as; signs, ornaments, coasters and magnets.
Offering: Birch Snowmen, Birch Deer, Repurposed wooden signs, ornaments, wooden trees, etc.
Price Range: $2 – $150
Three In One Artworks, Urbandale, IA
Three In One Artworks offers unique, hand-crafted functional and decorative clay mugs, trays, boxes and bowls. Designs include agricultural and rural heritage, Celtic, Christian and contemporary designs.
Offering: Ornaments, coffee cups, mugs, serving trays, serving bowls, trinket boxes, trinket dishes, candle holders, vases, kitchen utensil holders, decorative trays, plates and bowls. (Celtic, agriculture and contemporary designs)
Price Range: $15 – $100
Danish Windmill, Elk Horn, IA
Authentic 1848 historic Danish Windmill located in Elk Horn, Iowa. The Windmill was built in Denmark in 1848 and reconstructed in Elk Horn in 1975 to working condition and stands as a memorial to the areas Danish Heritage.
Offering: Danish Christmas giftware celebrating old world traditions. Prepackaged Danish candy and Danish food
Price Range: $1 – $100
Andy Klindt – Chainsaw Carvings, Des Moines, IA | DEMONSTRATION
Andy Klindt creates using wood and iron, utilizing anything from chainsaws to traditional hand tools when working in wood and time honored methods of blacksmithing when working with metal.
Offering: Chainsaw carvings, Wooden ornaments, Hand forged kitchen ware, decorations, tools, knives, jewelry, Hand carved wooden kitchen ware, Handmade wooden boxes, totes, tables
Price Range: $7 – $3000
Nymph In The Woods, Boone, IA | DEMONSTRATION
Nymph in the Woods creates one-of-a-kind jewelry combining fused glass and wire wrapping! See how the pieces are created during wire wrapping demonstrations!
Offering: Jewelry combining fused glass and wire wrapping – necklaces, earrings, bracelets, rings and more!
Price Range: $15 – $150
Indianola Glass Creations, Indianola, IA | DEMONSTRATION
We make everything we sell in Indianola, Iowa. They are one of a kind fused and stained glass jewelry and home decor pieces. Will be demonstrating blown glass ornaments.
Offering: Fused glass pendants, earrings, bracelets, hair accessories, pop sockets, tie-tac’s, tie-bars, money clips & key chains. Fused glass plates, bowls, soap dish, spoon rest, business card holder, napkin holder Christmas ornaments. Stained glass Christmas ornaments pendants, earrings, picture frames and small panels. Blown glass ornaments, hand painted glass Christmas ornaments and hand painted wine bottle lights with winter scene.
Price Range: $8 – $150
Wild Cherry Spoon Co, Rock Island, IL | DEMONSTRATION
Handcarved wooden home, kitchen, and lifestyle goods made from ethically harvested urban lumber.
Offering: Hand-carved wooden: spoons, spatulas, kitchen utensils, cutting, serving, and presentation boards and trays, pizza cutters and paddles, shaving razors, shaving brushes, shaving stands, baby spoons, coffee scoops, beer flights, bottle openers, muddlers, wooden bowls.
Price Range: $5 – $125
Bratwurst Imbiss am Markt
Support Des Moines European Heritage Association (DMEHA), the non-profit that produces Christkindlmarket Des Moines with a purchase from this stand.
Offering: Usinger Brats, Käse Spätzle and bottled water
Price Range: $1 – $5
Glühwein
Glühwein (roughly, “glow-wine”, from the hot irons once used for mulling) is popular in German speaking countries. Glühwein is prepared from red wine, heated and spiced with cinnamon sticks, cloves, star aniseed, citrus, sugar and at times vanilla pods.
Iowa Beer Bus
L&L European Delight, Chariton, IA
Ukrainian style foods, gifts and desserts
Offering: Perogie, pelmeni, cabbage rolls, candy, sweets
Price Range: $1 – $10
Chocolaterie Stam, Des Moines, IA
Fine European chocolates and confections.
Offering: hot chocolate, prepacked chocolates, stroopwafels handmade, speculaas
Price Range: $3 – $40
Top of the Hill Nuts, Grinnell, IA
Offering: Cinnamon or maple flavored roasted almonds, cashews, pecans
Price Range: $5 – $8
Curbin Cuisine, Granger, IA
State of the art, wickedly designed bright green food truck.
Sugarplums Cakes and Confections, LLC, Altoona, IA
Sugarplums is a local bakery that specializes in traditional gingerbread and other European baked goods for the Christkindlmarket. Everything we sell is made completely from scratch from family recipes.
Ruhland’s Strudel Haus, St. Paul, MN
Fresh baked sweet and savory strudels, handmade pretzels
Cheese Bar, Des Moines, IA
Cheese Bar DSM will be unveiling our newest addition, Cheese Cart. We will be featuring Raclette prepared in the European Traditional Method of scrapping melted cheese over potatoes and sausage.
K & S Kitchen LLC, Des Moines, IA
French Style Crepes with a sweet or savory filling
The Kringle Man (Village Cafe), Elk Horn, IA
The Kringle is made of very high quality dough folded and buttered 81 times to get all the lightness and air pockets associated with Danish Baking. We blend Almond Paste with all our Fruit to come up with an irresistible, melt in your mouth flavor.
The Big Red Food Truck, Granger, IA
2019 Call for Vendors
Des Moines European Heritage Association invites you to become a vendor at the 4th Annual Christkindlmarket Des Moines taking place December 6 – 8, 2019 at Principal Park.
In its first three years, this cultural experience has attracted over 95,000 visitors.
Vendor Testimonial: Wild Cherry Spoon Co has vended across the Midwest. From popular indie craft markets in Chicago to small first time shows. Christkindl Market Des Moines blew them all away in terms of revenue, participation, crowd size, after show sales, interesting things to see and do at the market, and volunteer support. We would love to be able to attend every subsequent market and word of advice to vendors; plan for your wildest sales expectations and then bring 4x the inventory…it sells out fast!
Tim McGuire, Wild Cherry Spoon
The quality of a traditional Christmas market depends on maintaining a high standard of the vendor products it offers. Christkindlmarket Des Moines is dedicated to immersing visitors in a world of folklore and craftsmanship as well as enticing them with traditional, seasonal culinary specialties to provide an experience filled with European elegance and charm. See Google Images of Christmas markets around the world.
Our vendor guide will give you an overview of the application process and requirements. As soon as you fill out the application, it will be reviewed internally. You will receive feedback by April 15, 2019 at the latest.
If you have applied in the past, but were not accepted, we encourage you to complete an application each year. The vendor committee takes several factors into consideration when choosing the slate of vendors each year. We will continue to add wooden vendor stalls and not all vendors that participated in the past are asked to return which results in openings.
Products typically found at Christkindlmarkets throughout the world, which include (but are not limited to): decorative fresh wreaths and centerpieces; one-of-a-kind handmade items that can be made and demonstrated on site; holiday ornaments of all colors, materials and sizes; nutcrackers; cuckoo clocks; beer steins; wooden toys; jewelry; wood carvings; European sweets and treats; sausages; sauerkraut; potato pancakes; waffles; crepes; stollen; gingerbread; roasted nuts; cakes and pastries; German smokers; candles; wooden nativity scenes; items made from hand-blown glass; clay and ceramic pottery items; tea light holders; Eastern Slavic handcrafted gifts, such as nesting dolls and papier-mâché lacquer boxes; lace; leather products; beer and wine glasses; wooden toys; handwoven garments and more.
View all Vendor Testimonials
Read the 2019 Vendor Guide (Required)
Apply to be a 2019 Vendor
City of Des Moines Outdoor Events Requirements (Food vendors please read)
Application Deadline: March 15, 2019
I was especially impressed with the advertising for Christkindlmarket Des Moines—I think the organizers did a great job of getting the word out through many different avenues. The volunteers were very friendly and helpful. The booths made for a great ambience, and we loved the signs!
Pickle Creek Herbs
Post #CDM2018 Food Sale!
What’s new at CDM2018
As festival organizers, we try to bring something new or different to Christkindlmarket Des Moines each year. Check out what’s new for #CDM2018.
1. Wander to Walnut for additional food, beer and Glühwein – Due to the increase in vendors, we’ve expanded the venue to include Walnut Street, so be sure to “Wander to Walnut”.
2. Additional Glühwein serving area on Walnut Street – With an expanded venue comes an additional Glühwein serving area to help meet your demands! We will have a total of three Glühwein and two beer serving areas at Christkindlmarket Des Moines this year.
3. 33 vendors: 16 vendors serving food, 17 gift and specialty vendors (24 vendors in 2017, 14 in 2016)
4. New vendors: Brunkow Cheese of Wisconsin, Coal Ridge Crafts, DamonLayne Woodworking, On The HIll, Steinbach, Lost Planet Forge, Parlo Pizza, Ruhland’s Strudel Haus, KMachine Shed, Bratwurst Imbiss am Markt and JKafe
Bratwurst Imbiß am Markt
A new tradition in 2018 is Bratwurst Imbiss am Markt (Brat stand at the market) run by Des Moines European Heritage Association, the non-profit responsible for the production of Christkindlamarket Des Moines.
Enjoy a 1/4 lb, coarse-ground, German–style pork bratwurst grilled to perfection.
Usinger’s produces many kinds of sausages and meats, in many cases using traditional 19th-century recipes provided by its founder, Fred Usinger of Wehen, Germany. The family-owned company, now in it’s fourth generation, continues to live its slogan of providing “America’s Finest Sausage”.
Offering: Usinger’s Bratwurst – $5, bottled water – $1
An der Weihnachtsecke: At the Christmas Corner
With just six weeks until Christkindlmarket Des Moines 2018, we’d like to help you get prepared for your visit by reminding you of our holiday store called “An der Weihnachtsecke”. In German, this means, “At the Christmas Corner”. In it, we will feature:
Christkindlmarket Des Moines 2018 Commemorative Mugs
This year’s commemorative mug will be available for sale an der Weihnachtsecke and at the Glühwein/Kinderpunsch points of sale. Be sure to purchase yours before they run out. You can make a donation of $25/mug before November 28th to guarantee your mug and pick it up at the event.
For this year’s mug design, we again collaborated with German designer Sabine Voigt. She previously worked for Rolling Stone Magazine and continues to design mugs for Christmas markets around the world.
Beer Steins and Glassware
From glass to stoneware, from boot to Maß, we’ve got your beer drinking vessels covered. With a variety of price points, you’re sure to find something for the casual drinker or collector in your life. There are also several limited edition pieces available.
Thewalt Steins
Many of the steins sold at Christkindlmarket Des Moines 2017 are original productions from original Thewalt molds. These steins are produced in the same time-honored tradition, entirely made in the Westerwald (“Western Forest”), just a few kilometers from the original Thewalt factory. Several original skilled Thewalt workers are still making these new steins. Established in 1893 and producing steins until 2009, the Thewalt factory earned global recognition with emphasis on unsurpassed quality, using only the best materials and workmanship.
Gerz & Corzelius Steins
These steins were made from molds acquired from the original factory of Paul Werner Corzelius (some of which are over 100 years old!). These steins was made just a few kilometers from the original Gerz Sessenbach and Corzelius Hoehr Grenzhausen factory sites.
European Confections
We will be offering advents calendars, German/Swiss/English chocolate, Baumkuchen, Mozart Kugeln, Asbach chocolate, a variety of marzipan confections, Pannetone, German/Danish/English cookies and stollen.
Glaszauber Lauscha
These individually hand-blown and hand-painted ornaments, lovingly made by a family-owned and operated business in Germany, are truly one of a kind. The first Christmas tree ornaments made of glass originated in their hometown of Lauscha in 1847.
Watch a video of how these ornaments are made.
Christkindlmarket Des Moines Merchandise
We had a great time working with Straub Marketing, to design our Christkindlmarket Des Moines merchandise. We will be offering totes, tumblers, knit caps, beanies, mittens and scarves.
