40 vendors sell holiday crafts at Crafty Balboa Holiday

THE Crafty Balboa Holiday is not your grandmother's craft show, unless your granny wears skinny jeans. The 40 vendors who set up shop at Broad Street Ministry are selling way cool accessories, jewelry, clothing, housewares and more.

Among the unusual offerings are cute printed flasks made by the local textile design company BeDo & Beccaroon. Also on sale for $8 a set are hipster bingo cards in which the bingo numbers have been replaced by drawings of Ray-Ban sunglasses, cutoff denim short-shorts, an iPhone and other hip images.

You'll find pop culture-themed Christmas ornaments and jewelry featuring faces of the famous (Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn) and the not-so famous (Gremlin's Gizmo, John Cusack in "Say Anything," boom box held over his head). Literary life is represented too - Kurt Vonnegut pins and the iconic "To Kill a Mockingbird" book cover stamped on earrings. Music lovers can sift through dozens of plates made out of vinyl records from De La Soul, Jimmy Page, Frank Sinatra, and the Psychedelic Furs. Even mundane items such as light switchplates get a pop culture makeover. Anyone for a Pee-wee Herman switchplate?

Broad Street Ministry, 315 S. Broad St., 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. tomorrow, craftybalboa.blogspot.com.

- Alissa Falcone

SINGS AND STRINGS

The Concord Singers and the Philadelphia Mandolin and Guitar Ensemble take us back to a time when mandolin ensembles were the house bands of their day.

In the early 1900s, the height of their popularity, mandolin music was all the rage, not just in the United States but also in Europe, South America, even Japan. Tomorrow's "Music for a Winter's Eve" resurrects the sound in a program that includes more than just holiday tunes.

A performance of Vivaldi's "Gloria," arranged by Mark Linkin from the Mandolin and Guitar Ensemble, highlights the concert. Linkin originally arranged the music for a string orchestra and male and female chorus, but this performance will feature Concord, an all-female chorus, and the mandolin orchestra that also includes guitars, mandolas and mandocellos, two larger, deeper versions of the mandolin.

Also on the program are several sacred and secular Christmas and Hanukkah tunes, as well as an eclectic mix of songs that showcase the surprising range of the mandolin, which can sound like a string instrument or bells, depending on how it's played. A little diversity will be added with a performance of "Tico Tico," played in traditional Brazilian Choro style, kind of a Latin ragtime music.

Mezzo-soprano Caroline Parody and soprano Jody Doktor from the Concord Singers are featured soloists; musical director Mike Sanflippo conducts.

Although this is the first time the two groups have collaborated, Sanflippo and Linkin have worked together before, when they attended the University of the Arts in the 1980s.

First Unitarian Church of Philadelphia, 2125 Chestnut St., 7 p.m. tomorrow, suggested donation $10.

- Mary Sydnor