The Front Market Gift Guide (2025)
This year’s Gift Guide is live! Keep reading for how to shop—and peek our favorites across each of this year’s gift categories.
NO. 1 — ACCESSORIES
Featured Maker: Luna Chéndi
Luna Chéndi a woman-owned, family-run, sustainably sourced, creative small business, bringing you artistic and unique luxury accessories & home goods.
“With many combined years of working in the fashion, textile design, and fine art industries, the experiences of our designers shaped their dream to create a fulfilling, creative outlet for our ideas and daydreams. “We hope that you find inspiration and happiness in our work, and enjoy joining us through our creative journey.
So, what does chéndi mean? The word chéndi was coined by our Costa Rican grandmother to describe a beautiful orange cat named Pecos Bill who was walking up her New Orleans sidewalk. Over the years, chéndi has been used by our family and friends to describe anything beautiful, cute, or happy—whether that’s a cat or a piece of artwork, a bouquet of flowers, or a knitted sweater. Paired with the word “luna” (or “moon” in Italian and Spanish), we hope that, just like our moon in the night sky, we become a beacon of inspiration, happiness, and peace with our illustrative products!”
Featured Gift: Come Closer Scarf ($225)
NO. 2 — ART
Featured Artist: Elena Marcozzi
From Detroit, Michigan Elena Rodriguez Marcozzi is an American oil painter and fiber artist who beckons viewers into a dreamlike world of texture and color through her wool felt paintings, adorned with whimsical beaded and embroidered embellishments.
The pass two years Elena was based in Austin, Texas, where she found meaning and creative inspiration working as a Teaching Artist alongside artists with disabilities at Imagine Art, a studio collective that furthers her belief in using art to empower and heal. In 2025, she was an Artist in Residence with Future Front Texas.
In 2022, she earned a B.F.A. in Painting from Wayne State University. Following that she was an assistant painter for Detroit based Muralist Elton Monroy Duran of Corpus Art Inc. In 2023, she was an Artist in Residence at the Namingha Institute of the Museum of Northern Arizona.
Looking ahead, Elena aims to pursue graduate studies in Art Therapy, with the ultimate goal of building a career in community arts. Her artistic journey is marked by a deep commitment to both her personal growth and the enrichment of the communities she serves.
Featured Gift: Art Prints & Custom Felts (Contact Artist; Pricing Varies)
NO. 3 — APPAREL
Featured Maker: Future Vagabond
Samantha Asencio (she/her), aka Future Vagabond, is an interdisciplinary artist originally from New York. Shortly after graduating from Pratt Institute in 2015, she relocated to Austin, where she continued her sculptural work. Over time, she shifted her focus to embroidery and later founded the brand FV. The work explores themes of the American road trip, draws on historical references, and examines the notion of impermanence. Her practice invites viewers to consider how memory, travel, and time intertwine.
Featured Gifts: Embroidered Goods ($68 to $280)
NO. 4 — Ceramics
Featured Maker: Barro Babe
Featured Gift: Barro Babe Mugs (Pricing Varies, Contact Artist)
NO. 5 — HOME GOODS
Featured Maker: Barrio Pop Studio
Carlos Moreno is an Austin-based artist, curator, and cultural worker whose practice explores the intersections of scent, memory, community ritual, and material storytelling. What began as a study in the archives of The Andy Warhol Museum became the foundation for a practice that blends scent, story, and cultural memory into experiences of collective care.
Carlos began his museum career in the Director’s Office internship at Artpace nine years ago before completing a fellowship at The Andy Warhol Museum during his undergraduate studies. That early exposure to conceptual art, archival research, and cultural production opened pathways into understanding how objects, materials, and sensory experience can hold—and transmit—memory.
His institutional background includes Artpace San Antonio, SITE Santa Fe, the ICA/Boston, and the Studio Museum in Harlem. Carlos holds a degree in Art History from The University of Texas at Austin’s College of Fine Arts, grounding his practice in research, curation, and cultural stewardship.
Through Barrio Pop Studio, Carlos creates experiences that honor ancestral knowledge, support environmental sustainability, and invite people to encounter art through all their senses. His curatorial vision centers accessibility, cross-disciplinary collaboration, and the belief that art becomes most powerful when it gathers people in community.
Featured Gift: Nopal Candle ($28)
NO. 6 — JEWELRY
Featured Maker: Leslie Lenhart
Leslie Lenhart is an Earth-inspired jewelry brand dedicated to illuminating the beauty found in nature through a thoughtful dialogue between distinctive materials and craft. After years exploring design through a diverse range of products, elements, and techniques all over the world, Leslie started making jewelry in her studio out of a desire to cultivate a more physical connection to her creative process. Her background in patternmaking and embroidery design in fashion led to designing artisanal and craft-led accessories that told stories about their makers.
Leslie developed her own perspective and aesthetic through her travels, sourcing pearls and vintage tokens from local markets, beachcombing shells while sailing with her husband, Ricky, and curating visually compelling stories as a stylist. Now, in her own line inspired by land and sea and where they meet, Leslie Lenhart brings together unexpected and intentional curations of objects that remind us of where we come from, what we value, and where we’re headed.
Featured Gifts: Assorted Jewelry ($30 to $230)
NO. 7 — SELF-CARE
Featured Maker: Melo Goods
“I am a 2019 graduate from the University of Texas at Austin with a BFA in Design. I currently work at an innovation agency called Material+ as an Art Director. I’m a versatile, full-spectrum creative who moves seamlessly from concepting 360° brand campaigns to art directing photography and designing digital assets.My creative practice cross pollinates between creating work that is thoughtful and compelling while intersecting brand, social, digital, and e-commerce— in an elevated, authentic way. With every engagement, I aim to work closely with clients as a creative partner to bring their aspirational brand to life.I am currently building a brand called, Melo. A limited fine line of fragrant goods inspired by nature, travel, and everyday rituals. Mas aqui. On my free days you’ll find me out in Marfa, Texas or secluded beaches of La Paz, MX, playing tennis (kinda good), taking pics of textures, or collaborating with gojema. 🤠”
Featured Gift: Travel Spray ($38)
NO. 8 — FOODS & SIPS
Featured Maker: Hijita
Hijita makes small-batch Mexican chocolate rooted in ancestral wisdom, guided by wellness & equity, and inspired by favorite childhood drinks.
“Our cacao is sourced directly from family farms & co-ops in southern México that are passionate about cultivating heirloom cacao through agroforestry systems. Our first ingredient is always regenerative Mexican cacao, delicately sweetened, and enhanced with thoughtfully sourced botanicals. As hijitas of strong Mexican women, we feel called to deeply understand and take ownership of our cultural legacy.”
Featured Gift: Hijita Drinking Chocolate ($11)
NO. 9 — PETS, PLANTS & PAPER GOODS
Featured Shop: Host Publications
Host Publications is an award-winning, women-led independent publisher located in Austin, Texas. Devoted to our mission to elevate historically marginalized writers, Host Publications publishes radical poetry and fiction by emerging LGBTQ+, BIPOC, intersectional feminist, and immigrant voices.
With every book we publish, stage we set, and event we host, we work to empower our community of writers whose work inspires social transformation and creates a new sense of what is possible in writing.
