Valentine's Day gift ideas were plentiful at The Erotic Arts and Crafts Fair, which featured indie sex art, zines, toys, an erotic bake sale and other titillating tidbits at the Gladstone Hotel yesterday.

I arrive the Gladstone around 4:30 p.m. and dozens of inventive vendors are crammed into small booth-like spots in the hallways, some sharing an entire room in the artist's space on the second floor, while music blares from a makeshift DJ booth. Strangers brush by each other to get a closer look at the varied wares on display.

Wendy Ding (pictured in the lead photo) has an impressive array of illustrations that combine pin-up models with youthful faces and food. Picture a ketchup-covered hottie on a hotdog bun made into a fridge magnet.

As a het male, I don't eat dick, but they're out of tits at this display, so I share a bite with my girlfriend.

There are some silly "valentine's for failing relationships" with messages that make me LOL, such as "Eat my smegma" and "Your roommate was better."

Anne-Marie Lyth is on hand to sell her pretty handmade pasties and cinched tight corsets.

Kim Hurter (pictured below) shows off her Hickey Hiders at her Pretty Poopie booth. I'm not sure that naming a business with a cutesy excrement title will attract the right clientele, but with a tag line "production design, illustration & other creative crap," ya never know.

One of the most innovative artists to display at the Erotic Arts and Crafts Fair is Lisa Murphy (pictured below). Her Tactile Mind Book is a pleasure to look at and touch. Her books of nude sculpture for the blind are impressive in so many ways.

"I set up these portraits and photograph them," explains Murphy. "Then I create two-dimensional sculptures out of sculpy, clay, foil and cardboard. I bake it and thermoform it and then I get a proofreader to verify the image is a likeness."

Each page has a description in Braille. Pages from the book sell for $20-$25, with the entire book going for about $225 (available at Come As You Are, Northbound Leather and This Ain't the Rosedale Library.

The Come As You Are booth is disappointingly small, considering they're sponsoring the Erotic Arts and Crafts Fair. Does size really matter? They have on display only a handful of books and a couple of dildos, creating more of a tease than satisfying any prurient cravings.

Just as I'm about to leave, I spot a couple of young women wearing "I slept with Adam Giambrone" buttons. Now there's a clever conversation starter.

Photos by Roger Cullman.