Fair of the Arts Begins

Today was an awesome day. Yesterday, not so much. A rep from A Fair of the Arts, our local monthly craft fair at the farmer's market, called yesterday morning and asked if I'd like to sub in an open vendor spot at the first fair today. Heck yeah, I'd like to. Of course, then I had to make signs and craft a few last-minute items (last-minute like 11:00 last night!) and figure out a display and buy some stuff from Lowe's to manufacture said display and pick up some change and clean out the car and load up the car, etc. I generally like to get most of this stuff done earlier than 12 hours before the craft fair begins, but what can you do.

Good thing, then, that it was an awesome day to vend at a craft fair. It's been a miserable, rainy week, but today was calm and clear, and tomorrow is set to be miserable as well, so everyone scurried out of their houses like a break in the storm to indulge in a little retail therapy before scurrying back in. Once it stopped freezing, it was nice to sit in the sun and people-watch and chit-chat with passers-by. It was also nice to make some hard-earned money.

Here are most of my quilts--denim and khaki, Incredible Hulk, two dinosaur quilts, and the world travelers quilt:

This is the best and most terrific display that Matt designed and we made and I painted in two shades of purple. It faces the outside, so it's got photos and display stuff. You can see the IU quilt and the Superman quilt, which got bought for a little boy's bed, although the dad seemed awfully happy about it, too:Here's the business side of the display. I'm really proud of the signs I made last night--I utilized my newfound scrapbooking skills! My pendants are on the left, including the one that I later bartered for eggs and watercress with a little girl at the farmer's market. The backside of my front-facing quilts are on the right, and the felt flower pins, including the red-buttoned one (it's also the one in the photo) that two women wanted at the same time. I reassured the loser that I have more red buttons for next time:I had to put out an extra sign for these soaps a little later--the weird combination of direct sunlight and extra humidity caused moisture to condense on them, but happily people still seemed to like them anyway. Essential oils are always so tempting:Record bowls rock, as always, even though I was up until 11:00 pm cooking these:
And the buttons--it's a really eclectic mix, I admit, mostly culled from the pages of Entertainment Weekly, so that when someone finds a button they adore, they tend to act as delighted as if they'd just rediscovered a part of their own head:The weather was so, so nice, that after tear-down and the celebratory very large meal (being from the South, the buffet is the traditional food of my people), we had the whole rest of the day to slave outside in the yard and do this: Awesome day.