Fall Craft Season Kicksoff

Wow! Have I been busy getting ready for the Fall Craft Show Season. I'm so glad you stopped by, I'v been thinking of you today. My first show was not planned as I explained in my last post. It was in a very beautiful setting at our local County Park, Sharonwoods, in the Heritage Village, which is a living museum of sorts. This was my display tent on Sat. the 19th.............................................................................................. As you can see it was a lovely shaded spot dappled by sunshine and the temps were delightful, not too hot not too chilly. Being this was the first year they had invited Craft Vendors, I wasn't sure how large this event would be, so I brought a small mix of my designs. There were only 7 of us that attended. On lady had beautiful fabric decoupaged plate designs, another did fleece throws, while another had created jean purses and decorative dish towels. One young lady did beautiful hand-painting on anything fabric and the rest created whimsical and fashionable jewelry designs. The only disappointment was the lack of attendees. There were last minute ads on the t.v. and fliers sent to the Society Members, but this weekend is very busy with the Cincinnati Oktoberfest and several other established Autumn kickoff events. On Sun. the 20th it rained...and rained....and rained. The day was a literal washout. We all left by noon, so it turned out to be a learning event for the staff.

Below are a few shots from my tent.........................................................
This is the Vorhis House. They were making apple cider out back and inside the ladies were cooking up some wonderful stew at the hearth.
The Chester Park train station and woods behind were my backdrop, and this......

Beautiful Victorian Lady was beside me. The Elklick House is fully furnished and decorated in period design with several outbuildings, arbor, and a chicken coup.

This is quite a large village area taking up many acres along a sleepy creek that runs through the park. There are many other period homes and outbuildings, a Doctor's residence and office, a printing shop, merchantile, church (they rent out for weddings), and a new old one room school house. I'm amazed at how many don't know it's there...lol its been a work in progress since 1972....I'll have to take more pics to post later, it really is a pretty place. At Christmas they have it all decked out. If your in that neck of the woods you ought to stop by and check it out during any season.

Okay now to the next event the 35th Sharonville Kiwanis Arts and Craft Show
that took place yesterday the 27th. This is the oldest Craft Show in the area.

There were 49 vendors this year. It was cloudy, breezy, and chilly. The Bengals were playing the Steelers, longtime rivalry, and that meant parties and sports bars. You can see attendance was a little low, but at least they were buying!

Here is a view of my booth area. I was right on the corner of Creek and Reading Roads. I wish I had had time to snap some shots of others vendors booths. Everyone did something so different from the other. For example, Marlene does free-form pottery using her garden flowers and leaves as inspiration and as 'stamps' and the Cozy Nest does traditional pottery teapots, vases, etc. I used vintage textiles and hand-embroidery and embellishments to create my designs, another lady created clothing , purses, and home accents using new fabrics and machine embroidery....definately two distinct looks. I like shows that incorporates diverse creativity.

Well, I'm off to complete some of my future designs for the other upcoming shows.

Check out my website http://www.brownginghamcreations.com/ and go to Local Antique and Crafts for place and time info. I hope you can stop by one of them if you're in the area! Oh, and let me know when your next event is.

Melody