Lake Lawrence Bazaar, Part II

~O.K. , it is not Christmas, but don't these ornaments just give you a teeny tiny burst of Christmas spirit ? Just a little bit of jingle bells and deck the halls ?~~They were handmade by this mother-daughter team(below). Megan Erickson and her Mother of ME Original. They can be contacted through meoriginal.etsy.com . I looked over their many creative and primitive country ornaments, signs and decorations several times. I also checked out Megan's blog and find she is a very creative mom and wife...I hope she and her mother do well with their handmade items, most definitely made with love !~ "Frugality without creativity is deprivation." Amy Dacyczyn

~Here we have the big attention getter ! When you walk into Lake Lawrence Hall, why, you are met with CHOCOLATE ! Lots of beautiful, scrumptious chocolate. I could see this booth from mine , and the chocolate booth was always busy. Why, the other vendors were constantly buzzing around the chocolate. Isn't this (below) a wondrous sight to encounter when you walk into a building ? ~Yes, this is Aunt Billie's chocolate. Aunt Billie was decked out in tinsel garlands, her hair was wreathed in garlands, and her chocolate sent out the tempting call..."Come hither, I am chocolate, you cannot resist me....." ~This is Terry Halverson, of Scent With Love. I got to sit next to her and inhale the lovely aroma of her soy candles. She too was a very popular booth. You have no idea how many people come by to sniff, sniff, and sniff some more...then after they have done the rounds of the bazaar will come back, sniff a few more times and after a last whiff, why..they buy ! I succumbed to the aroma of her soy candles, and am glad I did. Terry can be reached at scentwithlovecandles@hotmail.com ~ Oh, she and her husband and son were also very pleasant company , I had such a wonderful time with my neighbors at the bazaar !Plus, Terry is SO organized, I learned a thing or two just from watching her. ~This lady is inspirational ! She asked me how my wool fleece felted up. I did not know. I had fleece in batts and rovings for sale but have never felted my fleece in the manner she was asking about. I have done some needle felting ON my rugs, but never felted the fleece itself. Well, she purchased some yarn and fleece batts and I asked her to tell me how it turned out..... "Creative work is play. It is free speculation using materials of one's chosen form." Stephen Nachmanouitch ~Can you see from the above and below photographs how her felting turned out ? Her name is Debra Southern..and she went home and felted the wool and came back the next day and showed me the successful results ! Thank-you Debra...I will be felting my wool fleeces now to create even more exciting projects ! ~Here is my booth. I still need to figure out a few tricks for display of rugs, yarn , fleece, and other items I sell. I did have a good time. I learned a lot, visited with interesting people, made some money ( mucho importante, hay is greatly appreciated by my spotted sheep ) and bought a few things I just could not find anywhere else and some for Christmas gifts. Hey...it is good to get some early shopping done, dont'cha think ? ~And, I sold out of my little Nativity sheep. Got to make at least a hundred before the bazaar in December! "Creativity represents a miraculous coming together of the uninhibited energy of the child with it's apparent opposite and enemy, the sense of order imposed on the disciplined adult intelligence-" Norman Podhoretz

~More of Laurie's Handcrafted Baskets ~ " To think creatively, we must be able to look afresh at what we normally take for granted." George Knellen