Last week flew by with so many activities for me including an eighth grade graduation and ended on Saturday with our local Peddler’s Faire.  This is my town’s biggest event besides our annual bridge lighting the weekend after Thanksgiving in November.

Hubby and I got there fairly early considering it opens at 7:00 am.  We were there at around 8:30 am and the crowds were definitely not crowded, the morning was cool, sunny, and quite beautiful.

This little building is probably the most photographed in our little town (for obvious reasons – I only wish that booth weren’t in the photo… I plan to go down at exactly the same time this week for another try without the booth).  It is very old and is centered right in the middle of “Old Town” which consists of buildings that date back to the 1800′s.  This little store is open in the summer months and only on weekends but the owners do an excellent job of stocking it full of really neat antiques and antique looking garden nostalgia.

Booths line both sides of the old town’s center and the streets are of course closed for the day so that all the tourists may enjoy their time perusing the antiques, collectibles, and homemade things.  This faire is only open to those kinds of products and if you have something to sell that is not in one of those categories, then you aren’t accepted.

There were around three different booths that had preserves or honey that was collected locally and handmade.  My mother in law bought me a nice sized jar of Poison Oak Honey to help boost my immune system in order to fight poison oak, we’ll see how it works but I’m hoping and praying that it does.

My absolute favorite booth was this one.  This lady has a ton of talent for painting little odds and ends.  There were saw blades, round and long, match holders, cow bells, old milk cans, jars, cast iron skillets and various other things that she hand painted with funny and scenic scenes.  They were beautiful and hilarious.  I loved the tin in the center of the photo, up top that has a black bear carrying two hoot owls at each breast and the caption below says, “Nice Hooters.”  LOL!

This one was my favorite though.  I sized it a bit bigger so that you could see the detail.  I think this ol’ cowboy is going to have quite a surprise waiting in his outhouse!

But now we cross the old bridge in the center of old town, (no it’s not unnamed, I just edited that part out so it wasn’t too obvious where I live!).  To where we find, on the other side…

A car show of course!  What kind of small town gathering would this be if there wasn’t a car show?  Believe it or not, I had to talk hubby into going over there so that I could take a couple of pictures to show you.  He says that though he likes the cars, the show part puts him to sleep.  He’s a type A personality.

My favorite exhibit, an old Studebaker, simply because I have not seen too many of these around and this one was pretty cherry.  I can get kinda tired of all the Mustangs and ’57 Chevys.

A picture of the old bridge before we crossed back over to view the rest of the faire.

Old town with the early morning sun, a view from the old bridge.  All the action is right there on the other side of those buildings.

Hubby and baby crossing the bridge.  Aren’t they good models?  I haven’t shown you the one where hubby is thumbing his nose at me.

We’re back across now, you aren’t even out of breath, for a look at some neat handmade birdhouses.  People are sure clever.

Some funky jewelry.

Some really neat China bowls that I thought looked just perfect sitting on that red shelf.  If you’d like to see a vintage effect applied to this photo, visit my photo blog.

Some Fire King Jadite, photo taken in honor of P-Dub who was the one that introduced me to the stuff.  I had no clue what it was until I read her post.  It is beautiful, though pricey.  Those little, and I mean little, sugar and flour containers were $85.00!  They are the size of salt and pepper shakers.

And now to the great deal gone bad.  This set is a set that my grandmother had and I remember eating off of when I was knee high to nobody.  I loved this set and guess what?  This whole thing you see here was only $45.00!  But, the booth only accepted cash, no checks.  So, I continued to walk through the faire and then went to the ATM at our local gas station to get $60.00 out.  My hubby and baby went home and I drove back to the faire.  I found the perfect parking spot on the side of the street that is normally crammed with cars.  I was close, close enough to where it wouldn’t be too much of a burden to haul a this set back to.  It was perfect.

So, I wandered down and ran in to my mother in law who told me about the honey.  We chatted and I told her that I’d be right back, I needed to go buy that set.  Sure enough, as soon as I walked up to the booth the lady right in front of me pulled out some cash and bought it!  She only gave the woman $10.00 to hold it and I could have been mean and offered the whole $60.00 and nabbed it, but I didn’t.  I’m too quiet and reserved, and don’t have that type of spirit in me.  I just figured it wasn’t meant to be.  Oh well, but I’m still sad.  I’m sure I’ll find it someplace else in the future, if the time is right.

 Okay, on to lighter fluffier subjects like antique saddles.  There were a few at this booth that were owned by a  local packer.  He only wanted $40.00 which seemed like a pretty good deal, but me being someone who doesn’t have the forethought on antiques unless I can put them to use, passed this up.  I thought it was neat though, and especially like the rawhide stitching.

And now the bright sunny spot of this post.  I love the colors and design of this afghan.  If I was any kind of croche artist (I can only do one pattern),  I could probably figure it out.  But because I’m not, I just took a picture. 

It was a fun day at our Peddler’s Faire and I hope to someday be a part of it.  We’ll see…