Country Living 2010

Hey everyone!! Hope you all are doing well and enjoying the beginnings of our autumn season. We have just returned from the 5th Annual Country Living magazine fair. WOW...what a weekend!! It's one big Country Living party!! What would the fair be without a little drama? I'm sure you all remember 2008 and that little breeze named Hurricane Ike that blew through on Sunday. These photos are NOT from that year...this is how the fair started out THIS year.
One of Ike's cousins visited us on Wednesday. With tornado sirens blaring we (my parents, me, friend Kimberly, fellow dealer and collector friends Lisa and Scott and their young daughter, who were set up with me) tried to keep our tents from flying into the next county. It quickly became too dangerous to hang on to metal poles with a "kite" attached. I mean let's face it...all that great stuff we hunt down and treasure is really just stuff, and it's replaceable stuff. Everyone on the fairgrounds was soon running for cover and the sanctuary of the church basement is where we found ourselves. When the storm blew over this is what we found, three hours of tent set up down the drain.
But you know us country gals don't let much stop us from what we want to do! We draped everything with tarps and went home determined to start all over on Thursday. We crammed 2 days of set up into one and were almost ready Friday when the early bird fair goers poured in at 8:30 in the morning.
In the chaos of it all we had some minor crises arise; at separate times our register ran out of pennies and ones, the rain on Wednesday damaged our paper rolls for the register but we didn't know until we needed it. Thankfully my dear friend Kathi Bejma of KD Vintage helped me out.
Most of Friday and Saturday the line to pay was very long. While that's wonderful to see as a business owner I can't help but feel anxious when people have to wait that long. Everyone was absolutely wonderful and patient and I thank all of you! I'm thinking next year there will have to be 2 check out areas.

My friend Sherry made these gorgeous bouquets!! Sweet annie, golden rod, wheat stems, sunflowers, hydrangeas...simply a perfect autumn gathering.


These gorgeous pumpkins definitely stole the show. I started out with 57 of them and by 1pm Friday they were gone! More are on the way and should be in the shop next week.
Aren't they beautiful?
Sue Whitney, founder of JUNKMARKET Style stopped by several times. First was to shop for her demonstration 'Setting a Harvest Table' sponsored by Gorilla Glue. Half of what she had packed to be sent to the fair ended up getting shipped to Florida. So she was shopping for items. She snatched up industrial baskets, brown transferware plates, old keys and locks and more. I so wanted to head over to watch her in action but we were just way too busy (a good problem). She came back to show me the cutest napkin rings she made with burlap and the keys she bought from us. Hope to see some pictures on the internet soon!

Now the bad news...these are the only pictures I took. ARGH!! Had my 35mm with me the whole time but it was just too busy and the storm Wednesday put us way behind schedule. So can you help a girl out? Send me your pics from the fair. Would love to do a post with a collection of fair goers pictures.