Reporting on My Visit to the Mount Dora Craft Festival Today

Well I made the trek to the Mount Dora Craft Festival today on my own since one friend that usually goes with me is on vacation and the other is sick. So I headed over at the crack of dawn noon and let me tell you, it does not feel like fall outside. It feels more like July.  It was honestly not very pleasant out in the least.

So first I noticed that my regular parking space was not available. People in the area open up their businesses and yards for parking (for a fee of course) during the festivals, and my friends and I have a certain place we always park on 11th Street. But for some reason they were not collecting their usual money today so I actually found a close place to park, and only $5.00, what a bargain.

I walked on down to the downtown area and decided to detour to the restroom first because I didn’t want to have to use the Port-A Potty later. Of course there was a huge line so that wasted 15 minutes of my time. We almost decided to do a take-over of the men’s restroom which was almost completely empty.

After that I began my systematic route to see all the booths. If you don’t do it that way, and if you just meander around, you miss half the show because you forget what you have already seen. So I just go up and down the streets on the right, then cross over and do the same thing on the left. Since I was by myself I was able to do this pretty speedily and cut down what would have been probably 3 hours into about 1-1/2 hours. I simply bypassed everything I had already seen a million billion times at every past festival and concentrated on anything new. I had gone quite a while before I found my first purchase which was a green glass frog nightlight. I need a new nightlight for my bathroom because the last one I got, bought at one of the Mount Dora festivals years ago, finally konked out. Then I didn’t see much new (to me) after that until I got to the booth of Helen Pitt of www.pittspossibilties.com where I enjoyed looking at her various wood intarsia pieces. I actually have done intarsia in the past and I know how much work goes into each piece. She had a very pretty and colorful cow which I had to have, so I bought it. I also enjoyed chatting with Helen and her husband. In fact, her husband gave me a good tip regarding our cow, dairy farms in the area, etc., etc.

So here is the cow which is already up on my wall:

That was all I ended up buying except some kettle corn which I always have to stock up on. I just love that stuff. I did stop by the booth of the Mind’s Eye Journals which I always look at and think about buying. They make these really neat journals with handmade paper and these really soft leather covers. I’m just not sure what I would write in them. I am always tempted to buy though. Their website is www.mindseyejournals.com. You should check them out, quality stuff. I’m going to buy one eventually.

Oh I forgot, I did buy a Coke. I was in line to buy lemonade but they were too slow and I was sweltering.

Oh, and I have to mention Hawaiian Sun Chairs. I saw their booth and was talking to them. I had never seen them at the show before but I have one of their chairs (it’s a hammock-type hanging chair) and I’ve had it outside for about 8 or 9 years. I LOVE it. It’s a great chair.  I had another hammock chair which was made of cotton and it disintegrated in about a year. These last and last. And so comfy. Buy one! I was excited to see them at the show.

All in all a good day but too hot. Here are more pictures I took today: