A Trip and an Art Fair

My absence over the past 5 days has been due to an amazing road trip we took this weekend.  We took our first family of four road trip back to Kansas.  It was so fun spending time with our friends and our kids in the town where the Husband and I "came of age".

On Sunday we went to downtown Lawrence and they were having an Art in the Park Celebration!  There were hundreds of vendors and artists showcasing and selling their wares.  I left my camera in the car which was parked like a hundred blocks away so unfortunately I didn't get any pictures, but I collected business cards from each of my favorites to show you.

My ABSOLUTE favorite vendor was Emily Hamblin from Textile Couture.  She had the cutest set up.  Brightly colored empty frames, scrap fabric folded up in cute little cubby towers.  And that is just the extras!  Her bags and t-shirts are AHHHMAZING!  Her etsy shop isn't set up yet, but this was her first show.  She currently sells her shirts and bags at Au Marche, a European market downtown.  Dang I'm kicking myself for not having my camera!!!!  My friend Sarah bought one of her bags and here is a picture she took of it.

Emily thinks of ALL the details...instead of using boring tissue paper to fill out the bag, she used old cellophane bags filled with all her scrap strips and then she sews them up!  How stinkin' cute is this?!?

I LOVE Emily and I wish that I could have splurged and bought myself one of her totes or one of her sweet scrappy appliqued t-shirts, but I'll just have to wait until she has her etsy shop set up!

The Green Goat is a screen printer extrodinaire!  She has beautiful all organic and dye free screen printed children's clothes.  She uses images of intricate animals on beautifully dyed fabrics.  Here are my favorites from her shop.

Michael Williams of Metal and Nail Art has the most original art work I have seen.  He uses nails of various shapes and sizes to create 3d images.  It is stunning really.  I saw them from far away and could barely believe my eyes when I got close enough to see that they were nails!  Here are some of my favorites from his website.

Jerry Ann Dowdle of Terran Jerran is the up-cycling QUEEN!  Everything she makes is made of old or damaged clothing.  Her bibs caught my eye at the fair and as I got closer I had to look at them I realized they were made from old t-shirt sleeves!  Unfortunately Jerry Ann doesn't have any of her bibs on her etsy so you'll have to take my word that they were awesome.  Maybe she will be expanding her shop because she had sooo many things in her booth.  She made these gloves from an old cashmere sweater.

Thats enough for 3 posts!