Farmer's Market/Craft Show......

We went to a Farmer's Market/Craft Show the other day in a place called Gravenhurst.  We've been to Gravenhurst before and I will share more photos from there; but in this post I wanted to talk about selling home made crafts.

As many of you know I have done that with my sewing, so I know how much work is involved creating your masterpieces to sell.  I also know first hand, that if you were to charge for all your time, plus materials in creating your items, no one would want to buy them at crazy price.  So I do appreciate it when items are priced fairly.  Finishing off your items to a highest standard is a must in my books, as it's a very competitive market out there.  They must look as professional as possible and I must say there were a couple of vendors at the market where the finished product needed a bit of polishing up to bring it up to standard!

Now onto things I was impressed with.

RedBeard Yarn.  A super nice guy and I just loved all his colours.  The majority of his yarn is $20 a skien, I think he said the mohair was more?  

He told me he is having a giveaway, I am guessing on Instagram?  His Instagram link is here

This hat was knit with his dyed yarn that he calls Skittles.  He didn't have any left in stock.  I was very tempted to buy some yarn, but I haven't done any knitting in ages.  I am sure if I look around I will find some yarn in the house.  However, yarn is like fabric; you can't have enough!!

This lady lake glass/pebble pictures.  The quality was a super, and she does custom orders.  Reflections In Stone.

This lady's Instagram page is @earthen_obsession  I really loved her platters.  You can see more of her items there. And yes, I did pick up the poppy, as everyone knows I adore poppies.  I think it was a brooch?  I talked to her for a bit, as our daughter did a pottery course through parks and recreation and was telling her about that.  I loved the glazes this lady did.

Finally I loved this lady's products and plan on buying some closer to Christmas.  I was very taken with the Fruit Loops soap, and the Unicorn Poop soap...LOL  Here is her Instagram link where you will see more of her products.

If you get a chance check out this people all deserve our custom!

Back again

I honestly think I have nothing to talk about most days.  I lead a very boring life, just doing the same thing day in, day out.  So I always think what can I say?  So I guess I do a few posts, then take a mini break?

What's going to be on everyone's mind here in Southern Ontario this week is the weather.  We are under a heat wave and it's stinking hot and humid.  However on the weekend it was cooler, so hubby and I had a drive over to a village called Creemore.  Now I know I have talked about it before on my blog.  Here is a post from 2009.    They have a Farmer's market on a Saturday and so wanted to have a wander around that.

First a cup of coffee at the Bank Cafe.  When I walked into the cafe, I had a mini panic attack with the number of types of cups of coffee you could order.  Brought back flashbacks of being in the UK.  No I don't want a Flat White, I just want a normal cup of coffee.  The lady behind the counter was super nice, and we got drip coffee and added our own milk (me) and half and half (dh).

Now one vendor I fell in love with was Bloom and Spade, because they had bucketful's of ranuculus, which is a favourite flower of mine.  You can read more about growing ranuculus here.

Aren't those colours just gorgeous?

As it is our wedding anniversary this week, I treated myself to a bunch of their flowers.

Although beautiful I felt they were a little expensive at $25 a bunch.

I will say though they are holding up despite the heat, and they do look pretty.  The pink peony is also a show stopper.

The only other thing I bought was some lettuce greens from this vendor; which at only $3 a bag was a good deal.

I popped them into my Tupperware Fridgesmart and this is what they looked like two days later.

There was enough in that package to make salad for the two of us over two days.  I dressed it in a Balsamic Vinaigrette from Kraft, and added some cherry tomatoes and creamy feta.  Never bought creamy feta, and won't again.  We were not too keen on it.

So there you go something different from me.  I will probably be doing a couple more posts this week, as I do have a couple of other things to talk about which may be of interest to you.

For those of you who are suffering with this heat, hang in there, I see the forecast will be a little cooler next week.

I got a good telling off, #2 carrots and other stuff

Everything I am going to talk about happened on Sunday, however as I had already prepared Monday's post, I had to wait until today to tell you all about it.

First of all who told me off.......this little fella did:

Why, because I decided to fill the bird feeder when he wanted to feed. I mean he wouldn't shut up while I was filling the feeder, and as I said to him, he would get a better meal if he left me alone for a few minutes, as I was filling up the feeder with a variety of seeds; but on and on he went.

On Sunday we had to go to a Funeral Visitation (a Funeral Visitation, in the United States and Canada, a funeral custom where a mourner visits the deceased person's family and views the body lying in the casket, either at a funeral home or church. ) It was for one of dh's friends mother who had just passed away. She was the double of my Nana when she died, quite eerie.

We had to go past Holland Marsh and I saw a couple of signs for #2 Carrots ideal for Deer, Cattle and something else, can't remember what the something else was. So me and dh were discussing the fact that we didn't know what the difference was between a #1 carrot and a #2 carrot. On the way back, I remembered I needed some carrots so we called in at a farmer's market at Holland Marsh, and in there was these huge bags of carrots. Too many for us, so I picked up a 10lb bag for $3.49. Anyhow, I asked the lady what was #2 carrot and she said they were carrots that got broken in the washing machine's and were not good enough for the main grocery stores. I asked how much the bag's in the store were and she said $5, and the bags weighed between 40 to 50lbs each. Bargain or what? However I just couldn't see me and dh ploughing through a 40 lb bag of carrots before becoming utterly and totally sick of carrots. By the way, does anyone know if there are #3 carrots?

Although this is a crappy photo, here is what they look like:
I also took this photo as I couldn't get over how much they were charging for bunches of greenery, and people were buying them!!

Now I am not a big fan of those fashion magazine, like Vogue or Flaire. Anyhow, dd sent some magazines up to me via ds, and one of them was Vanity Fair, which I would never purchase in a month of Sunday's. That was until now. It was the September '09 edition and boy was it interesting, I read a very interesting but scathing post on Ruth Madoff. They had articles on Farrah Fawcett, and Michael Jackson and lots of other interesting articles. I must remember to ask dd to keep anymore she gets. It turns out the people who lived in the condo before them didn't bother to cancel their magazine subscription and never left a forwarding address. They send all over mail back to sender, but keep the magazines!!!

Busy day on Saturday, doing nothing!!!

Well not exactly nothing, but not getting anything much done around the house.

We headed to Creemore first thing as we had to pay a deposit for the stairs. They have a Farmers Market and we popped by, but I have to say I was surprised at the prices, they were pretty expensive. I know the produce was organic, but paying $5 for a bunch of organic carrots was a little high if you ask me. I did pay $4.50 for a loaf of garlic, chive and cheese bread, and yes it was yummy.

There was a British lady selling home baked goodies, including scones with strawberry jam and cream at $2 per scone??? As dh said to me, you should do that and I agree. I had a home based baking business in England, and I love baking, so I may look into this.

I called in at the Curiosity House Books & Gallery to purchase the September book club book, "The Secret Scripture," by Sebastian Barry It looks like an interesting read.

I am still plowing through "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle," by Barbara Kingsolver. It's not a lighthearted read and you do need to be concentrating on the book as you read it. I have just read the chapter where she talks about Genetic Modification of the seeds, and how 6 companies control 98% of all the world's seeds, and how important heirloom seeds are. Which actually makes sense, as nothing tastes better than local homegrown fruits and vegetables, and the flavour of an heirloom variety of a fruit or vegetable has a completely different taste to a mass produced fruit or veggie.

We came home and had lunch at home, then popped into one of the towns to go to Home Hardware, dh's home away from home!! Plus I had to go to No Frills to pick up a few groceries. When we got home and I had unpacked the shopping, we then went to the other town. This time I wanted to go to Canadian Tire to get a canning pan and jelly bags, as I want to try and make Blackcurrant Jelly. I need to do something with these blackcurrants, as its a waste to just leave them on the bush.

When we got back from there, friends popped by to pick some raspberries and have a visit. They brought a coffee cake with them which was nice and we had a catch up. Infact the dh is going to help us with the stairs, which will be a great help. Me and the dw picked some raspberries for her. I really enjoy their company, and they are a pleasure to be with.

So all in all we had a lovely day, and dh rested his shoulder, but we didn't achieve a lot around the house. I do know Sunday will be completely different as we have a lot planned for the day!!