I may look like crap, but I smell DAMN good!

My life's little pleasure is smelling good.
Yeah, I'm not hard to please.


Today was the ever-popular craft fair, the 25th Anniversary of the Bloomin' Festival here in Cullman, AL, and we had over a hundred crafters set up this time, or so I heard. It's always a very popular festival, but today, OMG. SO many PEOPLE! I sure hope all the handmade vendors did well today. With that kind of crowd though, I'm betting they had better luck than usual.

I myself purchased about 4 decadent soaps and some shea butter from the very kind folks at Sheer Pleasures Soapworks (http://www.spsoap.com/). If I might say so, I highly recommend the 'Amber Romance' and 'Orange Clove', but I'm a sucker for spicy scents. Honest to goodness, you could smell this booth before you got to it, it was so delicious!


Also, a couple of other fantastic shops to whet your pallet:

*Designs by R & R: http://www.designsbyrandr.com/ These folks make gorgeous jewelry, and seem to also be nature-inspired. They use a lot of precious metals and natural stones to achieve marvelous pieces of art.

*My Father's Woodworks, LLC: http://www.myfatherswoodworks.com/ This shop owner is actually the husband of my high school english teacher. He is a fine woodcraftsman, and makes a wide variety of tabletop items such as beautiful wooden goblets and napkin holders, even tables themselves! And let's not forget the ever-handy 'Golden Retriever'!

*Alex Fong (Chinese paper cutting): Unfortunately, try though I may, I could not locate Mr. Fong's website if he indeed has one. I see the gentleman every year at the festival, and somehow he remembered me when he saw me. He is always so excited to tell folks about his new additions to his crafts, and is always eager to demonstrate the art form. You can tell he takes great joy in what he does, and that is a rare pleasure to see. He creates fantastically detailed pictures using Chinese paper cutting, and this year added paper folding to his cutwork. Simply astounding.


If you're local and have never been to the Bloomin' Festival, what on earth are you waiting for, honey?!