The Art Fair

The art fair was rained out.

Don't be too sad though, because it was a VERY FUNNY experience.
All in all, I would rate it one of the silliest days I have had in a really long time.
On an everyday scale, it rocked!

Let it just be known that I stayed up until 1:40 am finishing my precious cards for the fair.
YAWN!

I was up at 7:15am, packed and ready to go by 7:45am.
My friend, Dawn Peterson, picked me up about 8am, and we headed about 15 minutes up the road to the historic fort and town where the fair was being held.
We did our initial unloading and setup before realizing we did not have the awning Dawn's husband had so willing purchased the night before to keep up from getting our skin fried off by the sun.
Luckily, Holly Cook, our other card-making compadre, was still in town, and was able to pick the awning and bring it up before the actual art fair started at 10am.

The set-up was easy, and our cards were nicely displayed.
About 10:15am, the first perusers were eyeing our wares.
All of the reaction was very positive.
It was nice to see people actually be interested...and very good for our (fragile) card-selling egos.
We were even asked for a business card for someone to sell the cards in a shop (which we can't do using copyrighted stamps from Stampin' Up), but it was still a nice compliment.
All 3 of us sold a card, which was nice.

About 11:15, it started to rain.
It was a light drizzle, and we moved a few things and covered some others so that our cards wouldn't get wet in the short sprinkle that was surely going to finish soon.
Within about 10 minutes, we had praised Jeff (the awning buyer) profusely, multiple times.
And then, the true downpour began.
And the awning started to leak.
And the rain was blowing in sideways on our long-labored over cards.
We were shocked and frustrated that the weather report had not prepared us for THIS!

Dawn ran for her van, got DRENCHED in the process, and brought it close enought we could put all of the cards inside to save them from the rain.
It was a very good plan.
By the time we were done transferring them all, all 3 of us were soaked, pretty much all the way through.
But the cards were safe.

We started talking about when we would feel good about leaving the actual art fair, rather than trying to wait it out.
It didn't take too long for us to make the decision that it probably wasn't going to stop raining any time soon.
It was raining and hailing at home...15 minutes away, and the storm was headed into the mountains we were in.
And the rain would lessen for a couple of minutes and then intensify again.

We started packing the remaining soaked items (our lunches and chairs) into Dawn's van and Holly's car.
As we were huddled under the lowered awning, getting ready to fold it up, we heard the rain intensify yet again.
We were all laughing at that point, not wanting to duck out of the shelter the awning provided, yet getting dripped on nonetheless by the leaky seams that had now been drenched for over an hour.
We finally did a countdown, ducked out at the same time, and yanked the awning cover off, folded the awning legs up, and jumped into the waiting cars.

All the way down the highway, on our way back home, we laughed.
The road was running with rain run-off deeper than I had ever seen it.
There were large rocks and lots of dirt being washed onto the road all the way home.
And we were wet and cold.
2 3/4 inches of rain fell in the 3 hours that it rained.
The 3 hours that we were outside, at an art fair, unprepared for the most part, for that rain.

We decided to go to lunch...had a great time, then went back to get our product sorted and check to see what had been lost to the rain.
A couple of envelopes were casualties, but other than that, everything was ok.

We did decide an outside venue wasn't the best idea when your product could be wholly ruined by a change in the weather.
We also decided we were all game for a second go-round.
Although next time we'll have a little more warning.

I did get 43 cards made in 3 days.
That alone is amazing.
And a wee bit crazy.

I'll be recovering most of the week.