Low and Behold! My humble Orange County Fair entry, The Beaches of Orange County, won second place in the Bead Jewelry division! I know it’s only a little local competition and all, but I’m still really surprised and happy that my necklace is Number Two. Here’s proof:
I hate my camera. I can’t change the date on it, it doesn’t have a viewfinder and it won’t let me see the pictures in order after I take them, so unless I want to sit for 10 minutes trying to find them, I can’t see if they turned out well. All things to remember when I buy a new one…
Anyway, here are some other artist friend’s entries this year:
Here’s my co-worker, Teresa’s, scrapbooking page dedicated to her mom. I wish this was a better picture (see kvetching above) because it’s really a beautiful piece of work. In fact, when I showed it to The Husband, a woman was looking at it and talked to me about how lovely it was. I was proud to say I knew the artist!
I wasn’t sure whether my blog buddy, Kim Van Der Hoeck, was exhibiting this year because she’s preggies but I was happy to find that she had 3 pieces in the Fine Arts contests. Here are two of her wonderful oil paintings.
For the last several years, we’ve had our Celebration of the Arts booth right across from Max Yamada, his wife Jolyn and their adorable Corgi, Coco. This year, Coco wasn’t with them and we were sad to find that she had passed away earlier in the year. But she was one of Max’s favorite subjects and is immortalized in many of his acrylic paintings, one of which is on view in the Fine Arts Building this year.
Besides the wonderfully air conditioned buildings, we also wandered a bit, seeing little piggies, hearing musical groups in the plaza and enjoying the wafting aroma’s of the food vendors. Here’s a booth we avoided~deep fried everything~but I think I gained 5 pounds just looking at it!
Here’s The Husband in front of a sand sculpture honoring the Santa Ana Army Air Base. Yeah, it’s a little cartoon-y, but it’s a county fair, after all…
And what’s a trip to the fair without a stop at the petting zoo? Llama’s and wallaby’s and deer, oh my!
I wish I had gotten pictures of some of the wood carving projects--gorgeous! I hope you get a chance to go to your local county fair this season. We hadn’t been in several years and I had forgotten what a fun, interesting experience it is.
So much to do, eat and see!
www.bearchick.etsy.com
www.bearchickart.etsy.com
www.bearchick.artfire.com
Here are some other favorite moments from our day: 
An "antsy" tablescape, with ants on the table and the mannequin. Take note of the "melting" plates!
Max Yamada is the artist I know from the Yorba Linda Celebration of the Arts. That's his Corgi in the foreground!
And here's Kim Vanderhoeck's landscapes. She got to go on an art trip to Italy recently. I'm jealous! Visit her blog here
A little Wallaby Joey safe in a "pouch". We saw one of these "pouches" at Sea World, too.
