Northwest Flower and Garden Fest, Part 2: The Market

There are so many fun and interesting things to buy in the garden show market. I am always most attracted to "yard art", arts and crafts pieces that can be displayed in the garden. The truth is we don't need any more, so we try to restrain ourselves, but it's fun to look.

Here are some of the highlights, the most photogenic, or the most fun.

 We usually look at everything first, which takes hours, and take a photo of things we might want to come back and buy. We really liked this steal Green Man, and were going to get it, but we talked ourselves out of it when we couldn't decide where we would put it. 

 Besides, we spent plenty of money at the next booth, tools. Kris, who wasn't going to buy anything, came home with this pair of ratcheting secateurs. 

 And Tom, with my encouragement, bought this telescoping tree trimmer, to help keep him off of ladders.

 The blown glass is always tempting, but expensive, which is why we make our own glass flowers. 

 Getting ideas for a bigger faux stained glass project. 

Fancy glass flowers.

Aren't these just the sweetest little elf babies.

 Furniture made out of live edge slabs of beautiful wood were a hot item at the show. Combined with dark resin, these are "River Tables".

 I love the Rusty Birds, rusty or colored, but we already have a bunch of the rusty ones, so we just visited them here. 

We put some in old windows, like this, and we hang them on the trellis on our garden deck.

 These birds are the creation of a master woodcrafter, who does exquisitely detained work. 

 A detail of a table top. 

 This was just decoration at the Butchart Garden booth. 

 I thought of blog friend Peter when I saw these head pots, not to be mistaken for pot heads. 

 One of our favorite craftsmen creates these Green Men and gargoyle faces based on actual English designs. 

 I always check to see what's new at the Nature's Art booth. These are pins made of copper plated real bits of nature. I already own two pieces. 

 BIG bugs,

 and little bugs, made out of fused glass.  We already have a bunch of these too.

 I am always awed at the ingenuity of the machinery art. 

 We liked these "Good Karma Flags". We bought the blue set, second from the top. We're hoping for good karma in our garden when we host several big events this summer. 

 There are lots of food booths too. This is "gourmet licorice". No thanks. But I did get some yummy samples of other things. 

 Apparently macrame is making a comeback?

What we bought: Tom's tree trimmer

 A small green man

 that will join several others we already have. We have room for one more!

 This cute chick holding secateurs, because I liked it, and it was only $3.00. 

And the bargain of the day, these Felco secateurs, that we found in the Vintage section of the show, all grimy and grungy. They were $10.00. I lost my good pair, and new ones cost $45 to $55. Cleaned up and sharpened, they are good as new. 

I will have at least one more post of the NWFGFest. There were actually plants for sale too. :-)