Country Living Fair Happiness

After spending three days at the Travis County Expo Center standing on the concrete selling, wrapping, rearranging, packing, and socializing, I thought I would be exhausted and drained. Instead, I found working at the Country Living Fair to be an incredibly energizing experience from which I gained new friends, lifelong memories, creative ideas, a few fun finds, some new skills, a plethora of photos for blog posts, and plenty of wholesome calories from pumpkin cookies and rhubarb nut bread.

I just can't thank Karen enough for giving me this opportunity to help in her space at the show. I had a blast working with the owner of Vintage Designs, her wonderful husband Brent, her patient niece Nancy (who answered my millionith question of "Hey Nancy, how much is _______ [insert some rusty tractor part]?"), and her crazy friend Cheryie (who, at one point, stood up from her cashier chair, starting dancing, and sang, 'I like to move it, move it...').

I admire so much about Karen: her vision, design skills, eye for repurposing, desire to stay affordable, and, most of all, her genuinely sweet-natured caring personality. I learned that her favorite word is happy; she had a coffee mug with the word printed on the front, she created a cool sign with just that word (it didn't last long in the booth), and today we snuck out to the show barn for some shopping and she bought a silver ring with the word 'happy' engraved on it. That very word describes her to a T. And her happiness is contagious - shoppers left content with their treasures and her crew was a happy bunch of hard-working and fun-loving people.

If you are ever near Burnet, you must check out her awesome displays in Cheryie's antique mall, Finds. Special shout out to Cheryie for making sure every customer left with my card, telling them, "That young blonde over there blogs about us since we don't do much with the computer. You should check out her blog!" That brings me pure happiness. So does the fact that I don't have to say the word 'cloche' anymore; I still think clo-shay sounds better, but I finally was able to say the correct pronunciation after day 2.

Thank you all for reading and enjoy these pictures from Karen's space at the show. I sure hope Country Living comes back to Austin next year!  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Check back soon for lots more pictures from the Country Living Fair!

Have a chic week,

-Sarah