Special to the Aroostook Republican
The cafeteria and the gymnasium of the Caribou High School were filled with tables dressed in linen and with craftsmen during the 35th annual craft fair last Saturday and Sunday. Wares varied from hand-painted ornaments made out of frosted glass to crocheted outerwear to homemade candies.
Contributed photo/Amanda Greenfield
Exhibitor Sandra Hare, right, has been making and bottling her own skin care products since the 1970s. A longtime school nurse for SAD 70 in Hodgdon, Hare’s homemade lotions and balms are made of natural materials such as goat milk, flowers and beeswax.
“It’s fun,” said jewelry designer Lacey Brown of her workmanship. Brown began crafting as a girl when she saw a wire-wrapped Bengal bracelet in a book that she wanted to recreate. She began making earrings in 1968 while she was in high school and together with a friend sold them at beauty salons. Brown left off long enough to enter the workforce at Burrelle’s, and then at Video Monitoring Services in Presque Isle, but when her branch closed she took her severance and returned to the art. Now she runs a store called Attitude! in the Presque Isle mall where she vends tooled silver jewelry set with sea glass and semiprecious stone.
For many of the artisans that gathered at the school, crafts are not only a hobby — they’re also a supplementary source of income. Artificer Sandra Hare works as a school nurse at SAD 70 in Hodgdon and sidelines making skin care products for men, women and children. As a young nurse in the 1970s, Hare says she scrubbed her hands with Phisohex between patients. The chemical, which is no longer manufactured, stripped away natural oils and severely damaged her skin. At the time, she was living with her father, a husbandman who ran a potato and dairy farm.
“One day I just went out to the barn and got bag balm out from under my father’s milking to hydrate my hands,” said Hare. “It got me thinking about what I could do.” Hare’s first product was a cocoa butter mango butter shea butter hand and foot balm that she still makes today. Her line has also expanded to include aftershave, deodorizing powders, sugar scrubs, perfumes, lip balms, soaps, facial masques, shampoos and oils. The products are all made of natural farm products such as goat milk, flowers and beeswax.
For 27 years, Hare harvested beeswax and honeycombs from her own cultivated beehives to craft the merchandise, and though she sold her farm two years ago, Hare continues to use wax she stockpiled from those days. “They’ve dug beeswax up from tombs,” she said, “and it’s just as pure as the day it was buried. It’ll last for thousands of years.”
The fair was dismantled at four o’ clock Sunday afternoon and coordinators took down the red and yellow balloons tied to the showcase stalls. Vendors filed into the parking lot carrying their crafts and loaded them into their cars. When everything was taken apart, attendees all agreed that this year’s fair was an enormous success, and that there will be high hopes for next year.
Aroostook Republican photo/Barb Scott
Life was a whirl-wind for Lianne LaPierre of Limestone, top right, as she took a turn in the Cash Cube at the 35th annual Arts and Crafts Fair in Caribou last weekend .
While the chapeaus created by Christie Peron, formerly of Caribou, created an instant eye-catching burst of color as shoppers entered the Caribou High School last weekend to peruse the wares of over 200 vendors participating in the 35th Annual Arts and Crafts Fair.
Betty Wright, left and Margaret Kimball were all ready to sell warm, colorful knitted items fit for all ages during the two-day event.
