We live in a digital era, where, in order to do your shopping, you don't even have to leave your house and this is just one advantage you can enjoy. We have 3D printed houses equipped with smart systems, that allow you to control everything using solely your phone, to name a few. Houses don't look like a century ago, which is a good thing and normal process, called evolution, but not everything that was used in the past is bad and outdated, some of it is still kept alive or brought back.
This year, in September, I saw a lot of good things and techniques that are still kept alive by artisans and even promoted, to get more attention. One of such thing is shingles.
This man is making shingles and I bet there are parts of Transylvania where they still use shingles to cover roofs. He captured the attention of quite a few people and I bet he even handed out some cards, which can lead to orders. One thing I regret is not asking him how much is the lifetime of such roof. He was busy, so maybe next time.
This was a very cool activity, even if you can't figure out what the ladies were doing, just by looking at the photo. So these ladies were from Hungary and their main activity is making gingerbread.
They had some amazing one, some I've never seen before, even though there's no fair or crafts exhibition without gingerbread here. Maybe those models you see in the basket are traditional in Hungary, I don't know, but they looked really good.
The reason I took several photos of these two ladies is because they were making a rope, or a thread, I don't know the exact definition and the way they did it surprised me. As you can see, they had several threads, four to be exact and were swinging those threads between each other. To do it right, you need to synchronize the moves, so they were singing a song for kids and used the rhythm of the song to swing those threads between them. Such a good idea and fun too. Today no one makes these ropes or threads manually, or very few.
These two boys were introduced to the magic of making biscuits and gingerbread. They were quite lucky as where can you have a private session with your buddy?
Here you could have a glimpse into how jewellery is made by hand. It's a fascinating world and sky is the limit when it comes to creativity.
While I'm not a fan of religious objects as my religion is very simple and we don't have any, this guy had some very interesting pins, pendants and hair clips, as well as crosses and religious texts carved on wood.
This was the stall of a furniture painter, totally taken over by these two boys. They were having fun by inspecting all the beautiful products the lady had for sale. Those keepsake boxes were calling my name and if I wouldn't have a few at home and if these were not so expensive, I'm sure I'd have bought one. She had a lot of lovely wooden earrings as well which are always tempting, but then again, I'm not the type to change my earrings every day. Lucky me. What I have is enough for me right now.
This was another stall, where I appreciated the artistic and creative value of the objects, but not more as these are not from my religion. Unfortunately no one was interested in buying any. Possible prices are high as well.
Having a chat with a fellow craftmaster while creating something can be really productive. I'm not sure if these two artisans knew each other before the fair, but they sure look like are friends now.
One of them, the man dressed in Romanian fold costume, was making these lovely wooden spooooooooooooooooooooooooons! I love wooden spoons and using them if I can but these were for decoration purposes, or for those who can afford to pay three or four times the price of a regular wooden spoon.
This was another important stop for anyone visiting the fair, for different reasons. Let's start with families with young kids, who could choose from a large variety of wooden animals. These wooden toys are coming back and have seen smart parents buying these wooden toys for their kids. Needless to say these are superior to cheep Chinese plastic toys and last a lifetime.
Then there were the chopping boards, which can't be missing from any kitchen. Too bad you have to reach deep in your pocket as these are not cheap. Last, but not least, hand painted wooden boxes, which would look really nice in my (imaginary for now) traditional kitchen.
All in all, it's nice to see people appreciating handmade and traditional items again and choosing these over what you can buy in every shop.
If you're a newbie, you may want to check out these guides:
