Christmas Village Part I

This week I will be telling and showing what we found at the Christmas Village Exhibit in Birmingham last week.  This is one of my favorite Christmas traditions that we have.  It happens the first weekend in November each year at the HUGE downtown BJCC (Birmingham Jefferson Convention Complex).  It is two floors and is 220,000 square feet.  That means that about 130 of my homes could fit in there.  They say that they had over 700 vendors this year.  It felt like a lot more!

We noticed that there were a lot of new vendors this year.  The past couple of years had felt a little stale with the same vendors and not as much inventory so having new things to look at and a lot of inventory at every booth was nice. 

I did not take any pictures without having specific permission from the vendor to do so.  As we came to the end of the upstairs booths, a couple of the vendors were down-right snarky about it, so I quit taking pictures.  Later I found out that the BJCC prohibits any kind of picture taking at this event.  Seems like they would have posted a notice about that!  Of course, with everyone having cameras on their phones these days, I really don't know quite how they plan to enforce that rule.  I do understand the reason for the rule, and I do try to be careful about what things I will and will not photograph.

One of the first booths we found was Miss Gabby Gumbo, who in addition to the Etsy shop linked there, also has a Facebook page here.  Oh my goodness, this lady has come up with some great ideas.  I love the colors she uses and one of my favorites that she had was this cute tambourine man

And isn't that guitar with the record cute?

Definitely some New Orleans flavor at this booth.

Our next stop was at RandomStuff (where vintage and paper meet).  Connie Hulsey is the owner of this shop and she has done some very creative things with old children's books, hymnals, and vintage cards and cartoons.

I think these journals are my favorite item.

The clocks are cute too

As are the badge holders and jewelry.

This is jewelry she has made from old hymnbooks.

I thought she did a fantastic job with her booth, and I obviously was not the only person who thought that.  She stayed pretty busy all day.  

Next up was Debbie's Birdhouses by Debbie and Jon Thompson.  For the quality of stoneware she makes ~ hand thrown and high fired ~ her prices are quite reasonable.  These are some of the prettiest birdhouses I have ever seen and I love the colors she chooses.

I love her display.  Did you notice that she had a picture of a bird peeping out of one of the houses?!

Tomorrow I'll show you some things from a man who carves mahogany.  He made an SR-71 that will make your eyes pop!