Theme Challenge - FAIR

[Cassel]

 

The theme for January is FAIR. Even though there might not be too many fairs in winter (for the northern hemisphere), we might still have photos or stories to share, whether we visited the fair recently, or decades ago. You should have some photos of those visits! and if not photos, you might have some stories to include along with stock photos.

Remember that you can also share older layouts you already made. You don't have to create a brand new one!

Let's go!

Post your project in the gallery.

[Anne Lamp]

Back when I was in my late 20s The horse club I belonged to learned to square dance on horseback.  I did that with them for quite a while but then life got to busy for me to make the practices.  One day I got a call from one of the other riders pleading with me to take someone's place in the horse square dance exhibition they had been asked to do at the County fair.  Problem was it was that same day and someone had gotten sick.  It was quite  a challenge to get my horse cleaned up and myself ready for that.   With the help of some of the other riders, I did OK except for the time my horse fell after making a quick turn on wet grass.  The horse went down with me jumping off as he fell, he jumped right back up unhurt with me jumping back on as he got up. (it must have been  the adrenaline spike that helped me do that and luckily he was not a very big horse).  We finished the exhibition with no other problems. What an unforgettable experience that was. I don't have any pictures of that day.

[Corrie Kinkel]

This is a difficult theme for me, because we don't have fairs in the English/American tradition. Different components of a fair are standalone events here. So I'll go with the amusement that is part of a fair with-merry-go-rounds etc. which is called Kermis in Dutch.  But I'll have to make something, so I'll be back.

[Cassel]

10 minutes ago, Corrie Kinkel said:

This is a difficult theme for me, because we don't have fairs in the English/American tradition. Different components of a fair are standalone events here. So I'll go with the amusement that is part of a fair with-merry-go-rounds etc. which is called Kermis in Dutch.  But I'll have to make something, so I'll be back.

That would be great. FAIRS can take different forms depending on the part of the world so we can even learn something about how they are in your area.

[Susan Ewart]

This is from the Scrapbook Basic Course right after I took my very first bootcamp.  Although this isn't at a fair, it's at a museum (Burnaby Village Museum in Burnaby, BC) which features a small 1920's village.  Along with many people in the Vancouver area I donated money to restore this carousel.  My name is even in a book of donors at the museum.  Canada Post did a set of stamps in a booklet shaped like a carousel.  Featuring vintage carousels across Canada, this white horse (upper left photo) was featured on the cover of the stamp booklet and on a stamp inside.  It says it's from C.W. Parker Carousel No. 119.  I'll have to look it up.  I meant to make a new layout showing the stamp as well.  It's far down the to-do list though.

And I see I have some crazy shadows going on in the brads (why so many of them? 😅) and absolutely no shadows on the title.  It's funny to revisit the old layouts.  

Edited January 2 by Susan Ewart

[Julie Magerka]

35 minutes ago, Susan Ewart said:

This is from the Scrapbook Basic Course right after I took my very first bootcamp.  Although this isn't at a fair, it's at a museum (Burnaby Village Museum in Burnaby, BC) which features a small 1920's village.  Along with many people in the Vancouver area I donated money to restore this carousel.  My name is even in a book of donors at the museum.  Canada Post did a set of stamps in a booklet shaped like a carousel.  Featuring vintage carousels across Canada, this white horse (upper left photo) was featured on the cover of the stamp booklet and on a stamp inside.  It says it's from C.W. Parker Carousel No. 119.  I'll have to look it up.  I meant to make a new layout showing the stamp as well.  It's far down the to-do list though.

And I see I have some crazy shadows going on in the brads (why so many of them? 😅) and absolutely no shadows on the title.  It's funny to revisit the old layouts.  

Oh wow! It's great seeing those vintage carousels. Takes me back.

I have looked at some of my early layouts and think JEESH, how bad is that? And yes, you have many brads in the layout! 😉

[Julie Magerka]

This is a topic I can get into, when I have some time. The Fall Fair for small villages was a very big deal when I was growing up. It was mostly agricultural in nature (livestock, tractor pulls, all that sort of stuff), but as kids we got right into the spirit and had so much fun. Oh, the ferris wheel and the carousel, and the cotton candy.....

[Corrie Kinkel]

I told above that we don't have fairs in the Anglo-American tradition, but we have the "Kermis". A kermis is a kind of Amusement Park, but it is mobile and travels around the villages and cities and comes mostly once a year. It can be very big, for instance Tilburg, a city in the south of the Netherlands has the biggest kermis of Europe, but where I live it is a much smaller affair. This year we passed by the one in our Marketsquare because I wanted to take some photos to use in the P52 challenge, otherwise I wouldn't have had any for this theme.

I started out with a template by Alinamaria, but in the end only used the mask. Because a kermis is very colorful (and loud) I used the freebie tickets from Carole as is and took my colors from them to color the dingbats at the bottom -DB Amusement Park. Cotton candy came from Cleanping, teddy is by Marisa Lerin, title font is Christmas Crafter and the other font is Shine Bubble Deco. 

 

Edited January 4 by Corrie Kinkel
for some reason I had 2 layouts

[Rene Marker]

@Corrie Kinkel That sort of sounds like what we call a circus. Maybe not exactly the same but the circus moves to different places.

I once saw a train for a circus passing through my town. I only saw the end of the train and the cars were mostly flat bed and on them were trucks and trailers with the Ringling Bros Barnum & Bailey Circus logo. There were also cars, pick-up trucks and 4-wheelers on some of them. I did a blog post (this was back in the day that I blogged) about it. 

Hooked on Havanese: Ringling Bros Barnum & Bailey Circus

For what it is worth, a fair even though located in the same spot every year, the rides and stands for games are brought in by companies that travel to the fairs. Back when I was in high school, a friend and I had a crush on one of the guys working in the tent that had pinball games. We talked to him every time we went during the week. He let it slip that he would be at a county fair in the next county to us the next week. We made a trip down there to see him. The fairs around here in the various counties are always on different weeks with no date overlap. At the end of the last night, they pack up and move to the next one which is usually only a 30 minute drive then set up sometimes to open the very next day. Some times they do get a whole day to set up.  Most of the concession stands are private owners that travel the fair circuit during the summer. We'd see the same ones every year.

Sadly, I have no photos of going to the fair or even a circus. That wasn't somewhere you took a camera when I was a kid... I was too busy trying to win goldfish.

[Susan Ewart]

6 hours ago, Rene Marker said:

@Corrie Kinkel That sort of sounds like what we call a circus. Maybe not exactly the same but the circus moves to different places.

I once saw a train for a circus passing through my town. I only saw the end of the train and the cars were mostly flat bed and on them were trucks and trailers with the Ringling Bros Barnum & Bailey Circus logo. There were also cars, pick-up trucks and 4-wheelers on some of them. I did a blog post (this was back in the day that I blogged) about it. 

Hooked on Havanese: Ringling Bros Barnum & Bailey Circus

For what it is worth, a fair even though located in the same spot every year, the rides and stands for games are brought in by companies that travel to the fairs. Back when I was in high school, a friend and I had a crush on one of the guys working in the tent that had pinball games. We talked to him every time we went during the week. He let it slip that he would be at a county fair in the next county to us the next week. We made a trip down there to see him. The fairs around here in the various counties are always on different weeks with no date overlap. At the end of the last night, they pack up and move to the next one which is usually only a 30 minute drive then set up sometimes to open the very next day. Some times they do get a whole day to set up.  Most of the concession stands are private owners that travel the fair circuit during the summer. We'd see the same ones every year.

Sadly, I have no photos of going to the fair or even a circus. That wasn't somewhere you took a camera when I was a kid... I was too busy trying to win goldfish.

thanks for the link and link inside your blog post.  Your post was interesting to read.  And I spent sometime looking at the website.  I can see why they called it the Greatest Show on Earth.  It looks spectacular.

[Ann Seeber]

2 hours ago, Susan Ewart said:

thanks for the link and link inside your blog post.  Your post was interesting to read.  And I spent sometime looking at the website.  I can see why they called it the Greatest Show on Earth.  It looks spectacular.

Just a little history: B&B used to have animals in the show; horses, elephants, lions and tigers. Rene's blog said she thought she detected cages on the train. They were sued for animal endangerment and had to agree to eliminate them from their shows. I helped with getting petitions signed and legal assistance.

"The circus, once famous for its animal acts, decided to eliminate all animal performances due to growing public concern over animal welfare. Investigations revealed that tigers and other animals were subjected to harsh training methods and stressful living conditions.

In response to these concerns and changing public sentiment, the circus closed its doors in 2017 and later made a comeback in 2023 without any animals. This transformation marked a shift towards more humane and compassionate entertainment."

[Susan Ewart]

4 hours ago, Ann Seeber said:

Just a little history: B&B used to have animals in the show; horses, elephants, lions and tigers. Rene's blog said she thought she detected cages on the train. They were sued for animal endangerment and had to agree to eliminate them from their shows. I helped with getting petitions signed and legal assistance.

"The circus, once famous for its animal acts, decided to eliminate all animal performances due to growing public concern over animal welfare. Investigations revealed that tigers and other animals were subjected to harsh training methods and stressful living conditions.

In response to these concerns and changing public sentiment, the circus closed its doors in 2017 and later made a comeback in 2023 without any animals. This transformation marked a shift towards more humane and compassionate entertainment."

I put the heart because they stopped using animals and also because it looks like they came back strong again.  

[Rene Marker]

5 hours ago, Ann Seeber said:

Just a little history: B&B used to have animals in the show; horses, elephants, lions and tigers. Rene's blog said she thought she detected cages on the train. They were sued for animal endangerment and had to agree to eliminate them from their shows. I helped with getting petitions signed and legal assistance.

"The circus, once famous for its animal acts, decided to eliminate all animal performances due to growing public concern over animal welfare. Investigations revealed that tigers and other animals were subjected to harsh training methods and stressful living conditions.

In response to these concerns and changing public sentiment, the circus closed its doors in 2017 and later made a comeback in 2023 without any animals. This transformation marked a shift towards more humane and compassionate entertainment."

That was 2007 when I saw the train and the animals were still in the circus at that time. Isn't it interesting how things do change though? Animals were always a big draw for the circus goers for so many years. I remember an episode of "Murder, She Wrote" that took place in a circus setting. They even had elephants in the storyline.

Not to mention the fact that the 2 biggest circus companies joined together due to declining interest. Ringling Brothers was one and Barnum & Bailey was the other.

[Corrie Kinkel]

15 hours ago, Rene Marker said:

@Corrie Kinkel That sort of sounds like what we call a circus. Maybe not exactly the same but the circus moves to different places.

I once saw a train for a circus passing through my town. I only saw the end of the train and the cars were mostly flat bed and on them were trucks and trailers with the Ringling Bros Barnum & Bailey Circus logo. There were also cars, pick-up trucks and 4-wheelers on some of them. I did a blog post (this was back in the day that I blogged) about it. 

Hooked on Havanese: Ringling Bros Barnum & Bailey Circus

For what it is worth, a fair even though located in the same spot every year, the rides and stands for games are brought in by companies that travel to the fairs. Back when I was in high school, a friend and I had a crush on one of the guys working in the tent that had pinball games. We talked to him every time we went during the week. He let it slip that he would be at a county fair in the next county to us the next week. We made a trip down there to see him. The fairs around here in the various counties are always on different weeks with no date overlap. At the end of the last night, they pack up and move to the next one which is usually only a 30 minute drive then set up sometimes to open the very next day. Some times they do get a whole day to set up.  Most of the concession stands are private owners that travel the fair circuit during the summer. We'd see the same ones every year.

Sadly, I have no photos of going to the fair or even a circus. That wasn't somewhere you took a camera when I was a kid... I was too busy trying to win goldfish.

The Kermis is just about the entertainment and a circus is completely different; the only similarity is that both move from spot to spot. Barnum & Bailey is known over here too, I think they once had an European branch as well. Nowadays the circus has only very few animals, like trained dogs, but there are a lot of acrobatic performances, juggling, clowns, magicians, trampolines etc. It is a long time ago I went to a circus and I have no photos of it.

[Cassel]

For once, I have a layout that I can use for this challenge! You might recognize it as it is from the Basic Scrap Course. Although it was not an actual FAIR (because it was not changing location), it had similar rides.

Photo taken at Rainbow Valley, in Cavendish, PEI, in 1996 (or maybe 1997?)

[Ann Seeber]

I did that layout for great-grand Sonya, granddaughter Alicia and her boyfriend Andrei, at the New Jersey State Fair (Formerly, the Sussex County Fair but it has expanded to be the official State Fair. The difference is that this fair always had a top-quality horse show as part of the draw.)

Edited January 6 by Ann Seeber

[Michele]

On 1/5/2025 at 3:47 AM, Ann Seeber said:

Just a little history: B&B used to have animals in the show; horses, elephants, lions and tigers. Rene's blog said she thought she detected cages on the train. They were sued for animal endangerment and had to agree to eliminate them from their shows. I helped with getting petitions signed and legal assistance.

"The circus, once famous for its animal acts, decided to eliminate all animal performances due to growing public concern over animal welfare. Investigations revealed that tigers and other animals were subjected to harsh training methods and stressful living conditions.

In response to these concerns and changing public sentiment, the circus closed its doors in 2017 and later made a comeback in 2023 without any animals. This transformation marked a shift towards more humane and compassionate entertainment."

Years ago, I was hanging out with a friend after having had a couple (or three) drinks when we suddenly saw elephants walking down the main road and I thought someone had spiked my drink. The circus was in town! It was quite a sight, but I'm so glad animals are no longer used.

[Julie Magerka]

This challenge has slid into the background b/c there's so many activities going on here. I wanted to give it a shot, started it a while ago, and then left it to simmer. Now it's done (more or less) and I'm posting.

The Merlin Fair was an agricultural event that started in the 19th century in our rural area where most folks were farmers. By time I was going there, it was about the rides, the food, and the big school parades where dozens of small one-room schools in the area participated. At the Agricultural Hall, there were contests for everyone, including handwriting and drawing for the youngsters.

The fair ended in the 1980s due to lack of support and high costs. As happened in so many rural communities, sadly.

[Corrie Kinkel]

1 hour ago, Julie Magerka said:

This challenge has slid into the background b/c there's so many activities going on here. I wanted to give it a shot, started it a while ago, and then left it to simmer. Now it's done (more or less) and I'm posting.

The Merlin Fair was an agricultural event that started in the 19th century in our rural area where most folks were farmers. By time I was going there, it was about the rides, the food, and the big school parades where dozens of small one-room schools in the area participated. At the Agricultural Hall, there were contests for everyone, including handwriting and drawing for the youngsters.

The fair ended in the 1980s due to lack of support and high costs. As happened in so many rural communities, sadly.

The colors you chose are great for the oldy worldly feel of the photos! 

[Susan Ewart]

5 hours ago, Julie Magerka said:

This challenge has slid into the background b/c there's so many activities going on here. I wanted to give it a shot, started it a while ago, and then left it to simmer. Now it's done (more or less) and I'm posting.

The Merlin Fair was an agricultural event that started in the 19th century in our rural area where most folks were farmers. By time I was going there, it was about the rides, the food, and the big school parades where dozens of small one-room schools in the area participated. At the Agricultural Hall, there were contests for everyone, including handwriting and drawing for the youngsters.

The fair ended in the 1980s due to lack of support and high costs. As happened in so many rural communities, sadly.

I would love going to this fair.  The background is fabulous and my favorite photo is the horses.  I've always been fascinated with heavy horses.

[Ann Seeber]

14 hours ago, Julie Magerka said:

This challenge has slid into the background b/c there's so many activities going on here. I wanted to give it a shot, started it a while ago, and then left it to simmer. Now it's done (more or less) and I'm posting.

The Merlin Fair was an agricultural event that started in the 19th century in our rural area where most folks were farmers. By time I was going there, it was about the rides, the food, and the big school parades where dozens of small one-room schools in the area participated. At the Agricultural Hall, there were contests for everyone, including handwriting and drawing for the youngsters.

The fair ended in the 1980s due to lack of support and high costs. As happened in so many rural communities, sadly.

Very effective way to spotlight older photos with no color. I must try this...

[Mary Solaas]

15 hours ago, Julie Magerka said:

This challenge has slid into the background b/c there's so many activities going on here. I wanted to give it a shot, started it a while ago, and then left it to simmer. Now it's done (more or less) and I'm posting.

The Merlin Fair was an agricultural event that started in the 19th century in our rural area where most folks were farmers. By time I was going there, it was about the rides, the food, and the big school parades where dozens of small one-room schools in the area participated. At the Agricultural Hall, there were contests for everyone, including handwriting and drawing for the youngsters.

The fair ended in the 1980s due to lack of support and high costs. As happened in so many rural communities, sadly.

@Julie Magerka Beautiful layout. Yes the pale blue-grey background paper with the silhoutte (sp?) of the ferris wheel  works well to focus on the photos; I love the pink and blue cotton candy - reminds me of fairs when I was a child especially, but even as an adult also; and I love your fairy dust with sparkles and stars; the different arrows you used also. Wonderful!