Arts on the Square

Saturday me and the boys drove down to Scranton (NEPA’s largest major city center) to attend the 2nd annual Arts on the Square, which is essentially a gigantic craft fair that wraps all the way around Scranton’s Courthouse Square. The event is organized by ScrantonMade, a group that does an amazing job promoting the arts in the area and which has made some amazing strides in the last couple years.

I hadn’t known about the event before a few weeks ago when my favorite etsy store, Tiny Galaxies (who’s owner I just happen to know and love to pieces – I promise the fact that it’s my favorite is unrelated to this fact – you’ll understand when you see what I bought) posted that she was going to have a booth there this year. So we, not knowing much about Arts on the Square, decided to head down to see her figuring that after we stopped by and said hello that we’d walk around a bit, grab some brunch, and make a nice little afternoon of it.

Well, let me tell you – a beautiful afternoon it turned out to be, and I was quite impressed with the event. The weather was perfect, they had a TON of amazing venders, some great live music, and it was just a really great time overall.

The Pop Up Studio was handing out free sidewalk chalk for people to decorate the sidewalks, resulting in everything from the cute to the sublime to grace the sidewalks of the square, and there was yarn bombing on lamp posts, benches, and my favorite: the historical markers.

Two of my favorite things: yarn and history. How can you go wrong?

But anyway, onto the really good stuff: What I bought! My main intent when we went down was that I was going buy a pair of earrings from Sara at Tiny Galaxies, and nothing more, but instead of one pair I ended up walking away with three BEAUTIFUL pairs, plus some other stuff.

So I wasn’t really a good girl Saturday. But it’s okay, because my financial situation is finally looking up and I’ve actually got some money to burn… or at least that’s what I told myself.

But whatever my justification, I don’t feel bad about it. Because, well, just look at these beauties!

First these lovely Fine Silver earrings – a pair of which I’ve been wanting basically since we met Sara and I found out about the store. They’re like the perfect everyday work earring for me. Formal but still simple, and sparkly without being too super dressy. You can find similar in gold here.

Next are these awesome multi-color glitter globe earrings. These are her biggest size at about 8 mm, and these are just my absolute favorite. I have several pairs of these in my collection already, and they’re basically just the perfect everyday earring. I’m particularly pleased with this pair because they’ll go with pretty much everything and anything.

And then the last pair of earrings are these big black and gold danglies. I’ve been looking for a new pair of concert earrings for forever – it’s hard to find black earrings that really stand out and sparkle without ending up distracting to the audience – and these will be just perfect. While I definitely CAN wait for concert season to be upon us again, I really can’t wait to wear these.

Along the way as we walked around and left Sara to her sales, I also picked up two things for my office – a ScrantonMade mug and a hand painted matryoshka. The mug, I just couldn’t not – it’s so cute, I’m a big sucker for anything with the PA map on it, and ScrantonMade is definitely the kind of organization I want to support. As for the matryoshka – apparently there’s a Russian Art Gallery in Scranton! Who knew? It’s hand painted, and comes from Igor’s Russian Art Gallery (which doesn’t have a website). She’ll have a lovely new home in my office, where astoundingly, even after 4 years, I still don’t have a matryoshka. May not be astounding to anyone else, but, well, matryoshki have been a decorating constant in my life since, well, forever.

Overall, Arts on the Square was an amazing time. And I’ll definitely be stashing more money and carving out the day for next year’s event!