The Bird & Barn sale held in Black Fox Farms is a show with gift items, crafts, upcycled and vintage pieces. Proceeds benefit the nonprofit Project Free 2 Fly.More Info
FESTIVALS THIS WEEKENDOCT. 27* Bird & Barn Sale: Black Fox Farms, 2724 Varnell Road, Cleveland, Tenn., 10 a.m.-9 p.m. today, $10; 27 vendors at barn sale to benefit Project Free 2 Fly. www.projectfree2fly.com.OCT. 28-30* Burning Leaf Festival: Cloudland Community Park on Lookout Mountain, Cloudland, Ga., 8 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturday, food and craft vendors, music, cakewalk, costume contest, games and pumpkin painting. 706-844-4468.* Japanese Maples Colorfest: Gibbs Gardens, 1987 Gibbs Drive, Ball Ground, Ga., 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday-Sunday, enjoy changing color of maple trees at botanical gardens. 770-893-1881.* PumpkinFest: Courthouse square, Dayton, Tenn., noon-9 p.m. Friday, 9 a.m.-9 p.m. Saturday, free; food and craft vendors, outdoor movie, pumpkin contests, costume contest. www.mainstreetdayton.org.* St. Vincent dePaul Craft Fair and Chili Cookoff: Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic Church, 501 S. Moore Road, 8 a.m.-2 p.m., free admission, small charge for chili. 423-503-1915.OCT. 31* Harvestfest: South Seminole Baptist Church, 1201 South Seminole Drive, 5:30-8 p.m., wear your favorite costume to free family festival with food, games, inflatables, door prizes, candy. 423-698-2782.
This fall craft season may be winding down, but there are still some big events coming up – one of the best happening today, Oct. 27, in Cleveland, Tenn.
The third Bird & Barn sale opens at 10 a.m. at Black Fox Farms with a mixture of gift items, crafts, upcycled and vintage pieces. Bird & Barn is not only a fun event; it raises money for Project Free 2 Fly.
“For us, this barn sale is a unique event to fundraise for our nonprofit and also spotlight and support other local creatives in our communities,” says organizer Hailey Johnston. “All proceeds from the event go directly back into our organization. People love that they are not only attending a wonderful event but also supporting a local nonprofit.”
Project Free 2 Fly supports unemployed women who are searching for a way to enter the workforce but feel they can’t do so successfully because of issues such as homelessness, unwed pregnancy, single parenting or lack of education. Free 2 Fly teaches them to sew, raising their self-esteem while teaching a marketable skill. Products sewn by these women will be among items for sale at Bird & Barn.
Two reasons alone to make the drive to Cleveland: Karen Guethlein’s Brick Kiln dishes and DW Designs T-shirts.
If you’re a fan of Food Network’s Pioneer Woman, Ree Drummond, check out Guethlein’s handmade, hand-painted dishes. Drummond ordered 25 designs in these 3-inch clay pieces to sell in her new mercantile, which fans of the show know the Pioneer Woman just opened in her Oklahoma hometown. Although Guethlein can’t sell the same designs, the ring dishes she is bringing are the same style.
Guethlein’s work, sold under the name The Brick Kiln Handmade Pottery, is also carried in Anthropologie stores and the Sundance catalog.
In addition to several one-of-a kind pieces, the potter says she is bringing “a huge amount of my initial-monogram ring dishes and quite a few Christmas dishes.” She’s also running a Bird & Barn special selling the 3-inch dishes for $10.
“I have so much respect for what Hailey’s doing with the ladies to get them back on their feet. That’s really important to me,” says Guethlein. “The show is in that beautiful barn, and it’s such a great thing for a ladies night out.”
No need to explain DW Designs to Vols fans. Residents of Rocky Top know DW Designs is the company whose team spirit and state pride T-shirts are sold in Alumni Hall in Knoxville.
Entrepreneurs Dan and Dawn Wilson launched their company with a box of 25 T-shirts they took to a festival in Englewood, Tenn., in 2014. Now their shirts are in every city where there is an Alumni Hall – 24 stores across nine states. Dawn Wilson is a native of Cleveland and graduate of Bradley Central High School.
Dan says they are bringing coffee mugs, three hat designs and some decals to Bird & Barn along with new apparel.
“We’ll have new designs: Our limited-edition Tennessee Fall long-sleeve shirt that features TN on the front, and on the back it says ‘Bonfires, Hayrides and Football. My kind of Tennessee Fall.’ That’s one we released a month ago. We’ll sell through them and won’t do them again this year. We’ll have our Tennessee Born & Raised shirts, our hound dog sweatshirts, and we are bringing back our best-selling ‘Orange on Saturday’ sweatshirt.”
‘ Two days of community fun are planned in Dayton, Tenn., on Friday and Saturday, Oct. 28-29, as the small town celebrates its annual Pumpkinfest.
Vendors open around the courthouse square at noon Friday, with activities beginning at 4 p.m. that include a Punkin Chunkin contest in front of the courthouse at 5 p.m. That day’s fun wraps up at 7:45 p.m. with the screening of “Hotel Transylvania 2” in Centennial Park.
The fun resumes Saturday at 9 a.m. with the Muddy Pumpkin 5K mud run on Market Street, a car show from 11 a.m.-2 p.m., pumpkin-pie eating contest and a chili cook-off at 3 p.m., costume contest at 4 p.m., and trick-or-treating at downtown merchants from 5 to 7 p.m. Interspersed throughout the afternoon will be cloggers and musical acts lasting until 9 p.m.