Lake George Arts & Crafts Festival returns to Wood Park

The Lake George Arts & Crafts Festival opened this Friday, July 29 for its second year at the Festival Commons in Wood Park. The event features more than 125 juried fine arts and crafts exhibitors selling handcrafted jewelry, apparel, woodcrafts, gourmet foods, craft beverages and more.

This is a family-friendly event with bounce houses and pony rides for the children. On-site food trucks offer a variety of dining options including Thai food, wood-fired pizzas, doughnuts and ice cream. The Lake George Arts & Crafts Festival includes live music performed on stage under the dining tent. The festival, a production of Craftproducers of Vermont, runs through Sunday, July 31, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day.

Exhibitor Connie Snyder, working as Lilac Hill Designs, brought her unique upcycled wool creations to the festival. Snyder repurposes used clothing to make tote bags, backpacks, clutches and eyeglass cases. She also makes memorial pieces, items sewn from an article of clothing that belonged to a loved one that has passed. “I’ve done a lot of memorial commissions from military uniforms,” she says, and she uses each part of the uniform including the silk lining and name tags to memorialize service members.

*Wool accessories created by Connie Snyder, Lilac Hill Designs, repurposes used clothing*

Wayne Hankins, inventor of the Jubo, a four-holed flute/whistle, played cheerful tunes on his invention to attract festivalgoers as they strolled past his booth. The Jubo, says Hankins, “has the lowest learning curve of any melodic instrument in the world.” Though easy to learn — he claims anyone can learn to play the scale in five minutes — the small instrument, which sounds similar to a pan flute, can produce complex melodies. Each Jubo is sold with a lanyard so musicians may wear the circular-shaped instrument as a pendant.

Other artisans participating in the Lake George Arts & Crafts Festival include Steven B. Levine of Dayton, New Jersey who crafts hardwood boxes with locked compartments that are designed to look like books, Nurit Bland of Sew Designed who turns her fiber art into wearable jackets and shrugs, and Eileen Russell of Albany who crafts cutting boards, peppermills, bow knives and other kitchen essentials from hardwoods.

Admission to the Festival is $7 for a one-day pass, $10 for the weekend. Children aged 14 and younger are free. Metered parking ($2 per hour) is available on surrounding streets and in public parking lots. Craftproducers will be returning to the Lake George Festival Commons August 19-21 with the Lake George BBQ and Music Festival.