2013 Fair Wrap-Up

As you know, the deRosiers love the county fair!  We visited three different fairs this summer, entered in two, and I judged at one.  Between the three of us, we entered 16 craft items (including our Pinewood Derby cars), 7 baked goods, 1 collection, and 1 live contest (Trevor's owl-themed tablesetting).

By far, Trevor was the big winner.  He got a Judge's Favorite for his Pinewood Derby mouse and third place in the tablesetting contest.  He got first place for his koala puppet, button-eye owl, and his paper mouse.

 

In fact, every single one of the twelve craft items Trevor entered received first place.  I have tutorials up for how to make them all under the "Children's Crafts from A to Z" tab at the top. Many of his projects were made from recycled materials (cardboard tubes, glass bottle, etc), which meant that he ended up winning the Sweepstakes Award in recycling for the second year in a row!

Trevor had one other entry, his Lego minifig collection.  To enter a collection, you have to organize and label your items and then write about how you got started and what makes the collection special.  Trevor put a lot of effort into organizing his minifigs and writing about them... which earned him his final first place ribbon!

 

Because I am a county fair judge, I am ineligible from entering categories I judge (not only at that fair, but at my own county fair and all other fairs as well).  So I can't enter any sort of arts & crafts... except the few things I don't judge, like fiber arts or jewelry.  Since I actually made a piece of jewelry this past year, I entered it.  I got second place for my bracelet. 

The rest of my entries were baked goods.  I'm not sure what I was thinking, but I entered five items this year.  Steve entered two.  Try to imagine what our kitchen looked like with the two of us baking a total of seven different cookies, breads, and cupcakes on the same day!  It took quite a bit of coordination to make sure each of us had the oven when we needed it.   

So how'd we do?  Steve got a second place for his delicious flaxseed white machine bread.  I didn't enter in the machine bread category, so there was no rivalry there.  But we both entered drop cookies... as did a lot of other people.  My Orange Dreamsicle cookies took third and Steve's chocolate-dipped chocolate chip peanut butter cookies didn't place.

My Clove Snaps took third in their category.

 

My cupcakes didn't place, which didn't surprise me.  The cake part was good, but the frosting was a touch too sweet.

My lemon bread did exceptionally well - not only was it first in the "Other Breads" category, but it won Best of Division for all the breads!  The blueberry coffeecake to the left of my lemon bread?  Trevor's first grade teacher made it and won first place in the "Speciality Breads and Muffins" category.

 

My final entry was in the "Any Other Cookie" category.  I entered no-bake Candy Bar Cookies. Not only did they win first place, but they won Best of Division for cookies!  What a surprise!  The Best of Division rosettes were not displayed with the entries, so I didn't even know I'd won until this week when I picked up our entries and saw the little BoD on the judging card!

 

I'm sad that the 2013 fair season has come to an end for us.  Can't wait til 2014!