Gloomy Weather Didn't Set Back Allaire’s Largest Crafter’s Market

Allaire Village held it’s largest crafter’s market of the year on Sunday. More than 100 craftspeople sold items ranging from jewelry to clothes, body products, home decore, among other wares.

Attendees said they enjoyed the abundance and variety of items.

“We were fortunate to still have it today with the weather. We were supposed to have rain,” said John Curtis, Allaire’s executive director. “People have been coming in and out all day. It’s our biggest craft fair of the year.”

Despite the gloomy weather, about 2,000 people still attended according to Curtis.

Marc Dowdell, 61, a pen maker from Yardley Pennsylvania sold Heirloom Gift Pens -- pens made from historic trees.

While working at Washington Crossing State Park, Dowdell was once asked to trim a historic tree. With that bloomed his idea for making Heirloom Gift Pens.

“I saved some of the wood. It was historic because it was from the area where the signing of the Declaration of Independence occurred,” Dowdell said. “I rescued the wood -- I couldn't throw it out and years later I started to make pens with it.”

Since Dowdell negotiates with historic sites over portions of the wood there.

“I donate some of the pens back to the sites for their use fundraising,” Dowdell said.

A few pieces of history in the many pens he was selling at this event included Summerseat -- home of the two signatories to both the U.S. Constitution and the Declaration of Independence; Christ Church Burial Ground -- the final resting place of five of the signatories to the Declaration of Independence; and a pen made from the benjamin rush oak that shelters the final resting place of Dr. Benjamin Rush (who served as surgeon general in the Continental Army).

“What a genius thing to make pens from not just anything,” said Scott Firenze, a 51-year-old pipe cleaner living in Point Pleasant. “It’s amazing holding so much history in your hand by just holding a piece of a tree from back in the colonial days.”

Firenze and his daughter Carmine, 16, were both pleased with the variety the market offered.

“There is nothing junky here. Everything is nice,” Scott Firenze added.

Alyson Tremer, 31, Hazlet, took two old window frames that her husband gave her from an estate auction and made them into window paintings. She was able to transform the two frames into one a beach scene and the other wines in a kitchen.

“I have a hard time coming up with creativity (things to create) but I’m good with teaching myself,” Tremer said.

In addition to her paintings, she crafted and sold jewelry -- some made from bottle caps, called bottle cap pendants.

Also among the crafters were Dolores Moke, of Heirloom Stitches, Jackson with her hand crafted dolls and Dee Shaffer, owner and crafter of Dee’s Doggie Delights in Monroe, plus many more.

Lea Drake, 42, a stay-at-home mom from Freehold went out to the event intending to find gifts for family for the holidays, instead she found a necklace for herself.

“I bought a lovely necklace for myself and didn’t buy any gifts,” Drake said. "It’s a great place to get out and see local crafts. There is a lot of variety offered.”