Armadillo Bazaar

Just before Christmas, Jeff and I zipped down to Austin to go to the Armadillo Bazaar. (I'm just getting around to blogging about it.)

We love using our Southwest Airlines flying privileges, even if we don't get to sit together.


There is an interesting massive outdoor public sculpture in the space between the terminal and the parking garage and rental car places. I'm not sure I love it, but I love that it's there.


I think I liked it more at night.


The Armadillo Bazaar runs from 10 am to 10 pm for almost two full weeks before Christmas. It was full of tons of really great booths of art plus live music playing throughout the day. I didn't take too many picture while we were there.

But, I did snap this one of a bunch of funny faces.


We hadn't neccessarily intended to buy anything. It was just fun to get-away and browse. But several things caught out eyes and we were in the holiday spirit. Neither of us had really purchased gifts for each other, so it was super fun to buy some art to enjoy in our home together.

We started with this face made from a copper measuring cup and bottle caps.


Here it is in our kitchen. It's fun to see art in context, don't you think? I hope so, that's pretty much this whole post.


We also purchased this mosaic by artist Aly Winningham.


Years ago I purchased a solar system mobile from her. I follow her on FB and really love her style. In fact, I think I heard about the Armadillo Bazaar from her. Jeff collects tiny buddhas. They are all lined up on the ledge of the shower in our bathroom. So the new buddah mosaic joins the collection.



We also bought this piece of eco-art by Hannah and Nemo. It's made from circles cut from aluminum cans.


We chose this piece because of the little owl, turtle and polar bear faces. And the foot! It's right by the back door and the circles flutter when we open the door.


Jeff picked out the beautiful glass tray with layers of tiny bits of glass creating the tree pattern.


And here it is on our mantle.


There was a booth of artisan chocolates! These are long gone.


Near the end of the day, I said I really would like to go back to Clifton Henri's booth to buy a small print of Door Number Three. When we were in his booth earlier in the day, he introduced himself and was so engaging. I loved his door series and he told me a little about the ideas behind them.

As we looked through his work again, we decided three doors was better than one. And larger prints would be better than small. So, we've added this series to our home. We really love them so much!

This picture gives you a sense how how they look in our kitchen, but go see the images on his site. They are really incredible.


After our fill of art, we walked across the street for BBQ. I have no words for how delicious this was.


As we walked back to our car, some one told us about the Austin Trail of Lights near by. So, we just followed the crowd. There were tons of people walking. It was a beautiful night. We didn't really know what the expect and it turns out we didn't have time to enter the park before our flight home. But it was still so fun to enjoy the festive spirit ... and walk off some of that bbq.

I snapped this picture just outside the park.


As much as I enjoy all the art we bought, I enjoy it even more with the memory of all the fun we had that day.