Fill your senses at the Stockholm Art Fair this Saturday.

Fill your senses at the Stockholm Art Fair this Saturday, July 20.  See and touch the original art from over one hundred artists.  Discover exceptional paintings, jewelry, clay, glass, sculpture, fiber, wood, leather, photography and more.

Listen to the music of talented area musicians including B. Squat Woody, Mike Quick, Patchouli, Yata, Healey & Orfield, Ditch Lilies, and Little Wing.  Check out the complete schedule by clicking here.

Enjoy the aromas from the food vendors and taste their mouth-watering offerings.  Choose from wood-fired pizza, portabella mushroom sandwiches, Thai chicken wraps, teriyaki chicken pita, freshly-squeezed lemonade, cheese curds, gyros, maple root beer, kettle corn, freshly-roasted nuts, vafflejarta with whipped cream and lingonberries, and more. 

Admission to the park is free.  Parking in the meadow is $5.  Shuttle buses are running from downtown to the park.  Bring the entire family.  The kids can have fun at the children’s activities. 

Remember to stroll through the shops downtown and find more special pieces.  Pick up delicious eats at Stockholm eateries. 

We’d love to see you again,
Stockholm Merchants 

Meet a red-haired girl who keeps horses in her kitchen…

Meet Pippi Longstocking, a red-haired girl who keeps horses in her kitchen and wins wrestling matches with the circus strongman.  Pippi has captivated today’s American children.  They find humor in Pippi’s authority-challenging ways and love the fun adventures that author Astrid Lindgren wrote.

Read aloud a story featuring Sniff, Snork, and Snork’s love interest the Snork Maiden, The Moomin characters.  Created by Tove Jansson, another Swedish author, her stories use a sly humor that will entertain you as well as the children who are listening.

Discover the tiny world deep in a Nordic forest where miniature children wear mushroom caps and have toads as friends.  Peter in Blueberry Land and other timeless fairytales by Elsa Beskow pull you into the wonderful worlds from her imagination.  Writing at the kitchen table with her six children milling about her, Elsa absorbed the energy of her happy children into her books.  You’ll find a special life to her stories and illustrations.

Pippi, the Moomins, and the miniature children of Beskow’s magical forests are classic characters in Swedish children’s literature, as popular in their home country today as they were 60 years ago when the books were first published.  At Ingebretsen’s av Stockholm, we keep these wonderful books in stock because, really, what would a Swedish store be without a volume of stories about Pippi, The Moomins, and the miniature children?

Stop by Ingebretsen’s soon, take one or all three of these characters’ stories off the shelf, have a seat by our book section, and spend some time with the creations of these Swedish authors’ imaginations.  You’ll enter a world with a bit of magic.

We’d love to see you again,

Diane and staff

Ingebretsen’s av Stockholm

Learn a new skill or technique amid the beauty of the bluffs

Relax amid the beauty of the bluffs as you learn a new skill or technique this summer.  I know that you will enjoy Running Dog Ranch located atop a bluff on an old Swedish farmstead.  I have assembled a line up of interesting classes at Running Dog Ranch Folk Craft and Learning Center that I think you will like, too.  Take a look below.   

• Travel Journal - Nature Writing:  An American Tradition,  Sat, July 13, 10 a.m. - 2 p.m.
• Birch Tree Painting,  Sat, July 20,   2 - 6 p.m. 
• Sheep to Loom - A Journey  (Adults)  Fri, July 26, 1 - 5 p.m.
• Sheep to Loom - A Simply Fun Trail (teens 12+) Tues, July 30, 10 a.m. - 12 p.m.
• Navajo Weaving Thurs - Sun, Aug 8 - 11,  9 a.m. - 4 p.m.
• Beginning Norsk Relief Carving Workshop  Fri - Sun, Aug 9 - 11
• Beyond Strumming Guitar Workshop:  Release Yourself from the Habit of Playing All Six Strings and Open Up to New Possibilities Sat, Aug 10, 2 - 4 p.m.
• Extend the Growing Season Workshop - new update!  Sat, Aug 10, 9:30 a.m. - 12 p.m.
• Build and Bake in a Portable Brick Oven Sat, Aug 17, 10 a.m. - 5 p.m.

Find out more about the instructors and fees for the classes here.

I still have openings in all these classes.  Normally, I like to get the reservations for the class two weeks in advance so that I can get the materials, alert the instructor, and prepare for the class.  I am offering you the opportunity to sign up for the Travel Journal and the Birch Tree Painting classes even though one is a week away and the other is near the two week cut off. 

If you make your reservation four weeks in advance, you will receive a 5% discount on the class fee.  If you are a resident of Bay City, Maiden Rock, Stockholm, or Pepin, you also receive a discount.  You can receive one discount per class.     

Make reservations soon for the classes you want by contacting me.

We’d love to see you,
Corrine Young
Running Dog Ranch Folk Craft and Learning Center

Enjoy the natural abundance…

We love the abundance of nature just out our door at A Sense of Place and Spring Street Inn in Stockholm.  Our yard, a Certified Wildlife Habitat, is teeming with birds, butterflies, and beautiful plants.  Up and down the street, flowers are bursting with color and fragrance.  Eagles and hawks soar overhead.  Across the Great River Road, Lake Pepin offers new sights every day.   

We want to help you enjoy the natural abundance in our backyard and yours, too.  With that in mind, we are building our stock of hands-on items for appreciating nature.  You will find birdhouses galore at A Sense of Place, all of them locally handmade of durable, natural materials.  Get a closer look at nature with our three different sets of binoculars.  Choose a 10 power, a zoom 10 - 30 power, or a 5 power for kids. 

Introduce kids to nature though a book from our selection that includes see-through pages, accompanying CDs, and other tools to capture their imaginations.  Identify wildlife and plants yourself by using one of our nature guides which cover the entire Midwest.  Whatever the depth of your reading experience, you will discover a book you’ve never seen before at A Sense of Place. 

Buy a kite featuring animals or a rainbow of colors and experience the power of the wind.  Our kites start at $10. 

Stop by, and we’ll help you find more fun in nature.  Stay the night at Spring Street Inn to absorb firsthand the wonders of nature in our backyard.  

We’d love to see you again,
Paul and Pam Larson
A Sense of Place and Spring Street Inn
Stockholm