Craft show vendors offer variety for festival-goers

Festival-goers were treated to a variety of merchants and displays during the 37th annual arts and crafts show at the Louisiana Shrimp & Petroleum Festival.
Among the sights were an ROV display by Oceaneering, gem panning with Crystal Creek Mining and an abundance of handmade items including those by Signs for Design.
Oceaneering brought a remotely-operated vessel, dive suit and interactive simulator to the festival.
ROV techs Theodore Ventsias and Grant Henderson said the simulator is not as in-depth or accurate as their training models for operators, but it provides education for children, in a video game format, as to how ROVs operate under water.
Fifth-graders Justin Douglas and Keon Carbin, both of Morgan City, said they enjoyed the game which takes the child pilots through a course of items they must capture.
The display model is the Millenium Plus, weighing in at 8,800 pounds on dry land. It is strong enough to pick up 1,000 pounds of pipe and gentle enough to pluck a seashell off the ocean floor without crushing it, Henderson said.
Crystal Creek Mining of Long View, Texas, is operated by Fred and Gay Green. They began their gem panning business in April because they were inspired by a show about prospecting on television, Fred Green said.
A retired worker with six grandchildren, he said he was surprised by how much he enjoys watching the kids pan for rocks, arrow heads, crystals and the occasional natural diamond in the bags they buy.
“It’s sort of a Santa Claus deal,” Fred Green said. “The kids get excited finding crystals and their eyes get big, and I feel like Santa.”
Wilma and Rocky Sallee of Rogers, Arkansas, make and sell “baroque, over-the-top kind of stuff.”
The Signs for Design owners come from a construction background, Wilma Sallee said, so they weld all their own dramatic frames for signs that can then be personalized at the craft show.
In addition, they weld the yard stakes, entry stands and other design work they sell.
People often choose to have their signs personalized with a family name, quote or scripture, Sallee said.
“Often there are things their grandmother used to say that they can’t find quoted,” on a premade sign, she said, so customers turn to Signs for Design to create their treasures.
The seven-year-old company travels the country to sell their wares, with the next show in Atlanta.