Els van de Liefvoort, left, of Lawrence, browses jewelry offered by Yvonne Yost, center, on Sunday, Nov. 16, 2008, during the 31st Annual 2008 Holiday Bazaar at the Community Center.

Barbara Clark sat quietly at the Lawrence Holiday Bazaar with a goal: finish crocheting the gray hat.

“If I finish it, I’ll sell it,” she said. For nearly 15 years, she’s been purveying crafts like doilies, coasters and toilet paper holders at the annual festival. She said it’s not just a chance to profit on a hobby.

“When I make something for somebody, I like to see the smile on their face,” she said. “It makes them happy.”

About 130 vendors convened at the Community Building on Sunday to sell hand-crafted gifts not offered by big-box stores. For Brenda Giblin, this was her one-stop emporium for holiday shopping.

“I’ve covered everyone on my list at this one place,” she said. “I even got my cat a toy.”

She comes to the festival year after year, she said, for items that “you can’t find at the store.”

The handmade items embody the spirit of the festival, said Duane Peterson, special event supervisor for Lawrence Parks and Recreation.

“Considering the economy, it’s been real steady here,” he said. “There’s a lot of lookers, but depending on the item and how much they can spend, they’ll get it.

For festival newcomers like Bryan Merker, of Merriam, the Community Building was a good venue for his first art sale in Lawrence. He’s a traveling salesman of sorts; he regularly jaunts to large festivals to sell his jewelry.

“That’s the thing with being an artist,” he said. “You’ll be in a huge spotlight and then be selling things in a gymnasium.”

Merker sold handmade pendants and rings, each of them three days in the making. Some of his pendants were brilliant, shining and custom-designed. Others incorporate portraits of Barack Obama and Marilyn Monroe.

“Somebody just asked me if I’d put their grandma’s thumbprint on a piece of jewelry,” he said. “I’d never think of those things.”

Area creator Alan Theno, of Tonganoxie, was in the business of making spoons from bamboo and scrap wood. For $50 worth of bamboo, he said he created about $200 worth of spoons. He also had created spoons from “tornado wood,” tree limbs brought down when a tornado tore through Tonganoxie in 2000.

“It’s neat to have something somebody was going to throw away and make something from it,” he said.