While mother nature threatens to rain this one out again (boy, last year was a soaker), the 2nd annual Parkdale Arts & Crafts Fest is not backing down.

The festival takes place this weekend (July 14 & 15) from 12-7pm in Parkdale's Town Square (Queen West & Cowan) and features live music, a beer garden, arts exhibitors, crafts vendors, a sidewalk sale and even a "kids zone" with all kinds of activities for the cute and underaged.

All this for the bargain Parkdalian price of... FREE.

(Full schedule after the jump!)

Music --

Saturday July 14th

2:00 Sarah Teitel (singer/songwriter)
2:30 Pan Fantasy (steelband)
3:45 Dysfunktional (horn band)
4:45 The Shovels (rowdy country rockers)
6:00 Justin Rutledge (alt-country rocker pictured above)

Sunday July 15th
1:30 Omchok Gompo (Tibetan folksinger)
2:00 Kim Jarrett (folk-blues)
2:30 SOMA (rock n roll)
3:30 Jack DeKeyser (electric blues)
4:45 Julie McGregor (jazz vocals)
6:00 The Spoons (80's New Wave sensations... or are you forgetting?)

In the Kids Zone --

Located in the parking lot of the Parkdale Library, activities look to be:

- face painting
- chalk drawing
- mural painting,
- Origami-making
- book reading
- colouring
(and, apparently, other surprises)

The zone will be open from 12-6pm.

Over in the Arts & Crafts --

More eclectic than the music line-up, is the arts line-up:

- Caricatures
- Ceramics
- Clothing
- Clothing/Pillows
- Digital Imagery
- Drawing/Painting
- Drums/Bongos
- Fashion Design
- Fibre
- Furniture (Hand painted)
- Glass
- Handbags/Totes/Accessories
- Henna Tattoos
- Holistic products
- Jewellery
- Knitting
- Mixed Media 3D
- Native Jewellery
- Painting/Native Art
- Paintings
- Paper Mache Masks
- Paper Sculpture
- Photography, cards, pins, magnets
- Print Making
- Sculpture
- Sock Monkeys
- Stationery Items/Fashion Accessories
- Stickers
- T-shirts
- Wooden Sculpture

*phew*

I'll be around exhibiting my photography and will have some blogTO Parkdale Urban Maps on hand if you want to do a little exploring of the neighbourhood. Between you and I, I'll probably have some blogTO buttons for the taking too. Shhh.