Celebrating Christmas: Stuart welcomes in the season with Mistletoe Market - Martinsville Bulletin

STUART–The Christmas season got started this weekend with several old traditions in Henry and Patrick counties. One of those annual events was the Mistletoe Market, which took place at the Stuart Farmers' Market. 

An estimated 20 vendors took part in this year's event, including Stuart resident Michele Bell, who sells fragrant soaps under the name "Soap n' Unique." 

Bell has been making soaps for about 15 years, but she decided about seven years ago to turn her hobby into a business.

“It’s fun,” she said, and “it’s my creative outlet.”

While she had bars and slivers of soap available for sale, Bell also had soaps shaped like cupcakes with decorative frosting designs on top. It was hard to discern that they weren’t real desserts.

Laughing, she said she came up with the idea for her cupcake soaps a while back upon realizing that many of the soaps she made smelled like food.

One of her favorite soaps to make contains rosemary tea tree and mint oils and layers of poppy seeds, charcoal and bentonite clay.

“I happened to like those smells, so I tried them out” together in a cake of soap, Bell said. “It’s now one of my most popular soaps.”

To be successful at making homemade soap to sell, a person must experiment with different oils and ingredients. The person also must have patience in figuring out what fragrances appeal to customers as well as in applying different layers of ingredients, according to Bell.

Some soap needs more time and attention to make than others, but Bell enjoys the work involved.

“I like to try new and unique things,” she said.

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Grover Roark (right), who makes homemade apple products, serves Tracy Minton and her 5 ½ -year-old son, Paul, at the Mistletoe Market at the Stuart Farmers Market pavilion on Saturday. 

Mickey Powell

Also for sale at the Mistletoe Market were crafts such as birdhouses, jewelry and Christmas ornaments and wreaths. An abundance of homemade food was available, too, including baked goods, jams and jellies and flavored teas and coffees.

Grover Roark, who lives on U.S. 58, said he buys between 30 and 50 bushels of apples each year. He puts some in pies and dries the others using food dehydrators. He then sells many of his tasty treats at the farmers market.

“I only use Golden Delicious,” Roark said, referring to a variety of apple. He believes they make the best pies.

By early afternoon at Saturday’s market, he had sold out of apple pies. He still had a few bags of dried apples.

“You can put ‘em in plastic bags and seal ‘em up,” and they will last up to a year, he pointed out.

Johnny Blakley’s booth constantly attracted crowds as he gave out free samples of some his homemade cheeses. They included farmer’s cheese, Greek feta cheese, Mexican queso fresco and even cheese made from goat’s milk.

Making cheese is “very detail-oriented,” said Blakley. Sometimes it takes only a few days. Yet it takes as long as 60 days when using raw milk due to federal laws for using that ingredient, he said.

All the time, “you have to watch it closely,” he said. “One false step and you can mess up your whole product.”

A retired police officer, Blakley and his wife now operate the Buffalo Creek Farm and Creamery in Germanton, N.C., near Winston-Salem.

“My wife does the milking (of the animals),” he explained, chuckling. “I do the cheese-making.”

Selling cheese is a lot like being in law-enforcement, he reckoned, because they both involve meeting and getting to know people. He enjoys it, he said.

There is no other shopping experience like the Mistletoe Market, Tracy Minton believes. The Woolwine resident and her 5 ½-year-old son, Paul, were among the many market visitors.

“I love it. I come every year,” Minton said. “I love all of the homemade swag and the wreaths.”

What makes the market special, she said, is that most of the items for sale are made by area residents.

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