Guests who attend Sturdivant Hall’s second annual Artisan Christmas Fair can expect more vendors in more places on the grounds for this years fair, “but we’re maintaining the high quality of crafts,” Patty DeBardeleben, the fair’s organizer said.

The Christmas fair, which will be Saturday, Dec. 1 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., serves as one of Sturdivant’s many fundraisers.

“The general public has no idea how much it costs to keep this place going,” DeBardeleben said, noting that she hopes people will come, “just to support our local crafts people and to enjoy Sturdivant Hall.”

Another purpose of the fair, DeBardeleben said is, “We’re opening the Robinson building.”

The Robinson building, she said, is new structure that’s on the parking lot close to the Carriage house. Inside there is a large meeting room that can be rented for club or business meetings, lunches and caterers can use it when they’re having big functions on the yard outside.

“It’s a multipurpose building that was constructed to do all of those functions plus the back end of it houses all the yard equipment and the upstairs houses our archives,” DeBardeleben said. “So it’s a wonderful new facility, and a lot of people are just not aware that we even have it. We thought that by getting people over there for the craft show, they’d know that it’s available.”

This year vendors will be selling crafts both inside the house and in the new Robinson building. The fair will host approximately 30 vendors and all different types of goods will be represented.

“We made a special effort not to be overloaded in any one category,” DeBardeleben said. “We have some of the really well-known crafts people from the area represented. And we have some really creative new items that I don’t think a lot of people have seen.”

Each of the vendors was invited by invitation, in an effort to have a diverse range of crafts with a balanced number of vendors in each category.

Guests can expect to find vendors selling hand-painted Christmas ornaments, hand-crocheted scarves, different types of jewelry, pottery, paintings, jellies, carved wooden items, Christmas greenery and more.

The gift shop will also be open, and there will be a door prize from the gift shop that people can register for.

DeBardeleben said her hopes for Saturday’s fair are, “just having a lot of people who come and have a good time and buy lots of gifts.”