Iris Parsons, Rel Eerkes, Chole Quirindongo and Lucy Dahl strike a pose for a photograph Saturday at The Madrona School’s annual community Hearts & Crafts Fair.

The four girls were dressed up as gnomes at the Photo with a Gnome Booth at the fair, which also featured indoor and outdoor craft-making stations, face painting, a puppet play for young children, food and live music.

Event planner Danielle Gordon said the fair was celebrating its 20th anniversary, and recalled its start as a “tiny little fundraiser at the Grange” two decades ago.

The whimsical painted background for the gnome booth, she added, was created by a parent of one of the school’s students Friday night after the backdrop that was ordered never arrived for Saturday’s event.

“It’s coming today at 5,” she laughed.

The gnome statues, Gordon added, were found on the website Buy Nothing Bainbridge when she went looking for a few of the pointy-hat fellows to borrow.

“A woman said, ‘I’ve got gnomes!’”

She recalled the scene after she picked them up; the back seat of her car filled with eight gnomes.

“It was weird, but awesome,” she said.

(Brian Kelly | Bainbridge Island Review)