Sell Your Art at Fountain Square Art Festival

36^th annual event set for Sat/Sun, June 27-28

Evanston's Fountain Square Art Festival 

Again Offering Booth Discount to Local Artists 

To help promote Evanston, Skokie, Lincolnwood and Wilmette artisans 

The Evanston Chamber of Commerce, organizer of the 36^th annual Fountain Square Art Festival, is again offering a special $100 discount for local artists for this year's event in downtown Evanston. Fest dates are Saturday and Sunday, June 27-28.

The sprawling art extravaganza is held at the intersections of Sherman and Church Streets, just steps from the eponymous Fountain Square. It's the North Shore's oldest juried fine arts fair. Over the weekend it attracts more than 40,000 visitors.

To help promote local artists, organizers are giving artists who reside in Evanston and neighboring Skokie, Lincolnwood and Wilmette a special 25 percent discount for a 10 x 10 foot booth for the weekend. The discounted cost is $300 versus the regular $400.

The fest features works in several mediums. These include paintings, sculptures, metalwork, jewelry, glasswork, woodwork, photography and mixed media.

The weekend also features art activities for kids, music and snack/beverage vendors.

Fest hours are 10:00 a.m.-6:00 p.m. A suggested donation of $5 benefits the Evanston Chamber of Commerce.

Interested local artists can find and download an application from the Fountain Square Art Festival general information website located at www.chicagoevents.com or by calling Joe Persfull at 773.584.6642. 

Evanston Named One of the Best Suburbs for Education in America!

From Patch

Evanston ranks among the country’s best suburbs for education, according to the real estate website Movoto.

The site put Evanston at No. 7 on its Top 10 list. It singles out city’s high test scores, high graduation rate and large spending per pupil.

Newton, MA tops the list, with Plymouth and Minnetonka, MN and Wauwatosa, WI representing the Midwest along with Evanston. Evanston is the only Illinois community to make the list.

The site compiled the list by assessing four criteria: student-teacher ration, money spent per year per student, high school graduation rate and GreatSchools.org rating, which is based on test scores.

From NBC Chicago

A Chicago suburb has been named one of the best suburbs for education in the country.

Movoto Real Estate has released a list of the top 50 suburbs for education in America and Evanston snagged a top spot on the list.

Researchers gathered data from more than 100 different suburbs in the U.S. using criteria like student-teacher ratio, money spent per year per student, high school graduation rate and GreatSchools.org or test score ratings.

Evanston ranked no. 7 on the list and was cited for having some of the highest test scores and a high school graduation rate of 91 percent.

The top-ranking suburb in the country was Newton, Massachusetts, followed by Plymouth, Minnesota; Ellicott City, Maryland; Minnetonka, Minnesota; and Dublin, Ohio.

The only other Chicago-area suburb to make the list was Skokie, which ranked at no. 12.

Dec. 22: Last day to ride the Santa Train

Dear Readers, I am so sorry that I only got hip to the Santa Train yesterday but if you're organized, you can do one last ride today! Take the Yellow line from Howard and ride the train round trip into Skokie, click here for the schedule.

For the last three years, the CTA has created a Santa Train that rides around all the various CTA lines at designated times. You can board the train and see Santa and his reindeer, enjoy holiday music and get candy from elves! The inside and outside of the train is completely decorated, to include joke Christmas ads on the inside of the trains.

Today is the last day to ride so if you miss it, be sure to make time to go next year. The Santa Trains starts riding the CTA lines after Thanksgiving and goes until just before Christmas. For the full schedule and background info, click here.

Below is a short slide show of the Santa Train pulling in and out of the Dempster Street station last night.

From www.transitchicago.com:
About the train
The Chicago Transit Authority is getting into the holiday spirit with our popular Holiday Train! Santa and his elves will ride the train passing out candy canes and season's greetings.

The spectacular train is an amazing sight - during the daytime and at night. The outside of the six-car train is adorned with holiday seasonal images. Thousands of twinkling lights outline the shape of the train and windows, with even more lights running across the tops of the cars.

Interiors of the cars are decked out with thousands of multi-colored lights, red bows, garland, and red and green overhead lighting. The hand poles are wrapped to look like candy canes.

As the train pulls into each station, Santa waves to the boarding passengers from his sleigh on an open-air flatcar carrying his reindeer and decorated holiday trees.

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Thank you for reading my blog "Evanston Newbie", a project that I am using to chronicle my new life in Evanston. Do you have favorite Evanston bakeries, bike shops, events that you can recommend? Send me an email at thelisadshow@gmail.com and I will post my review on this blog. -Lisa Degliantoni