From now through December, people will find area school gymnasiums, community halls and church basements packed with good foods, concessions and hundreds of homemade items for the fall craft bazaars. (See related listing of local craft bazaars.)

For 26 years, Pinedale Elementary School has hosted its annual bazaar as a benefit for the school's assorted projects.

In her second year of organizing the event, Amy Rietveld has 49 crafters setting up their booths on Friday night for the 8:30 a.m. opening on Saturday, Nov. 3. Fifteen crafters wait patiently on a call list to fill in for any sudden cancellations, she said.

"We only accept handcrafted items," Rietveld said of the booths that will fill Pinedale's gymnasium, library and hallways.

Rietveld's food committee of volunteers has tweaked its menu of morning and lunch food items, adding chili dogs along with the bazaar's famous chili. Homemade caramel and cinnamon rolls will be available to keep hungry shoppers happy for their early- or mid-morning breaks.

Serious shoppers will find jewelry, baby items, paintings, woodworking crafts, soy candles, bubble shirts, purses made from records, pottery, rugs, toys, Christmas ornaments, seasonal objects, pop-top belts and more.

Judy Nielson has set up her craft booth of elegantly decorated eggs and crocheted doilies at Pinedale for 13 years. She first started out with just one card table.

"I started out using chicken eggs," she said, holding a delicate shell ornament painted yellow and decorated with gold trim and pearl seed-beads bordering the openings.

Inside the hen's egg, a tiny model of the marionette Pinocchio, complete with thread-like strings, stands in his room next to a small chair, window and mirror. Influenced by her grandmother's eggshell craftwork, Nielson has started decorating large goose eggs and even larger emu eggs, each elegantly framing nativity scenes.

Over the years, Nielson has created pillows, toy bears and even leatherwork, tooling designs into billfolds and purses. Lately, she has started putting together jewelry. This year's booth also will feature an assortment of baskets that she makes using pine needles, willow branches, birch bark, sumac and cattails.

"I do well at the craft shows, but it's more of a hobby than a living," she said.

As bazaars go in Rapid City, Pinedale's fame rests not only upon its authentic handmade crafts and food concessions, but also on its hundreds of pies.

Last year, the school had sold out its 231 pies by 11 a.m.

"It's amazing all the creativity and the love that go into these pies," said Terry Tobin-Rezich, affectionately known at the bazaar as the "Pie Lady."

She said the many of the school's expert bakers include the recipe with the pies. The more unusual pies, such as the rhubarb, pecan and cranberry-apple, go first, and lemon meringue pies sell fast, too.

Even with these quick sales, there are hundreds of pies to choose from, she said.

"There is every kind of pie imaginable," Tobin-Rezich said.

Volunteers set up two tables to showcase all of the pies, which are sold by the slice or by the entire pie plate. Since so many pies sell, it involves all of the parents in the school.

"It's so fun, so wacky," Tobin-Rezich said of the annual bazaar. "We've developed friendships over this. We work hard, but we have fun doing this."

If you go

What: Pinedale Bazaar

When: 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 3

Where: Pinedale Elementary School, 4901 West Chicago St.

Admission: Free

Other: All booth spaces are filled, but a waiting list is available. To get on the waiting list, call Cathy at 394-1805.