A sure sign that the holidays are right around the corner is the return of the Renton Hassle-free Holiday Bazaar.

This year’s event is expected to draw between 3,500 and 5,000 visitors a day to the Renton Community Center on Friday and Saturday and it will feature more than 100 vendors.

The event is from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. both days at the community center, 1715 Maple Valley Highway.

“It’s not just a little church bazaar that’s for sure,” said Jennifer Spencer, city recreation coordinator.

Many of the vendors are from all around the Puget Sound and some even come from out of state to the bazaar. It features all kinds of holiday gifts and crafts from jewelry, clothing, accessories, food specialities, housewares, soaps and candles to yard art, books and other unique ideas.

New this year are metal and birdhouse artists and Emerald City Cake Balls.

“Those are delicious; if you don’t come for anything else, come for the cake balls,” said Spencer.

She also recommends Cheryl Faull’s Triple Berry Jam, which she called very good.

A Renton resident of 40 years, Faull has been selling her jams and jellies at the Renton Holiday Bazaar for 16 years and calls the business she gets there “tremendous.”

“It’s like a community reunion, it really is,” said Faull. “So I have regular customers that come through and I understand from the gals, who coordinate this bazaar that people call down to the City of Renton and ask if Cheryl’s Jams is going to be at the Holiday Hassle-Free Bazaar. That’s what they tell me.”

Faull looks forward to this time of year and spends September through December busily making and selling her products. Her best-seller is her wild huckleberry jam from the high altitude area around Mount Adams. She orders up about 150 pounds of wild huckleberries in August and goes to get them to make her famous products. Some berries like the Cascade Blackberries she harvests from her own backyard. Faull gathers her fruits and berries all summer long as they come into season and she prides herself on the fact that they’re all “a Washington product from the berry to the jar.” She has 12 varieties of jams and jellies.

Faull enlists help from her husband Don and other family members and enjoys being a vendor at the Renton Holiday Bazaar. It’s one of several shows she participates in.

“That show has developed a wonderful reputation and boy the customers they really come,” she said.

For more information on the Renton Holiday Bazaar, call the Renton Community Center at 425-430-6700.