More than 31 art vendors were uptown Mount Vernon for the annual Lincoln Highway Arts Festival Saturday, Sept. 21.

The festival, held by Mount Vernon Area Arts Council and the Mount Vernon -Lisbon Community Development Group takes numerous volunteers to assist.

Bands Laid Back Band and Asking for a Friend provided live music at the festival during the morning and afternoon.

Cornell College’s Cole Library started the morning off with a craft at the kids table of butterflies. Children would color their butterflies on sheets of paper and cut them out. Grace Chamberlain-Rowray, director of the library, helped then mount them on a straw and wooden pedestal. Children would hold the wooden stick and then slowly pull down on the plastic straw to give the butterflies up top the illusion of flight.

Sue Coleman and Sarah Fitzgerald helped children design and decorate their own flags as the craft for the noon to 2 p.m. hour.

Kim Wolfe with Fairy Under the Moon had a craft exercise of making fairy wands from 2 to 4 p.m.

Mount Vernon art students were among the booths selling items at the festival on Saturday. Ellia Oesterle, a first year student with the program said she loved the vibe of the whole festival.

“There’s great live music and people out here supporting artists,” Oesterle said.

The arts club was selling some of their artwork to help offset costs for a coming trip to visit galleries over in Omaha, Neb.

Oesterle said her favorite medium to work with is acrylic paints, with a second being graphite pencil.

Dance Arts Iowa students held a brief performance outside of First Street Community Center in uptown Mount Vernon.

Also roaming about during the day were life-size puppets of a cat and troll.

The day kicked off with Mount Vernon’s poet laureate reading a poem as well about the Lincoln Highway that she read at the dedication of the panels at Lincoln Highway last year.