Picnic at the Hillwood Estate, paint a portrait of your favorite rapper, and more.

Crafty Bastards, the City Paper’s annual arts and crafts show, is on for this year, though it will take place at a different time, in a different place and for a different cost of admission.

When Mayor Vince Gray announced last week that he was ordering D.C. police not to inquire about immigration status during routine stops and operations for minor offenses, members of the District’s immigrant community loudly cheered him on. But many others aren’t as pleased.

Who doesn’t like a fair? There’s little better than that first time you make your way onto the grounds of the festival — scents of fried food and pie hit your nose, the ubiquitous laughter of children a wonderful aural prelude to a day spent scarfing cotton candy and funnel cake while riding the Ferris wheel as the sun goes down. We’re big fans of the Montgomery County Agricultural Fair that takes place every summer (and is but eight days away), but wouldn’t it be nice if the District had its own version of this summertime tradition?

“Steak in a Sac”? Flickr contributor Maryland Route 5 has been taking some fantastic photos of the Arlington County Fair over the last couple of days. But it was this one which really caught our eye, if only for the pure amount of meats slathered in artificial cheese or stuffed into casings on offer at this particular stand. If you haven’t gone to indulge in your share of internationally-styled flesh and fries, the fair…

One of my favorite summertime activities growing up was going to the local county fair, petting all the smelly farm animals, cheering for the pot-belly pig races, stuffing my face with funnel cake, and then losing it all on whatever super-spinny ride barely passed the safety inspection that year. We’re lucky enough to be near two big fairs — the Arlington County Fair ended last weekend, but the Montgomery County Fair, in Gaithersberg, is open…