Sample the homemade Jamaican Scotch bonnet pepper jelly over crackers with cream cheese or warm brie.

Inhale the freshest locally grown basil, thyme and rosemary, and meander through stands of richly hued orchids and bougainvilleas.

It will help divert your mind from your disappearing IRA and 401(k) accounts while shopping smart this holiday season by buying handmade arts and crafts, produce and vegetables at local bazaars and festivals.

Just as local farmers begin planting in October, this is also the season that religious congregations and other community groups begin holding bazaars around the county.

It's for a good cause: Proceeds from the festivals help pay for programs to help schools and the needy.

Organizers are already lining up vendors to create a rich variety of offerings, such as Peruvian wool shawls, Murano glass jewelry and quilts that convert into pillows.

Helen Gage of West Perrine loves to hunt at the bazaars for crafts. She collects embroidered and crocheted aprons, handkerchiefs, dolls, fabric pigs and teddy bears -- including one with a leather nose and shell teeth.

''Crafts are becoming to me a lost art and I think mainly because of computers and technology have taken a lot of it away,'' she said.

To entice her and other crafts-lovers, many festivals are expanding their offerings.

In Cutler Bay, Our Lady of the Holy Rosary Catholic Church is adding an antique car show and farmer's market to its 32nd annual Fall Crafts Festival.

Never mind the church worships out of its banquet hall after its main church was torn down because of structural problems.

Chairman Charlie Davis said the congregation has worked hard to make the festival special.

''It's really an event to get the community out and together,'' he said.

''Everything is handmade or hand-decorated,'' Davis added, promising ``high-quality, handmade gifts at reasonable values for Christmas.''

The Our Lady of the Holy Rosary Fall Crafts Festival will be one of the season's first festivals and takes place 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday at the church, 18455 SW 97th Ave.

Here's a sampling of other festivals.

• • • 

In North Miami, 86-year-old Alice Marcou has been busy making an afghan and other original crafts, as she does every year for the Holiday Fair at First Church of North Miami Congregational.

She's also embroidered Thanksgiving placemats with ''give thanks'' stitched in and made a latch-hook rug with a wooded scene to add to the other crafts, ornaments, wood carvings, homemade breads and pies and other donated items to be sold.

''I can't give money to the church too much, but I figure what money I can make it's my donation,'' Marcou said. ``I always have three or four items in the works.''

''You can't believe how pretty they all are,'' organizer Joan Quinn said of Marcou's work, adding: ``We just really have a huge fair.''

The First Church of North Miami Congregational Holiday Fair will be 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Oct. 25 at the church, 1200 NE 135th St. Call 305-891-5286, or go to www.firstchurchofnmucc.org.

• • • 

Miami Lakes used to have a fall arts festival, but after the town incorporated, it fell to the wayside about four years ago, said Barbara Baron, a graphic artist who then served on the town's cultural affairs committee.

A member of Miami Lakes United Methodist Church, she's now seeking vendors to add an arts and crafts dimension to her church's popular fall festival complete with pony rides and music by local dance group Corazon Colombiano.

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