Holiday Fair Gift Guide: For the Home

We are so excited about all of the Christmas shopping we'll do this weekend at the Holiday Fair, and we hope you're putting your shopping list together after seeing our gift guides. Here's one featuring all of the great gifts you'll be able to find to create a more handmade home. Prints and originals by Emily Jeffords / Hand lettered posters by Paige Elizabeth Designs / Ceramic trivet by Crave Studio / Soy candle by Mercy Verity

Hand turned muddlers by Slab / Hand stamped flour sack towels by The Hiber Fiber / Felted terrariums by Once Again Sam / Pet teepees by LoveLane

Holiday Fair Gift Guide: Part 2

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! We know as soon as the dinner plates are cleared tomorrow, you're going to start strategizing your holiday shopping. Have fun out there in the Black Friday madness (those of you who choose to participate). But remember, those truly memorable, meaningful gifts come from real people...people like our Holiday Fair artists. As you're planning your gift giving, consider these two new gift guides to help you find the perfect treasures for the people in your life.

 FOR HIM:

Skinny Straight Jeans by Billiam / Bowtie by The Cordial Churchman / Anchor Bracelet by Maritime Supply Co. / Tent and Trail Pullover by Dapper Ink

Shave Soap by The Herb Garden / Hand-thrown Mugs by April Schwingle / Sketchbooks by Shed Labs / Hand-turned razors by Slab.

 FOR HER:

Collar Necklace by Lily Pottery / Cameos by Once Again Sam / Feather Pendant by Crave / Hand-dyed Necklace by Spectrum

Embroidered Napkins by The High Fiber / Yarn Skeins by Merciful Hearts Farm / Hand-lettered Notecard by Paige Elizabeth Designs / Brick Feathers Clutch by Auspicious Miss

Holiday Fair Gift Guide: Part 1

If you're looking for unique and one-of-a-kind Christmas gifts this year, our Indie Craft Parade Holiday Fair can help! Featuring handmade goods from 29 artists, there's something for everyone. Starting with stocking stuffers and gifts for the little ones on your list, let us make a few suggestions to get you started!

Stocking stuffers clockwise from top left: handkerchief/scarf from Dapper Ink / Leather keychain from Billiam Jeans / Recipe cards from Ink Meets Paper / Sketchbook from Shed Labs / Ceramic cloud magnet from Crave Studio / Soaps from The Herb Garden

Gifts for the Little Ones clockwise from top left: Canvas crown from Lovelane Designs / Not-so-magic wands from Slab. / Boy's necktie from Cordial Churchman / Baby spoon from Block & Hammer / Baby booties from Pogoshop /

Featured Sponsor: Squarespace

Have you ever wanted to make a website for your artwork, your wedding, your business, but lacked the technical skills to make it happen? Or perhaps your looked into hiring a web designer but found it too pricey for your project. Well, despair no more. We'd like to introduce your new best friend: Squarespace.

Squarespace makes it simple for anyone to build an incredible website. With their beautiful templates, your portfolio, restaurant, or blog will shine. Their integrated commerce makes online shopping a breeze, and managing inventory and print packing slips is so easy it's fun. The list of perks keeps on going, including free logo design and top-notch customer service.

Squarespace is designed for creative entrepreneurs, and their commitment to quality shows in everything they do. We're so glad to partner with Squarespace for the 2015 Indie Craft Parade festival!

Try out Squarespace for free! Make a beautiful website and see what happens next.

Featured Sponsor: MailChimp

One tool we frequently use that makes our lives easier also happens to be a company who actively supports creative events across the country like Indie Craft Parade. It’s our friends at MailChimp!We like to seek out sponsors whose services are valuable and relevant to our artists and fans. And we also like to share tools we use to make our organization more efficient. MailChimp is both of those.

If you receive our Indie Craft Parade or Makers Summit newsletters, then you’ve seen MailChimp in action. (And if you’re not on the list, you can sign up at the bottom of our sites!). MailChimp makes communicating via email so much easier.

They also provide a set of great Resources for beginners, whether you're selling items online, a nonprofit like us, or just getting started sending emails. For those already familiar with MailChimp, be sure to look into the many ways you can integrate your MailChimp account with other services you use regularly like Facebook, Twitter and some eCommerce platforms!

While you're at it, be sure to let MailChimp know you appreciate their support of events like Indie Craft Parade.

2014 Artists Announced

We are excited to announce the 2014 list of Indie Craft Parade participants! Our fifth annual festival will feature 80 artists — 33 new and 47 returning. Mark your calendars for September 12-14 and come see us at the Huguenot Mill at the Peace Center. We know you can't wait to start shopping, so go check out the complete list on our website, and start making those wishlists!

Featured Sponsor: Big Cartel

One of the newest sponsors to join The Makers Summit this year is Big Cartel, another partnership we are really excited about! Big Cartel has been around since 2005, and handles behind the scenes shopping functionality for all kinds of beautiful online shops. One of the biggest benefits Big Cartel offers is the ability to host your shop on your own site, fully customized. They also have very reasonable flat fee pricing, beginning with a free plan that you can try out and see if it works for you and your products.

One of the pieces from The Big Cartel Shop

If you're thinking about opening an online shop soon and want to know what options are out there, you'll definitely want to hear our Makers Summit panel about this very topic. We'll have representatives from Big Cartel, Square Market and ScoutMob discussing various methods of selling online, and answering attendee questions about getting the most out of your shop.

Another reason that we love Big Cartel is their support of independent artists. Initiatives like their Field Guides help artists tackle issues like copyright, taxes, and making your shop better. These efforts are perfectly in line with our plans for The Makers Summit, so we're excited to join forces and tackle these things together next month.

If you haven't already, grab your Makers Summit ticket and come see what else Big Cartel has to offer!

MailChimp: Featured Sponsor

MailChimp has been one of our biggest supporters from day one, and we're pretty big fans of theirs as well. They are a sponsor of the 2014 Makers Summit! A few months ago, we finally had the opportunity to visit their Atlanta offices. One of the first things we saw when we walked in was this amazing embroidered front desk! We knew we were in the right place.

MailChimp has a reputation of supporting creative and small business ventures like ours. So it seemed fitting that their front desk would be a giant example of craftsmanship.

We got to explore the offices with our friend Marco, and meet a few of the people that make MailChimp tick.

We were especially impressed by the 3D printer station for employees!

If you receive our Indie Craft Parade or Makers Summit newsletters, then you've seen MailChimp at work. (And if you're not on the list, you can sign up at the bottom of our sites!). MailChimp makes communicating via email so much easier. And they provide a lot of Resources for beginners. Here are a few to get you started:

MailChimp for Online Sellers MailChimp for NonprofitsMailChimp for Bloggers and even, a coloring book for kids!

We know you'll enjoy working with Freddie just as much as we do!

Featured Sponsor: Etsy

We're so glad to have Etsy as an Indie Craft Parade sponsor this year! The Handmade Marketplace has been helping designers and makers sell their goods online since 2005. Their site has also been extremely instrumental in helping the handmade movement gain traction. Earlier this year, our team got to visit their Brooklyn headquarters and it was just as awesome as we expected. Outside Etsy headquarters.

Etsy shares our love for artists, so this weekend, they will join us alongside Spoonflower as a co-sponsor of our Artist Meet & Greet Breakfast. Etsy staff will be on hand throughout the weekend to conduct shop reviews and host a special educational workshop for our artists!

If you're not familiar with Etsy, be sure to spend some time looking around their site. They offer quite a few resources and tools to help artists and to make it easier for people to find handmade goods. Some of our favorites are Shop Local, the Seller Handbook, and their blogs.

Many of our participants sell their handmade goods on Etsy and we use a few of the Etsy tools (like treasuries) to share their items before the show.

One of this year's Indie Craft Parade treasuries.

If you want to know more about Etsy or get involved locally, be sure to check out the South Carolina Etsy Team. This is a great support group if you’re an Etsy seller or would like to be. Online, the team posts great tips for selling and getting the most out of Etsy. You can join this team if you’re an artisan “living in South Carolina who maintain an Etsy shop containing a minimum of 5 items…and who participate in group discussions and/or activities” Visit their page for more details.

Volunteers needed!

Indie Craft Parade is only a month away, and we need your help to spread the word far and wide! This Saturday, we'll be hanging Indie Craft Parade posters throughout Greenville, and we've got several ways you can get involved:

1. Bring a friend and meet us this Saturday at 10am in front of The Peace Center, at the corner of Main and Broad Streets. Together we'll cover downtown.

2. Take posters to another area, near or far. We could use your help reaching other parts of Greenville, or nearby cities. If you can help, posters will be available for pickup at Dapper Ink.

3. Download and print your own poster to hang at your desk, in your dorm room or your place of work! Or email it to friends and family members.

4. Spread the word with or without posters! Tell everyone you know about Indie Craft Parade and the upcoming festival.

PoWhen you see this year's posters, you'll notice another one of our wonderful sponsors, Graphics Now. Graphics Now has donated poster printing for us several years now, and they never fail to impress us with their quality and turnaround time.

Whether it's local businesses like Graphics Now or our volunteers, we are incredibly grateful for the ongoing support of our organization and our mission. We couldn't do it without you!

Featured Sponsors: Robojuice & Andrew Ramos

Earlier this year, we launched a brand new Indie Craft Parade website to replace the original site launched in 2010 — a lifetime ago in Internet years.

From the beginning, we felt that the Indie Craft Parade brand should reflect the quality of work our artists are producing. We worked with local web designer Andrew Ramos and development company RoboJuice to create and launch a new site that would better accomplish this goal.

Andrew helped us plan out how we could restructure and simplify, then worked through several iterations of our new design. He created a look for us that was fresh, functional and unique. Focusing on smaller blocks of content allows the site design to remain flexible and interesting as our needs change.

Here's our old site:

And the new one:

The end result not only raises the bar, but it displays our information in a creative and original way that readers can engage with. We love how it reflects the colorfulness and the spirit of Indie Craft Parade. The new design also allows us to showcase handcrafted elements, like original illustrations by Cory Godbey as well as photos and video of our past events. But the new design is just the first part of the process.

Our next step was to find a developer who could make Andrew's design function beautifully. And that's where our new friends, Kevin and Jeff at Robojuice come in. Robojuice is focused on people and process.

From their mission: The personal attention we give our clients is to help them flow through our process in order to meet their expectations. Web can be intimidating to some so we are very clear with clients about what we are doing, what we need to do it, how long it will take, what it is worth to them and what is the final outcome. We listen for the real challenge and respond with the proper digital solution - we are not about just delivering a dictated web product.

We want clients to love web and love working on web initiatives. Hearing the words "partnership" and "trust" from our clients means we are on the right track. Robojuice gives attention to people and process so that clients enjoy and want to work on web initiatives.

We couldn't agree more. Robojuice implemented our new design with an amazing attention to detail. And they even added some fun touches of their own to the mix (did you notice the TV static on our video? Their idea!). We loved that they were just as excited about our new design as we were!

It's always a treat to work with people who not only love what they do, but are good at it. And this designer/developer team is no exception. We are so grateful for the time they contributed to bring our new site to life.