5 Year Posters with The Printshop

For this year’s festival, we wanted to make a special poster to commemorate our fifth year. We worked with the folks at The Printshop, Greenville’s newest makerspace, to create silkscreened posters for our event. We spent an evening at The Printshop with Andrew (husband of our co-founder, Lib Ramos) and Jeremy to print our 2014 posters. They walked us through each step of the process — from burning a screen to registering inks and we took pictures along the way.

It was so much fun to take our design from a computer screen to a final printed product and be reminded of all the work that goes into screenprinted art. As we often tell others, learning a new skill is one of the best ways to foster appreciation for it. Here are some of our behind the scenes photos.

Mixing inks to get the perfect shade.

Jeremy shows us how to pull a print.

The first color on drying racks.

Burnt screen for color number two.

Adding the second color.

Final prints drying in a row.

Fun fact: The Printshop founders were introduced at last year's Indie Craft Parade. In less than a year's time, they ran a successfully funded Kickstarter and opened the doors to our city's first community print shop. The Printshop is offering classes along with studio space and access to equipment for all kinds of printing processes like silkscreen, etching, letterpress, lithography and more.

Be on the lookout for more partnerships between Indie Craft Parade and The Printshop down the road — for example we're hosting a modern calligraphy workshop in their space mid-January!

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.

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.

Indie Craft Parade Visits NYC

As many of you know from our Facebook page or Instagram feeds, the staff at Indie Craft Parade took a brief hiatus last weekend to the big city. For a long time now we've been watching the success of long standing craft shows like Renegade Craft, so we decided to attend the fair hosted in Brooklyn. We're always fans of people or organizations who contribute to the modern craft scene, and we try to attend shows whenever possible. Our treks have been fairly local, however---Atlanta, Columbia, Asheville, etc.---so the prospect of attending a huge festival was quite exciting. Showing our excitement in the Renegade Photo Booth.

So, with a date on the calendar we saved up our pennies, begged a couple days off work, kissed our husbands goodbye, and made the most of our time in New York. Although the trip centered on visiting the artists at Renegade, we did have a couple of days on either side of the festival...and did we ever fill them with the most wonderful things. Our game plan was to visit or learn about as many arts and craft locations as possible. We wanted to know how other people organize their festivals, storefronts, or studios with hopes of making our endeavors here in Greenville even better.

We'd like to share with you a little bit about our trip---highlights of who we visited, what we saw, and how we're planning on making the Indie Craft Events better than ever!

Day 1: We hit the ground running as soon as we landed. After checking into a cute apartment in Greenpoint Brooklyn, we headed to Manhattan to check out studios and supply stores. The highlight of the day, by far, was getting a tour of the Lower Eastside Printshop. This is a collaborative space where artists can either learn new mediums or rent studio equipment to further their own body of work.

One of two giant communal studios.

The printmaking equipment, particularly the screen printing setup is some of the best we've ever seen.

Day 2: Renegade Craft Fair! In the very warm summer sun we perused 300 artists along with 20,000 other people for 6 very long hours. We took our time and saw EVERYTHING. We only stopped to cool ourselves with frozen treats and make new friends from the awesome website Kollabora. If you don't know this site, then you really should. It's a community based site that's meant to find or share crafting projects. Here you can post what you're working on, learn new skills that will make your projects easier, and connect with other makers you share your passion. It's a super great resource.

Getting ready to enter the fair.

A single row of tents.

Checking out an embroidery artist.

Day 3: We headed back to Manhattan. Since most offices and studios were closed for the weekend, we spent the day wandering the coolest shops in New York. Two of our favorite stops were Best Made Company and Purl Soho.

Best Made...the home of wonderfully handcrafted or in-house designed goods for men...and where we picked up treats for the husbands.

Purl Soho...yarn, felt, and fabric heaven.

We found a Hugo lookalike project!

Day 4: After finding a pie shop for breakfast (this was an amazing food trip, by the way), we headed to the corporate office of Etsy. We got a tour of the offices and Etsy Labs and were delighted to find that the Etsy office was basically one giant DIY project--everything from vertical pocket gardens to crocheted ventilation pipes to quilted room dividers and even a tech conference room that looks like a space station.

Our last big stop before heading home was at Tattly, an innovative company that produces design-y temporary tattoos. We had a great meeting with the staff, and we've got a fun collaboration coming up...details to follow.

Well, that's a brief look at our trip. Thanks for joining us! We're back in Greenville and more excited than ever for the upcoming festival!

All the applications are in, which means this weekend our jury has the heavy task of deciding who will be in the show. Check back in next week to see the vendors. We can guarantee you're going to be excited about who'll be there.

Studio Tour: White Whale Studios and Gallery

Today we're taking you on a tour of one of Greenville's most unique artist co-op spaces, White Whale Studios and Gallery. Caroline George Lott is the owner of White Whale, a large house-turned-studios located about a mile from The Pendleton Street Art District. We asked her to share the story behind White Whale with our readers.

Indie Craft: When was White Whale founded, and was it always a dream of yours?

Caroline: Our Grand opening was October 2nd, 2009. Being an active part of the local artistic community was always a dream of mine. Owning and operating a studio was something that became a reality when we purchased a historical house in the Monaghan Mill community. We did not want to "ruin" the house by turning it into a multi-family house or just rent it out. We wanted to to have it live on as a place to serve the community.

One of the White Whale artists hard at work in his studio.

Indie Craft: We love that you turned a house into a group of artist studios. How many artists call White Whale home right now?Caroline: We currently have 7 fabulous artists. Most of the artists are full-time professional artists.

Common gallery spaces are located throughout the house.

Indie Craft: This big white house is such a beautiful and inspiring place. Do you know much of its history?Caroline: Yes, it was built circa 1890, even before the textile mill that is right down the street. It started out as a teacher's boarding house, and has been used in many different ways since. Anything from a boxing training facility to a bed and breakfast.

Indie Craft: What is the significance of the White Whale name?Caroline: The studio's name harkens back to Melville's infamous tale of a determined white whale (Moby Dick) outwitting the relentless Captain Ahab, just as the artists, within the walls of this old white house, battle the odds to pursue their work and life's calling.

You can visit White Whale Studios and Gallery during Greenville Open Studios.

The good news is that White Whale does have an available studio at the moment! If you're an artist in need of working space, you can email your portfolio to whitewhalestudios@gmail.com or visit the White Whale site to learn more about their mission in Greenville.

Available studio: 12 ft ceilings and plenty of natural light.

Also, be sure to follow White Whale on Facebook to keep up with their resident artists and find out about upcoming art shows.