Projects,Behind The Scenes

Fall Craft Roundup

ProjectsElizabeth Ramos

We love this time of year, and while everyone is starting to get busy preparing for Christmas, let's not bypass the beautiful season that we're in right now. In honor of the changing leaves and cooler weather, we gathered a few of our favorite Fall DIYs to inspire and prepare you for a season of making. Follow the links below for tutorials on each of the projects pictured.

FallDIYs

Clockwise from top left:

1. Pie Inspiration 2. Keep your houseplants cozy 3. Pumpkin Guest Book — ask family members to write what they're thankful for 4. Pinecone Placecards – these would look great in gold too! 5. Repurposed sweater basket 6. Gold-dipped glasses

5 Year Posters with The Printshop

Behind The Scenes, Events, Greenville, ToursElizabeth Ramos
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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.

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Mixing inks to get the perfect shade.

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Jeremy shows us how to pull a print.

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The first color on drying racks.

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Burnt screen for color number two.

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Adding the second color.

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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: MailChimp

Behind The Scenes, General Info, SponsorsElizabeth Ramos

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.

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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 jury: how it works and who's behind it

Artist Showcase, Behind The ScenesElizabeth Ramos

We're so pleased to announce this year's jury who will be responsible for choosing the 2014 exhibitors for Indie Craft Parade. These people have shaped their artists' communities both at home and abroad, and we know they're going to help us put on a magnificent show. Before presenting the jury, here’s a little insight into the process of how they will choose the participants in our show.

When all of the applications are collected, jury members review them by viewing the submitted photos as well as a brief description of the artist's work. This information is presented anonymously to the jury to level the playing field as much as possible. Each category is juried separately, so although applicants may apply in multiple categories (example: a ceramic artist that also makes screen printed tea towels). Artist's work may be accepted in some categories and declined in others. After reviewing the application, each jury member casts a vote for or against, and the application is accepted, declined, or put on a waiting list.

In previous years, our jury has met together as a group here in Greenville and curated the show in a single (very long) day. To better accommodate these generous folks and allow for a wider variety of jury members, we are moving our entire jurying process online. Our jury will now be able to review applications and cast their votes electronically. This allows us to select future jury members from a much broader area and ensures that Indie Craft Parade will continue to be fresh every year.

So without further ado, here's our jury:

Barb Blair: Owner of Knack Studios

Jon Andrews: Assemblage sculptor and professor

Katie Coston: Native Greenvillian now running a ceramics studio and shop in Oxford, England

Jude Landry: Professor and graphic designer, we love his Makers Gonna Make design

And new to the jury...The Indie Craft Parade team.

To make sure our vision for Indie Craft Parade never wavers, we've decided to claim a single jury vote for ourselves. Until this year, our main role in curating the festival has been to select the jury and facilitate the jurying day. Five years later, we'd like to weigh in. Of course, our collective vote will not count any more than other jury members. (Sorry to disappoint all of you who applicants who were ready to send bribes.) We still want the choosing of exhibitors to be guided by a panel of artists who we trust. But we do want to make sure our voice is represented as well.

So that's how it works. We're so thankful to the jury who takes the time to do a difficult job. All of our amazing applicants don't make their job easy!

Next Event: Bookbinding

Craft News, Events, General Info, ProjectsElizabeth Ramos

Our next event is coming up very soon, and if you've ever wanted to learn more about bookbinding, this is your chance! Cindy Leaders, an Indie Craft Parade alumnus and talented bookmaker will teach us how to create books using reclaimed materials. And what better place to learn about making books than at the library?

Join us at the Downtown Hughes Main Library in Greenville and learn how to make Buttonhole Pocket Books, a simple bookbinding technique that is easy to recreate at home. These little books would be perfect for sketching, journaling or even giving as a gift.

Cindy Leaders, with some of her Useful Books.

Students should bring a pair of needle nosed pliers (curved are preferable). Additional materials and tools will be provided to make three 3” x 4” books. All skill levels are welcome.

When: Saturday, May 3, 2014 from 2 PM – 4 PM Where: Hughes Main Library, 25 Heritage Green Place, Greenville, SC 29601 Cost: $22

Reserve your spot now!

DIY Tea Towel project

Projects, Tips & TricksElizabeth Ramos

Since meeting Rachel Faucett of Handmade Charlotte at The Makers Summit, we're completely amazed by the depth of her both her blog and her product design. She's partnered with top crafting companies to create one of a kind crafting supplies that are unique as well as easy and fun to use.

Today, we're excited to show you what we did with one of these products — adhesive stencils. We had so much fun making some custom tea towels with her stencils, and we wanted to share this fun tutorial with you. Here's a peek at the simple supplies you need. You can find the full tutorial on Kollabora.

Valentine Inspired DIY Roundup

Projects, Tips & TricksElizabeth Ramos

Have you heard about Kollabora? They're an online community for makers, and we've been loving the wealth of DIY projects to be found there. In fact, we started our own page where you can easily find past Indie Craft Parade DIYs. We've rounded up just a few Kollabora projects that are inspiring us for Valentine's Day this weekend. If you're feeling crafty or just need some extra beauty in your life, these projects will get you started. Find a link to each at the bottom of this post.

ValentineRoundup

Featured Sponsor: Big Cartel

Behind The Scenes, Events, General Info, SponsorsElizabeth Ramos

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.

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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.

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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

Behind The Scenes, Events, General Info, SponsorsElizabeth Ramos
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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.

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

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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!

DIY Stamp Set

ProjectsElizabeth Ramos

I've got a great tutorial for you to try this weekend! As you know, last Saturday we spent the day at the Greenville Children's Museum teaching kids how to make their own stamps. Turns out, it is the most fun craft ever! We've been making them non stop--and stamping everything paper in sight.

So we want to share this super easy yet very rewarding tutorial. And I promise, once you get started, you can't stop yourself.

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Supplies:

-Adhesive backed foam sheets -2 inch by 1/4 inch wood squares -Scissors -Pen -Ink pads -Paper (wrapping paper, notebook, gift bags, etc.)

1) Cut a piece of foam roughly the size of the woodblock. 2) Draw the shape of your stamp on the foam. Don't forget, your stamped image will be backwards, so draw your shape the opposite of how you want it to stamp.

3) Cut along your drawing.

4) Peel off the paper to show the glue on the back of the block.

5) Place the glue side of the foam on the block, and press to adhere.

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Here are some of the shapes we've made. The possibilities are endless!

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After that, just place the stamp face down into the stamp ink pad. Press all around to distribute the ink evenly.

THEN STAMP AWAY!!

Try your hand at making these stamps. Then show us what you make! Put them on our Facebook page or tag us on Instagram!

Vintage Makeovers!

Behind The ScenesElizabeth Ramos

Here's a little treat, a guest post and a look at the Indie Craft Parade team.

Hi, guys. This is Mollie Greene and Annie Koelle, long time fans and friends of Indie Craft Parade. A couple of weeks ago we had a grand time dressing up and photographing the lovely ladies of the Indie Craft Parade in pretty vintage pieces that will be coming soon to our brand spankin' new Etsy shop, Free Kittens Vintage.

These girls have great style already, so it wasn't hard to find good, classic pieces to add into their current wardrobes. We asked them to bring a great pair of jeans, leggings that can go with anything, good tights, favorite heels and boots, and belts or scarves that they felt wonderful wearing. We then talked about the looks we'd pulled for them and how they could work with the contemporary pieces that they'd brought along. We worked with them until they felt good in the clothes and talked about how and where certain pieces would be great to wear. Who doesn't love to dress up and feel great? We all had a super afternoon and can't wait to do it again.

We're also participating in the Lily Pottery and Friends Vintage Pop Up shop this Friday from 10-9 and Saturday from 10-7 at 1274 Pendleton Street in the Village of Greenville (only a few steps away from the

Indie Craft Parade Holiday Fair!

), so don't forget to stop by if you want to get your paws on some one of a kind, beautiful vintage pieces and to ask us for advice on how to mix vintage into your modern wardrobe.

Lily Pottery

Free Kittens Vintage

Reck and Roll Vintage

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Thanks, gals! We had such fun getting these vintage makeovers;

Mollie and Annie do an amazing job curating their vintage goods. Thanks to their fab stylings, we all want to incorporate more vintage wear into our wardrobe. Make sure you stop in the pop-up shop this weekend, it's going to be grand!

Workshop: Paper Ornaments with Mollie Greene

Events, ProjectsElizabeth Ramos

We're so excited for our upcoming crafting class with the amazing Mollie Greene of Royal Buffet and Sweet Paper Crafts. Mollie's fanciful paper lovelies never fail to delight, and now she's going to show you how to create wonderful ornaments for holiday gift giving, tree decorating, or present topping. All the supplies will be provided (vintage papers! glass glitter! and more!), just bring your own pair of scissors. Mollie has nearly 20 different ornament styles ready for you to create, see how many you can make!

WHAT: Paper Ornaments WHEN: Thursday, November 14 from 7 – 10 pm WHERE: Cowork, 1040 W. Washington Street, Greenville SC 29601 COST: $25 REGISTER HERE

DETAILS:Come for a fun evening of handcrafting original paper ornaments using vintage and antique papers, German glass glitter, tinsel, crepe paper, string, and more. Each participant will leave with the ornaments they create throughout the evening, and their own set of templates to take home for more holiday paper merrymaking.  All paper finery and other supplies will be provided, but we suggest bringing your own sharp scissors along with you. Mollie will be guiding you through the ornament making process as well as offering paper crafting tips and tricks along the way.

Here's a little peek at just a few of the ornament styles you'll learn to make:

These paper ornaments are so much fun to make and even more fun to give. They make the perfect gift for teachers too!

You don't want to miss this crafty evening with Mollie, it's going to be swell. Grab your friends and register here!

It's time to make stuff!

Events, ProjectsElizabeth Ramos

Our first few workshops have been a fabulous success! Here's what's coming up next...

Paper Ornamentswith Mollie Greene of Royal BuffetThursday, November 14 from 7 - 10 pm

Winter Wreathwith Julie Dodds of Willow FloralsTuesday, December 3 from 7 - 10 pm

Learn to Knit with Deb Potter of Merciful Hearts FarmThursday, February 6, 2014 from 7 - 10 pm

iPhone Photographywith Jivan Dave March 2014, more details to come

Succulent Terrariumwith Amy Walchers of Urban Digs Tuesday, April 8, 2014 from 7 - 10 pm

Bookbindingwith Cindy Leaders of Useful Books May 2014, more details to come

Homebrewing 101with Ben Alier and Grape and GrainsJuly 2014, more details to come

These classes fill up quickly, so register before it's too late!

Featured Sponsor: Etsy

Behind The Scenes, General Info, SponsorsElizabeth Ramos
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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!

Behind The Scenes, Events, General Info, Greenville, SponsorsElizabeth Ramos
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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.

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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

Behind The Scenes, General Info, SponsorsElizabeth 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.

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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.

A stop-motion treat & winner announced

Artist Showcase, Behind The ScenesElizabeth Ramos

Congrats, Jessica, commenter #6! You are the lucky winner of the signed copy of Furniture Makeovers and accompanying tote. We'll be emailing you shortly to arrange shipping your prize. (The winner was randomly chosen via Random.org.) To everyone else, don't despair! You can get your own copy of Barb Blair's Furniture Makeovers at Chronicle Books, or anywhere books are sold.

We've got one more treat from Barb to share! This delightful little video lets you flip through the book, peek into the studio and shop, and showcases some of the refinishing techniques, complete with a stop-motion transformation of a piece of furniture.

Such fun! To see what Barb is working on, follow along at her blog. What piece of furniture do you want to makeover for your home?

Featured Sponsor: MailChimp

Behind The Scenes, General InfoElizabeth Ramos

The closer we get to the main event, the more we want to tell you about the people who make the festival possible. Today, I want to share all the goodness of MailChimp with you. If you’re a business owner, event coordinator, or leader of any sort that handles a lot of group communication, MailChimp could be an indispensable tool for you.

MailChimp describes themselves as a way to help you: design email newletters, share them on social networks, integrate with services you already use, and track your results. In short, they call themselves “your own personal publishing platform.” Besides keeping you and your followers organized, MailChimp provides beautiful design templates, loads of free advice and tutorials, and even ways to manage all of your features on the go. Best of all, you can get most of the MailChimp services for FREE! Their no-nonsence approach to mass communication combined with their fun personality and design make MailChimp a great tool for anybody.

And on a personal note: We at Indie Craft Parade have used MailChimp to organize our newsletters and campaigns for the past few years, and we can't imagine using anyone else's services. Not only does MailChimp provide a great product that makes our lives so much easier, but also we love them because they truly care about the creative community that we're a part of. They've given amazing business advice to our followers through participating in The Makers Summit, they always provide an element of fun to the events they're part of (i.e., Freddie the Chimp hats), and they donate generously so Greenville can can continue to enjoy Indie Craft Parade.

So please, if you're looking for a service that provides solutions such as MailChimp does, give them a try. We stand behind their product, and we know they're good people to do business with.

Featured Sponsor: TOWN Magazine

Behind The Scenes, Craft News, General InfoElizabeth Ramos

 Our media sponsors play a key role in helping us spread the word about Indie Craft Parade. Today, we're introducing one of these valuable partners: TOWN Magazine. What we love about TOWN is their focus on finding and showcasing Greenville's talent, whether it be in the realm of food, music or art. Flip through the most recent issue of TOWN and you'll read about Greenville makers, including several of our own Indie Craft Parade alumni. You'll also learn about the revitalization happening in Greenville's art district, new restaurants to try, and so many other things we love.

TOWN helps highlight small businesses and entrepreneurs, and they do it well. Their focus on quality photography, layouts and writing make all the difference.

In February, when we hosted The Makers Summit, we assembled gift baskets for our out of town speakers. We wanted to include a copy of TOWN alongside other Greenville goodies, to introduce our guests to Greenville. Until then, we didn't realize exactly how many other people love TOWN Magazine too! We had to visit three separate locations to find the handful of issues needed for our baskets.

So next time you see a copy of TOWN, pick it up before it's gone! You'll be excited to learn about all the amazing things happening in Greenville, and you might just see someone you met at Indie Craft Parade!

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