Craft Party 2015 recap

Last Friday may have been the most lovely day I’ve had in quite a while. After taking my little pup, Twitch, for a visit to the vet (who officially deemed him a “senior” – as his mama bear that was tough to hear…especially because he’s the youngest of our 3 black dogs), the loveliness began!

My sister headed downtown to spend the afternoon with me. Where should a vegetarian and a recent adopter of the gluten free lifestyle eat? Good Life Cafe, of course. We walked around Main Street and ended up at the Sweet Cream Company. Like a pair of old bitties, we sat on a bench out front watching the traffic go by as we shared a cup of handcrafted salty peanut ice cream.

And to top it off, we still had the #CraftParty!

Once a year, Etsy “hosts” their Craft Party – describe as “a global celebration of meeting and making” – and that it is!

Last year, I founded the Cola Indie Makers (formerly “Columbia’s Etsy Market Team“) with Emily of Butterfly Vintage in an effort to build awareness of and support for vintage and handmade businesses in Columbia.

We hosted our first Etsy Craft Party last year (read all about last year’s party here) which made this year’s planning seem a wee bit less intimidating.

With Emily en route to Michigan as we speak, it’s just me & Shanika (of Life is Pichey) holding down the Cola Indie Makers group in Columbia. So when it comes to planning events (like this year’s Craft Party), we pull in some of our favorite people like MaryAnn of Life is a Maker Faire to help out.

As soon as we saw that this year’s theme was paper crafting, we knew we wanted MaryAnn on board. As the owner of MASW Designs, she’s our local paper crafting guru – it’s amazing what she can do with a little cardstock and glue!

I have to give a BIG shout-out to MaryAnn – in addition to lending her knowledge and expertise, MaryAnn generously shared her crafting tools and donated loads of supplies for the event. She even sacrificed her valuable time to help us with planning, securing the venue, making samples for inspiration and easy-to-follow instructions for our attendees. I am so grateful for my friendship with MaryAnn – she keeps me inspired and helps support me when I’m in over my head (like with planning this party!).

The party was loads of fun! The event was held at Grapes & Gallery – a local craft beer, wine bar and paint studio (the perfect location for a craft party!).

Grapes & Gallery is such a neat place. In addition to being a traditional paint and pour studio, they have a neat rustic, full service bar and a lounge area downstairs which includes a TV and very comfy couch (aka: a place to send your husband while you paint upstairs…).

Whether you’re interested in an evening of painting or a fun spot to stop by for a drink with friends, check out Grapes & Gallery – you won’t be disappointed!

Just look for the white storefront on Taylor Street (between Main and Assembly Streets) and you’ll know you’re in the right spot!

Keeping with our theme of paper crafting and making your own Happy Mail, we had 3 stations: upstairs we had mini-cards and full-size cards and downstairs we had envelope-making.

I love the size of the mini-cards – they are the perfect size for lunchbox notes if you have little ones or gift tags.

For the envelope station, we upcycled cereal boxes (and maybe a few pizza boxes too 😉 ) to make durable templates that our attendees could trace. MaryAnn brought a stack of old National Geographic magazines and maps to use in addition to the scrapbook paper.

{For more handmade envelope inspiration, check out this post about how I upcycled last year’s calendar to make a lovely set of floral envelopes.}

I love this beautiful picture that Taylor captured of my amazing sister:

In addition to the FUN crafts, we also had 5 handmade vendors onsite – all of which are based in Columbia, SC:

• Hippy Do-Da Creations, LLC – handmade jewelry by Chrissy {follow on Facebook & Instagram}
• Sebastian Harper – knit, crochet and sewn pieces by Shanika {follow on Facebook & Instagram}
• Uniquely MC – handmade handbags and unique pillows by Mary Catherine {follow on Facebook & Instagram}
• Spread Love Designs – handmade clay jewelry by Ashley {follow on Facebook & Instagram}
• J. Cottage Industries – handmade candles and teas by Jennifer {follow on Facebook & Twitter}

We also hosted 3 giveaways during the party – resliced donated the last raffle prize of the night:

{You can view all the raffle items here}

Speaking of raffles – the Cola Indie Makers are hosting one last raffle on Facebook – enter for a chance to win a 2 inch pillar candle (fragrance of your choice) from J. Cottage Industries! Get all the details here.

Thank you to EVERYONE who attended the Craft Party! We are already looking forward to next year 🙂

One last MEGA shout-out goes to this guy:

Not only was he smart enough to marry my best friend, but Taylor was generous enough to attend our Craft Party and take some amazing photographs to document the event. Taylor is a super talented videographer, photographer and one-man-interview-team (I’ll never forget the time he came to my office to interview my boss and I asked where his crew was and he responded “I’m a one-man-show” and proceeded to set up all of his equipment, proceed with ease through his interview, pack up all his gear, head back to his office, sliced/diced/edited the story and ran it that night on our local station…impressed might be an understatement, but he blew my socks off). Check out his website to hear all about his experience and book him for yourself! Speaking of his experience, browse all of his pictures from the Craft Party in our album on Facebook.

I must admit, it was GREAT weekend! The Craft Party was such a blast and I spent the rest of the weekend enjoying mine & the Hubs’ new routine…

Trail running on Saturday:

And running the statehouse stairs on Sunday (then cancelling out the calorie burn with coffee & french toast at Drip on Main):

Can’t lie: I’m diggin’ our new weekend routine.

Again, thanks to everyone who came out to the Craft Party! We appreciate your support and can’t wait to throw another bash next year! {Follow Cola Indie Makers on Facebook & Instagram so you’ll be the first to know about upcoming events!}