Ya to a whole new experience! We’re a part of the American Craft Council this weekend and we’ve been busy busting our booties over the past few days. We’ve never done a booth or a trade show in our life, so this week has been nothing short of a new adventure. The booth is all together, the event kicks off Friday, and we’re ready to rock and roll.
Last year, after a WCCO segment, we got a phone call where we were asked to be 1 of 4 creators to create a “style maker space” at the American Craft Council Event in 2018. After a few details, it was a hell yes.
Let’s be real… we literally had no idea what we were getting into. We’ve never built a booth in our lives. Even with as much info as the PR team gave us (they’ve been amazing to work with btw), we waited until a couple weeks before to round up the troops and then waited until the night before to actually put it all together… but you know what, that’s how we roll and most of the time deliver our best work!
As one of the four designers, we were each given a color and teamed up with a handful of the makers at the show to showcase their work. We were given the color green, which I was super excited about because we love to use green in spaces. It’s the perfect way to bring in natural elements into any space and give them an earthy tone and calm feel.
We also were told that no one has ever done a bathroom before in past yearsm so it was super cool to bring something new and different to the space.
We wanted to create a bathroom space because that’s a lot of what we do for clients and green is our favorite color to use in bathroom spaces.
We were given a list of the vendors from the show and we got to choose their crafts to put into our vingette. We chose Patrick Plautz, Kerry Brooks, Mathew Nafranowicz, Christina Osheim.
We wanted to bring a lot of natural materials and earthy colors into the space, so a wooden vanity was a must. Patrick made us this beautiful walnut vanity, zebra print mirror, and walnut floating shelves. You can never have too many containers for a bathroom, so we chose Kerry and Christina for their handcrafted pottery. Finally, we knew we needed a pop of color and a beautiful chair to be able to relax in the space, so Mathew gave us the pop of color with the handmade chair.
We also asked a handful of additional vendors to help create the space. Beautiful tile is a must in bathrooms, so we worked with Mercury Mosaics on the handcrafted green tiles, Rebel Walls to bring in the bold wallpaper, and Gerhards for the plumbing fixtures.
Adorned Homes helped with all the staging and props and, of course, she was right there by our side getting her hands dirty and setting the booth up.
We also scored a few more pieces of staging props from Timber & Tulip with the live edge table and Art by Megan on the paintings.
And let’s just chat about our girl Chels who we absolutely love. She was sicker than a dog and I asked her to come capture some moments of us doing our very first booth and she was there at a drop of a hat, which is exactly why this girl is on our team.
It’s been such a cool experience getting to see the amazing work these artists have created for this show. They go through an extensive process to get accepted as vendors at this event and you can easily see how many hours and talent is in the room. We were amazed by the beautiful pottery, jewelry, artwork, fashion, and woodwork.
Come see us at the show! We’ll be hanging there Friday morning and Saturday afternoon, but it’s open throughout the weekend. You can get your tickets and read more details here.
This has been such a cool experience and fun collaboration, we’re hoping they ask us back again next year.
