all things girls can tell

bbc travel: passyunk ave.

over the holiday, several of the shop's passyunk avenue neighbors were featured in a BBC article on how great the avenue has become and its importance as a corridor full of independent businesses in philadelphia. you might recognize some of the diagrammy wares featured in the slide show photos from green aisle grocery. xo!

beautiful illustrations + handmade shows

in my inbox this morning popped this great graphic on an email for the always amazing art vs. craft show in milwaukee. i've seen a lot (a whole lot, actually) of illustrations for craft shows, but this one is by far my favorite.

speaking of art + craft shows... this weekend, pittsburgh! erik + i will make our way across the (deceptively huge) state of pennsylvania for handmade arcade! check out this little sneak peek steeltown anthem did on some of the vendors to get excited! (with links to great shops if you're not in western pennsylvania...)

if you're in philadelphia, the shop will be open all weekend! from 12-6pm on saturday + sunday, the ever so awesome yara will be here to answer your questions + help you begin your holiday shopping!

 

diagrams or bust - holiday 2011 event schedule

it's getting to be that time of year again! while i (as well as every other maker + shopkeeper) have had holidays on the brain since, oh, june, it seems the world is catching up! i'm beyond excited to announce this year's girls can tell holiday show schedule:

november 12: HANDMADE ARCADE pittsburgh, pa 11am - 7pm

november 19 + 20: ART STAR CRAFT BAZAAR (first ever holiday event!) philadelphia, pa 11am - 6pm
        *bonus superawesome VIP night: friday, november 18 6-pm (do it!)

december 3 + 4: RENEGADE CRAFT FAIR chicago, il 11am - 6pm

december 10 + 11: CRAFTY WONDERLAND portland, or 11am - 6pm
        *girls can tell's portland, or debut!*

december 17: CRAFTY BALBOA philadelphia, pa 11am - 5pm

mention that you read this post on my blog at any of the above shows + receive a free holiday note card! see you soon! xo!

the big news!

it just occured to me that i failed to mention some super giant news here...

while we were in california earlier this summer (for renegade craft fair san francisco, one of my all-time favorite shows), erik proposed!

we were outside the city for the day, in yountville, at the indescribably beautiful gardens of the french laundry restaurant, just soaking up the sun and admiring how stunningly gorgeous everything was + poking around the artichokes, when he totally got down on one knee + asked if i wanted to get married. so perfect! i, of course, had a completely spastic reaction (mostly i kept asking "what is this!", then i giggled for a good five minutes before i got it together).(and said yes, of course.)

so the timing was a bit of a surprise, but the biggest surprise was the ring. it's absolutely gorgeous, handmade, and is exactly perfect. erik worked with the ladies of bario neal here in south philadelphia and i couldn't love it more. the two smaller stones on each side are sapphire, which is not only a traditional stone for engagement rings, but also my birthstone. perfect!

we are planning a wedding, though we're obviously in the earliest of early stages right now. as we make progress, i'm thinking about posting bits here along the way, but i don't anticipate being one of those ladies who loves planning her wedding SO much that it inspires her to blog about the entire process and develop a whole new business plan around it. i'm fairly wedding-obsession-resistant at this point (much to the dismay of theknot.com, i gather).

that's the news! yay!

more towel spotting fun

since i've had the good fortune of both visiting some great cities in the past couple weeks + some lovely friends with sharp eyes, here are a few more snapshots of girls can tell towels in anthropologie shops around the country. i've pretty much discovered that the excited feeling at the bottom of my stomach seeing my work displayed in such fantastic ways and among so many other terribly wonderful things just doesn't diminish.

(at the anthropologie shop in rockefeller center, new york... totally surreal seeing something i made here)

(at anthropologie in jackson, mississippi, photo courtesy of brian, who is totally awesome.)

(the coffee tea towel - which will be the hardest to spot! - at anthropologie in austin, texas, which happens to be across the street from the flagship whole foods store, which was also pretty incredibly fun).

(the rest of the display in the austin shop.)

yay!

towel spotting fun

pittsburgh!

i have had the unexpected joy of friends sending me photos from all around the country of my own hand printed towels on display at their local anthropologie shops! it's been amazing fun seeing all the new + different ways the shops have displayed my work.

philadelphia - flagship shop!

marlton, nj

san francisco, ca!

have you spotted girls can tell towels at an anthropologie near you? email me (sara at girlscantell dot com) a photo + along with the location of the shop + i'll send you a thank you towel! xo!

best shops ever: renegade handmade

little known fact: when i first began selling my wares, i was so in awe of (and slightly intimidated by) the incredibleness of the renegade team that it took more than 3 years before i worked up the courage to even apply to be a vendor at one of the renegade craft fairs or to consign my goods in their (amazing) shop in chicago. now that i've had the pleasure of vending at several renegade events + the honor of their shop carryinf my work for some time now, i've come to learn that behind the incredible renegade brand is just a few talented, dedicated, spectacular, sweet, normal people who love what they do.

i asked sue daly, the owner + lady who started it all, to answer a few questions about the renegade shop, so here we go:

What inspired you to set up shop?

I've wanted to have a store ever since I could remember!  I love vintage shops, antique stores, novelty stores and all sorts of independent boutiques in general - and I always thought it would be fun to open my own. 

When I was a kid, my mom used to take me shopping with her to little independent craft stores, gift stores and the like - so maybe that's where I got the bug initially.  I always thought I'd open a vintage clothing store and so I would go thrifting all of the time and collected things for years with plans to eventually open up shop.  I did this for probably two or three years, and looked at storefronts all the while too. 

In the midst of all that, I was also actively crafting as a hobby and started the Renegade Craft Fair as a result of that.  And so once that took off, the focus of the store evolved into opening a shop as an extension of the craft fair, where we could provide a permanent place for people to buy and sell handmade items.  When we opened, we had a small selection of the vintage clothing we'd been collecting for years - but it all quickly sold out and we found ourselves needing more room to sell the handmade stuff because the shop was so small.  So from then on, we strictly stuck to DIY craft items.

Today, we carry the work of over 300 independent crafters from all over the country and even abroad.  We also use the store to host workshops with different artists, and have different people we work with decorate our store window installation style.  So, it's been a lot of fun to make it part interactive like that too.

How long has the shop been open? (or a short history about your shop)

We opened our doors in July of 2007, so we're coming up on four years now.

How do you go about finding artists to sell in the shop?

We find many of our artists through organizing the craft fairs.  We also have an online application where people can apply to sell their things on the store.  Sometimes we actively search people out online as well, and contact them directly.  And we work with a handful of wholesalers that we've just picked-up over the years.

Please describe the community / neighborhood that your shop finds itself in.

Our store is located in Chicago's Wicker Park neighborhood, which is where the Renegade Craft Fair first took place back in the fall of 2003.  It's a bustling neighborhood, that has always had an artsy vibe.

What makes you most excited about doing what you do?

The store is always growing and changing, and provides us with the opportunity to work with artists from all corners of the world.  We get to be one of the first people to see the new things people are making, which is exciting.  We're always thinking of ways we can get artists involved with Renegade Handmade, whether it be a workshop, a small art show (as part of our 'spotlight series'), having them create a window installation, doing interviews and more.  So we really love the interactive component to what we're doing.

Who's involved in making the shop work?

We have a wonderful staff of five.  I'm the owner/proprieter, Madelon Juliano is our general manager and does most of the buying/re-stocking, Sarah Spies is our online store guru and also does the bulk of our blogging, Ali Gibbons is the assistant manager of the store and works wonders on the store displays and merchandising to keep the store fresh, and Kevin Wilson is the newest addition to the team and spends his time charming customers on Saturdays.

a big thanks to sue + the renegade team for all they do for handmade artisans! come see girls can tell at renegade craft fair in austin, brooklyn + san francisco this summer! xo!

spring break

one of the more practical reasons it's been so quiet here on the blog of late is that we took our first real vacation (as in no phone, no internet, no email, no work, at all, for a whole week) since i started girls can tell full time.

what merited such an occasion?

we took a cruise to the virgin islands!

after lots and lots of long hours in the studio lately, a full on vacation was really important. but all good things must come to an end, and i couldn't help but think that, upon returning, i was so grateful to be heading back to the studio for work that i love, and not just a job. breaks are important, but it's amazing to love what you do everyday.

talking about what it is i do.

Sara Selepouchin, Girls Can Tell from The Rosen Group on Vimeo.

so, i posted a bit about the wholesale show in baltimore i participated in last summer here on the blog as i was preparing, etc. at the three day show, the nice people behind the rosen group's new blog came by to interview me about what it is i do and make and things. so here's that, and here's their blog. enjoy!

what i learned at my first wholesale show

i figured in signing up for the buyer's market of american craft in baltimore last week that i'd learn *something* from the experience, no matter how well or how poorly it went. what i hadn't counted on was the idea that perhaps the show itself had as much to learn as i did.

in talking to many of the vendors around my booth who had been participating in, it became clear to me that the format of the show had been very successful in the past. however, for most of the show this summer, you could practically hear crickets (or, more accurately, this song, many times over) and buyers walking around the sales floor were few and far between. this was pretty hugely disappointing to me, since i realized by day two that without buyers, my odds of actually learning anything from the experience (aside from what a pointless and quite expensive exercise it was proving to be) were greatly diminished.

here's what i mean...