gobs of goodies!

image by Teryn Wilkes

Our goodie bags this year were full of wonderful items donated by some of our favorite inspiring shops and companies. The bags themselves were from Hands on Hemp, a thoughtful local business that makes reusable fruit, veggie and bulk bags. We thought it would be fun for the bags to have an afterlife and are always searching for ways to make our event earth conscious. It makes us feel good. :) The design on the front was by the uber talented, budding pattern designer Katy Clemmans, who won a contest we ran in the Art of Surface Pattern Design e-course (which I loved!). Many of the items found in the goodie bags reflected the essence of our event and what we stand for ~ a creative, healthy & sustainable way of living. We were just thrilled to have such fantastic support from our growing community and couldn't wait to give our participants their bags full of treats! Our awesome intern ~ Laura ~ worked really hard pulling all of the pieces together for this project so big thanks to her! 

Below you can find the fantastic companies and boutiques that contributed to our bags and a little bit about what makes them so lovely. We are incredibly grateful to them all!

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Bead for Life: a wonderful organization dedicated to empowering women through handmade crafting

Bird Dog Press: our favorite letterpress and design studio

Bell Frida: a new, unique local boutique with handmade clothing and folk art from mexico

Colorado Chautauqua: the beautiful venue where our event is held and did you know the Makerie is carrying out their 100 year old original, wonderful historic mission? 

Common Threads: a local high-end consignment boutique that also hosts a wonderful variety of creative workshops

Cured: our town's brand new wine, cheese and cured meats boutique ~ you must try their fresh bread baked daily!

Dish Gourmet: a favorite local deli and catering company who provided one of our yummy lunches ~ their customer service is outstanding

Fabricate: a new modern fabric shop and sewing studio in Boulder that we're super excited about ~ what a great addition to our local handmade community!

Fancy Tiger: our Denver crafting mecca full of boutique crafting supplies and a wonderful variety of creative workshops; we loved having their adorable pop-up shop at the Makerie again this year

Firefly Handmade: our beloved Boulder handmade market that features incredibly well-curated indie-craft artisans ~ how we love that they put on the Makerie Market and treasure our partnership!

Fiskateers: still can't believe all the crafting and sewing tools they provided for our classes and goodie bags ~ a serious treat for all

Horseshoe Market: a seasonal open-air handmade and flea market in Denver that is always full of inspiration

Ink Lounge: a fantastic Denver screen printing studio where we printed each goodie bag by hand

Larabar: one of our favorite natural energy bars and love that they're local

Love Grown Foods: this fantastic Denver company is devoted to changing the world with love and granola (and they are some of the nicest and most generous people you'll ever meet!)

Mollie Makes: an excellent creative publication from the UK that lives and loves handmade

Old Glory Antiques: a truly wonderful Denver antiques & home decor boutique that we adore in countless ways; their love and support of the Makerie just amazes me! 

Pangea Organics: a Boulder-based skin and body care company that uses only natural and organic ingredients ~ and you can certainly feel it

Petite Purls: the most adorable children's knitting online publication

Quarry Books: a fantastic publishing company with beautiful and inspiring crafts, food, and lifestyle books

Roost Books: another wonderful publishing company, focused on publishing inspiring crafting, cooking, gardening, and lifestyle books to celebrate creativity and the natural world

Savory Spice Shop: our neighborhood spice shop, with a huge selection and the most friendly, helpful staff (we have a crush on them ~ it's true)

Shuttles, Spindles & Skeins: a yarn, spinning, and knitting shop in Boulder that offers excellent fiber arts classes taught by lovely local experts

Sunset Magazine: a fabulous national magazine featuring the coolest happenings in the west, fresh ideas, yummy recipes, and oh so much more... they happen to be one of our favorite publications ~ we heart Sunset! 

STC Craft: a marvelous publishing company with beautiful and plentiful crafting books 

Uppercase Magazine: a gorgeous publication with endless inspiration and creativity ~  we were quite honored to be a part of issue # 12 

Wild Yarns: a super special Denver yarn boutique, with classes and social gatherings to support the handmade community ~ they generously hosted our DIY coffee cozy making station

Yoga Junction: a fabulous Louisville, CO yoga studio that taught our splendid Makerie morning classes

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Thank you so much again to everyone for their tremendous contributions! 

~xo

goodie bag contest design winner!

We are thrilled to announce Katy Clemmans as our goodie bag designer for 2012! We ran a contest in The Art & Business of Surface Pattern Design e-course I took (& loved!) and were totally impressed with all of the thoughtful and fantastic entires. I wish we could have used all the designs! We loved the way Katy described her winning design:

"I have created sheafs of 'corn' from the Makerie logo by adding long stems. The vertical presentation creates a pleasing stripe pattern and the random upside down sheafs give a quirky feel. I think the corn theme compliments the retreat's nature element, going hand in hand with organic foods, health, and the great outdoors! It's a really positive, happy and nurturing design for the goodie bag."

Katy was so kind to share her story with us and we wanted you to get her know her too.

"I studied graphic design at Salford University in the North West of England, and from there kind of fell into a career in design for television after getting a fantastic graduate job at the design department of the BBC in London in 2000. I have worked in TV ever since, and thoroughly enjoyed my career to date, but have always held onto my passion for print and all things 'pattern'.

Recently I have been designing wedding stationery for friends and family and dipping my toe into the world of surface pattern design, and discovered a total love for it. I had been trying to find a way of making money from my designs when I heard of the Art and Business of Surface Pattern Design course. The course sounded like an absolutely perfect foundation for me to make a proper go of establishing myself as a surface pattern designer and help me achieve my goal of working for myself, loosening my ties with the city and moving out to the countryside with my husband. I feel this is such a brilliant opportunity to put my love of creating patterns to great use, and one day hopefully it will pay the bills.

I'm brimming with ideas and can't wait to complete the course and get on my way to being a fully fledged surface pattern designer. I would love to see my designs on all sorts of paper goods, homewares, fashion accessories - in fact everywhere! I still hope to launch my own range of wedding stationery in 2012. To see my design on the Makerie goodie bag is (hopefully) just the beginning!"

We have a feeling she's on her way. Congratulations Katy! We absolutely love it.

Thank you to everyone who took part in the contest and to Beth and Rachael for supporting such a fun design challenge in the class.

Happy Wednesday!

~xo