A fantastic holiday show is now accepting applications — Indie Craft Experience (ICE) in Atlanta, Georgia.

ICE will take place November 20 and 21 at Ambient Plus Studio from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. The  juried show will have approximately 100 vendors from the Southeast and beyond. This will be ICE’s 11th show, and the organizers say that this year promises to be a weekend full of exciting shopping and craft activities.

Applications are due September 16 and they are available online now. The fee to participate is $225 (this includes the $10 application fee) which is due at the time you submit your application. If you are not selected, you will be refunded $215.

To get an idea of the type of vendors ICE is looking for, take a stroll through their Flickr pool of past shows.

Kari Chapin’s book The Handmade Marketplace is chock full of tips on how independent business owners can be successful in the handmade industry. Whether you are a part-time crafter or someone ready to quit the dayjob and try crafting full-time, the resources Chapin shares are extremely helpful in the quest for profitability.

Chapin has an impressive crew of handmade professionals to weigh in throughout the book including Diane Gilleland of CraftyPod, Emily Martin of The Black Apple, Grace Bonney of Design*Sponge, Leah Kramer founder of Craftster and Natalie Zee Drieu of CRAFT. The best attribute about The Handmade Marketplace is this crafty jury of experts giving advice on each topic.

The book goes over three main areas: getting to know yourself and your business, spreading the word — and images and getting down to selling. Unlike other business-minded books that cover the same topics, The Handmade Marketplace really fleshes out the full picture from more than one voice. This is very important as there is not one secret to success. There have been many paths to selling handmade and Chapin’s book explores a multitude of them.

For example, the section on advertising and publicity is phenomal. Not only does Chapin explain the importance of a virtual press kit  and writing press releases, she also includes an interview with Holly Becker of decor8 explaining how to approach a blog. (Full disclosure: I recently lead a session with Chapin at this year’s Summit of Awesome. We talked on “How to Get Press” and I was really impressed with her forward thinking about approaching print and online outlets. As a former publicist myself, it is refreshing to hear someone admit to others you do not always have to submit a hackneyed press release in order to get coverage. There are other important details to focus on such as taking time to read the outlet before you approach them, make the email personalized, don’t attached huge photos, etc.)

WIN A COPY OF THE HANDMADE MARKETPLACE

Hello Craft has three copies of The Handmade Marketplace courtesy of Storey Publishing, and we want to give them to you, our awesome readers! You have three chances to enter win one of our three copies! Here’s how:

1. Comment on this post and tell us why you’d like a copy of The Handmade Marketplace and how it can help your crafty business.
2. “Like” us on Facebook and tell us you did so by commenting on the post announcing this contest (new and old fans alike!)
3. Follow us on Twitter and tell us by either RTing the contest announcement or @ us why you want to win (new and old followers alike!)

So there you have it! Three ways to enter and three chances to win! The deadline to enter is noon, PST on Friday, July 23. The winners will be chosen at random, one from the blog, Twitter and Facebook and announced on Monday, July 26.

Good luck!

Each week follow along as we document the trials and tribulations of a festival organizer. In this behind the scenes look we share what it takes to organize and produce one of the largest and best craft fairs on the east coast. To read entries in the series click here.

As a staff member and co-founder of Hello Craft, I am automatically involved in the running and organizing of Crafty Bastards. My main focus is helping to maintain Hello Craft’s work through the fair and specifically how we present our organization at the fair and how to implement our signature Make Something Awesome area. My diary entries will focus on these tasks as well as the miscellaneous tasks that come up during the planning and implementing of such a large craft fair.

Wednesday, July 7, 11:00am
I meet Kim at the Washington Convention Center to check out our shared incubator office space provided by DCCAH. We were offered a spot along with several other festivals produced in the city to use a languishing retail space along the outside of the convention center as an office through Crafty Bastards. As we both work from home having an office space both intrigues us and annoys us. We don’t know what to expect of the space so we’re anxious to check it out.

One of the doors screeches loudly every time it’s opened. That will be annoying. The space is modest with three work areas with two desks each and a small conference table in the middle of the room. There is lots of natural light which is great. We rifle through drawers and laugh when we find old 3.5″ floppy disks. Clearly the furniture are cast offs from some dank basement. There is a printer, but we search in vain for the cables, and we can’t find paper.

We quickly realize that this space can provide a nice work environment, but many questions about how sharing the space will work going forward and who else out of the other festivals are actually going to use it.

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Kim Dorn, Festival Director of Crafty Bastards and Executive Director of Hello Craft, explains the jury process during day one of the Crafty Bastards jury in 2010.

With over 450 applicants and only about 100 spaces, this system helps the jury review each applicant and ensures that they’re all looked at with the same specifications and criteria in mind. For more information about this year’s jury and how the process works read about the who’s who of the jury for Crafty Bastards 2010. And for an even more in depth look into the organizing of a large craft fair such as Crafty Bastards, don’t forget to check out our new weekly series: Diary of a Festival Organizer which details the trials and tribulations of a festival organizer in the lead up to this year’s Crafty Bastards.

With the 7th annual Crafty Bastards fast approaching in 3 months, the Crafty Jury is in full effect, rating our pool of applicants to see who will be selected as our official 2010 vendors! Now in Day 2 of the Crafty Jury process, the 7 members of the Crafty Jury are half way through determining which crafters, out of the record 450+ applicants, will have one of the 150 available booth spaces this year.

The Crafty Jury process has been in place since the first year of the fair 7 years ago, with a new mix of jurors each year. Over the course of two full days, the each member of the Jury rates each individual applicant through a unique system that keeps the vendor selection process fair for all. We’re excited to share our Jury process with you, and please feel free to leave a comment if you have any questions.

How long does the Jury process take?

The Crafty Jury meets for two days, approx. 10 hours per day. How are the applications judged? Each application is reviewed one by one, with special attention paid to the 3 photos and vendor statement. From there, each juror rates the applicant on 9 craftigories; the first 8 craftigories receive a score of 1-10. The last craftigory is an Overall score, which is worth 20 points. So the best possible score for an applicant would be 100 craftaculous points! The lowest is 10. All of the applicants’ ratings are then compiled and each applicant is given a total score based on the average score from all 7 jurors. At the end of the jury process, those applicants with a score of 75 or higher are automatically accepted into the fair. We then take a look at the categories of craft that we might be missing, and try to fill in the gaps from there. For example, if there are 5 spaces left in the fair, and we have not accepted any ceramic artists, we will take a look at the highest rated potter applicant and may decide to accept them into the fair. This process allows for an excellent shopping experience for our attendees, and a profitable day for our vendors.

What are the Craftigories?

1.) Craftsmanship/Skill How well-made are the crafts? We keep in mind some things are meant to look rough or undone. 2.) Inventive use of materials? Does the crafter use pre-manufactured materials or do they make their stuff from scratch? 3.) Labor/Time Investment Does it look like there was time invested in the concept/design/product? 4.) Physical Design – How much thought was put into the aesthetics/function of the work? 5.) Alternative Subject Matter/Vision? 6.) Rarity/Singularity – How unique are the products? 7.) Excitability – Would we buy this or recommend it to someone? 8.) Appeal – Does this vendor appeal to a large group of shoppers, or would their products only appeal to a very niche group? 9.) Overall (worth 20 points)

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Hello Craft is proud to be working with the Washington City Paper to power this year’s Crafty Bastards Arts and Crafts Fair! As most festivals go, Crafty Bastards takes six months to a year to plan and produce. With 150+ craft vendors, local sponsors, a food court, the BBoy Battle and more than 25,000 people attending the fair, the stakes are high to design and execute an event that is both a one-of-a-kind shopping experience for the people of DC, and a promotional and profitable success for our vendors.

After receiving many questions over the years of how Crafty Bastards is put together, we’re starting this new weekly column that will give you an exclusive, insider’s look into the work that goes into creating this fair. As part of our commitment to education, Hello Craft staff will take turns sharing their trials and tribulations of being Festival Directors. We welcome all questions and comments, and hope that our experiences will inspire those looking to organize their own crafting events, as well as share common ground with those who already put on some of the most fantastic events around the country.

And so the Crafty Bastards adventure begins with our very first Diary entry…..

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Check out the slide show from the Show of Awesome. It was a great way to end the Summit of Awesome on a high note.

We shopped (probably a little too much,) we played and generally had a grand old time.

Who was your favorite vendor?

Excuse our tardiness in sharing with you the amazingness that was day three of the Summit of Awesome. We got so overwhelmed with the amount of awesome that we had to take a break.

But fear not! Here is a run down of what happened on day three.

The third and final day of the Summit of Awesome was another amazing and wonderful day. The morning sessions started off with Time management for Crafty Folk with Elizabeth Newell.

Christy Petterson of a bardis and Kim Dorn taught Event Sponsorship in Parsons.

Owning your Awesomeness with Kelly Rand took place in the Library

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