brighton etsy pop up - behind the scenes

I'm sure you have seen or heard by now that we ran a Brighton Etsy Pop Up Shop in Brighton this winter, oh and that I'm the Captain of the Brighton Etsy Team.

You will have seen photos like this

of the finished shop and all the items in it but you probably won't have seen much about what went on behind the scenes!

So that's what I'm here to tell you, well some of it anyway...

6 months to go...
We started planning the Pop Up back in April, yup really. Cheska (Mooshpie) and I attended a We Are Pop Up meeting (along with a few other familiar #btnetsy faces) and then Cheska set us up on the website as seeking space.

3 months to go...
In August we asked members of the Brighton Etsy Team to apply to be part of the Pop Up and we whittled the list of over 60 down to just 25 with the help of Claire and Amy at Super + Super.

Alongside the Team Leaders, (Toby, Ali and Jam, Vicky, Claire and Ellen) we asked for others to help form the Pop Up Committee. Some awesome people came to our attention including Tori (Jasmine and Hobbes), Claire (In the Making), Elizabeth (ean jewellery) and Dario and Bea (Sebastian Bolivar)

2 months to go...
We applied for a bursary from Etsy to help towards the costs, which we were awarded after creating a budget of everything we were going to need including, rent, business rates, paint, the whole shop fit, vinyls for the window, insurance and more!

1 month to go...
The hunt was on for a space and as we approached our deadline, the 1st November, with no venue. I started to panic.

Claire had a plan for the decor, the branding by hello DODO, was done, Vicky had sorted the insurance, bank account, and set up the accounting system, we had all of the participants and we were poised and ready to go social media crazy!

1 week to go....
We called every landlord and agency in Brighton, with the help of Abi from We Are Pop Up, and walked all of Brighton to find empty properties. In the end we realised we couldn't afford anything except the space subsidised by the council in the South Lanes and the help of We Are Pop Up we secured 16 Brighton Square.

Our shop - as you can see it used to be a Dog Cafe so it didn't smell too pleasant when we moved in!

Claire measuring up so that she could  design the shop fit!

Toby in our Pop Up space before the project (nightmare) began!

What it looked like before we started plus our delivery from IKEA! We had to clean for an entire day, the back room was full of maggots (YUK) that Claire M and I fought off. We had to wash the floors and the walls several times, and after painting the walls and the ceiling white, we all smelt like dog...

Masking and Painting the trees. Marking out and masking took nearly a whole day, and then the painting took Claire and I another day to complete!

Team 2, we split the Pop Up Committee between Saturday and Sunday to get all of the cleaning and painting done.

Some of the furniture from Retro Station in place, and the trees which Jacques laser cut, oh and the awesome cash desk/display unit that was gifted to us from ink_d Galley!

Putting up the card shelves, I think we had been there nearly 13 hours straight at this point, hence the beers and grumpy faces. We were also asked not to drill about 10 minutes after we had started drilling which wasn't a good start

- 1 week to go...

One week from the committee of 13, my family and baby Ezra helping plus an awesome design by Claire Knill, meant we opened on the 6th November with our soft launch and private view.

Don't underestimate how long it takes to unpack 25 designers work, price it and display it, this took us nearly 2 whole days with four of us doing it! Also we all spent the whole 7 days which we rented the space before we opened to pop in and do the different jobs! It's a long hard slog opening a Pop Up shop!

The private view was packed and we hadn't even invited any press! We celebrated and continued to prepare for the big press launch on Saturday...

Want to see all of this in a time lapse by Bettina Nem?

Yeah so that's all I'm telling you this week, if you enjoyed hearing behind the scenes let me know in the comments and I'll finish off next week, if you didn't then I won't! There is quite a bit missing from this and I'm not sure if I have really conveyed how much work it is to open a Pop Up shop, but hopefully you get the idea! Did you come and visit our shop? Let us know in the comments!

ROAR!

Karli

to say "i'd like to remove your heart and feed it to a dinosaur"

Looking for something for your boyf, girlf, intended or POSSLQ (look it up) for that time of the year that is swiftly approaching, isn't their birthday, or Jesus' birthday or even your anniversary. Yup, you guessed it it's Valentine's Day!

We've created this little guy for the big occasion!

He's laser engraved from cherry wood and backed onto black plastic with a silver plated barrel brooch back. Hanging from his jaws is a shiny red acrylic heart making him quite the showstopper!

Hand drawn by the designosaur, laser cut and assembled by ourselves in sunny Brighton and sent to you in a designosaur branded gift box.

Not too big you can pin him to your coat, bag, dress or shirt. 

So if you want to tell your loverrr that y̶̶̶̶̶̶̶o̶̶̶̶̶̶̶u̶̶̶̶̶̶̶'̶̶̶̶̶̶̶d̶̶̶̶̶̶̶ ̶̶̶̶̶̶̶l̶̶̶̶̶̶̶i̶̶̶̶̶̶̶k̶̶̶̶̶̶̶e̶̶̶̶̶̶̶ ̶̶̶̶̶̶̶t̶̶̶̶̶̶̶o̶̶̶̶̶̶̶ ̶̶̶̶̶̶̶h̶̶̶̶̶̶̶a̶̶̶̶̶̶̶r̶̶̶̶̶̶̶v̶̶̶̶̶̶̶e̶̶̶̶̶̶̶s̶̶̶̶̶̶̶t̶̶̶̶̶̶̶ ̶̶̶̶̶̶̶t̶̶̶̶̶̶̶h̶̶̶̶̶̶̶e̶̶̶̶̶̶̶i̶̶̶̶̶̶̶r̶̶̶̶̶̶̶ ̶̶̶h̶̶̶e̶̶̶a̶̶̶r̶̶̶t̶̶̶ ̶̶̶̶̶̶̶a̶̶̶̶̶̶̶n̶̶̶̶̶̶̶d̶̶̶̶̶̶̶ ̶̶̶̶̶̶̶f̶̶̶̶̶̶̶e̶̶̶̶̶̶̶e̶̶̶̶̶̶̶d̶̶̶̶̶̶̶ ̶̶̶̶̶̶̶i̶t̶ ̶t̶o̶̶̶̶̶̶̶ ̶̶̶̶̶̶̶a̶̶̶̶̶̶̶ ̶̶̶̶̶̶̶d̶̶̶̶̶̶̶i̶̶̶̶̶̶̶n̶̶̶̶̶̶̶o̶̶̶̶̶̶̶s̶̶̶̶̶̶̶a̶̶̶̶̶̶̶u̶̶̶̶̶̶̶r̶̶̶̶̶̶̶?̶̶̶̶̶̶̶ you love them, this is it!

You're meant to be giving, but if you've already fallen in love with this little fella, why not gift him to yourself!

ROAR!

Karli (and Jacques)

a day trip to London

HOLLA HOLLA!

January is a bleak month. All of the sparkle from Christmas is gone and everyone is walking around with a face on because they've run out of money and only want to wear pajamas for the next month.

We needed some inspiration so headed to London for the day. We were actually going to go to the Tate to the Sigmar Polke exhibition but that didn't happen and we went to the Saatchi Gallery instead. IT. WAS. AWESOME.

Jacques doing the "where are all the people" pose, as we suddenly found ourselves alone!

Our brains were then buzzing with ideas so we went to Carnaby Street to 'The Diner' had coke floats, milkshakes and burgers and scribbled for a couple of hours, getting down all our ideas, sketching and planning. It was great. We came up with so many new ideas and also reimagined some old ideas that never went into production. You'll see the results in the next few weeks!

After we'd filled our bloodstreams with sugar we headed to Lights of Soho Presents God's Own Junkyard. Chris Bracey, the King of Neon with the largest collection of Neon outside of the USA sadly passed away this year, and some of his pieces have been brought to Soho for your viewing pleasure.

"I did 99 percent of every sex establishment in Soho for 20 years, for me, it was an artistic endeavour." 

- Chris Bracey 2013

Bracey was a graphic designer who went into the family neon business. Anything in London you see that is made of Neon is probably his work and it's just such an awesome medium you can't help but get sucked in... 

As you can see it's blooming marvelous, and if you can, you should go. They encourage photographs so you can instagram to your hearts content! 

I am obsessed with neon, you will see in my previous post that Jacques commissioned me my own Neon light (which I adore) as he has worked with Andy Doig of Fishtale Neon in Brighton creating some of the laser cut back boards and boxes.

Fully cured of feeling uninspired and January-ish we are now raring to go on new awesome designs! What gets you inspired? Let us know!

ROAR!

Karli (and Jacques... kinda)

a round up!

A round up of my year, Jacques' year, designosaur's year and a year of Brighton Etsy all mashed together. Lots happened, it was FUN.

Jacques bought me a Neon light, it's my favourite thing ever, it made it to the list cos I've wanted one FOREVER and I didn't think I'd get one :D

Jacques and I went to Berlin, it was ALL THE FUN, it was a perfect mix of history/war history for Jacques and BRIGHT COLOURFUL RAVEY things for Karli.

I was invited to the very first Etsy International Captains Summit and did a talk in Berlin...

Credit | Silja Erg

...and Etsy enjoyed it so much they invited me back to do one in Nantes...

Credit | Secondhand Sandy

and Berlin again....

Credit | Berlino Vintage

....and then London too! I dragged Rockcakes along this time and she took a pretty bad photo of me... #awkward

I went to Zambia with my family to work with young people in the schools there. It was cold - don't let anyone fool you that Africa is always hot!

May wanted to try on my gold Triceratops!

We become TV Stars and were featured as the opening shot of the first ever Etsy UK TV advert

We were part of AT Open House, that's April wearing a Sabre Tooth Necklace!

Our 2nd #CRAFTPARTY with the Brighton Etsy Team was BIGGER and BETTER with over 100 attendees, fro-yo from Lick, smellies from LUSH and bumper goodie bags!

Yellow Bear Wares x designosaur - our knitting themed collaboration!

Hello DODO got married and we made their wedding jewellery!

We had some time off and went to EXIT Festival in Serbia and Montenegro

My parents moved to Brussels and we went to visit!

Turning on all the lights, yes we're really grown up...

We met Kirstie Allsop at The Handmade Fair

Credit | Alice Tams

We organised the first Brighton Etsy Team Market

We were featured in the Telegraph!

We designed the 3 of Diamonds for the Brighton Artists Deck of Cards Project

Brighton Etsy Team Pop Up, a real life shop, in the South Lanes open for 4 weeks with 25 awesome designers (including us!)

We were invited to be part of Etsy House - Etsy's first Pop Up shop in Covent Garden. You had to queue to get no matter what time you went! WOAH!

Credit | and smile

We created our first Sterling Silver Collection, two super cute tiny dinosaurs!

Renegade, our third Renegade! Every time we go we get to hang out with AWESOME people, this time it was Hand Over Your Fairy Cakes (Sally and Keith), Woah The Pickle (Vicky), I Like CATS (Toby) and of course hello DODO (Jam and Ali) and we all squeezed in here!

Credit | Hand Over Your Fairy Cakes

And that's it, well it isn't obviously, I had to cut a load out else you'd be reading until 2016 and be bored out of your mind. THANKS for coming along for the ride! 2014 was AWESOME and ALL THE FUN! Here's to an awesome 2015, we couldn't do it without you guys!

ROAR!

Karli (and Jacques)