West Coast Craft

WCC Wrap Up

 

Here is our long over due report of our West Coast Craft show. 

In mid Nov, we drove up to San Francisco to participate West Coast Craft. We met a lot of great people and the experience was so much greater than we could have ever expected. 

The event was held in the Fort Mason Festival Pavilion; surrounded by the beautiful Pacific Ocean, overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz. Four Barrel coffee had a coffee shop setup outside both days serving freshly made, delicious coffee. I dont think we would have survived the event without their hot cups of coffee!

Friday, the day before the show, was our setup day. We had all day to ourselves to set up and make sure everything was in the right place. The WCC staff was very organized and helped everyone load-in and setup their booths. I think this was one of the easiest setup days we ever had.

And so it begins! The morning of the both days were pretty cold from the chilly ocean air, but we actually really enjoyed it since we don't get much of that in Southern California. And the festival pavilion is equipped with overhead heaters, it is such a fantastic facility!

Fort Mason was also a great location for the event, it attracted a variety of people. A crowd from the weekly farmer's market,  joggers running along the coast, and the visitors from galleries and restaurants of Fort Mason. 

Smart Car test drive at WCC. 

Not to mention there were so many other great vendors. We wish we had more time to roam around and check out other booths. The WCC staff curated a top-notch group of west coast designers and makers. We are so grateful to be a part of the event. Just to be in the company of great talent gave us a lot of inspiration. 

 Beautiful pots and t-shirts from TW Workshop.

Around 3 PM the afternoon light hit our booth. The golden colored sunlight made our products glow. 

We love to meet our customers in person! Angela bought our roll-top backpack about a year ago, and she dropped by and showed us her pack! So happy to see our product with a great person :) 

 Angela with 1.61 Roll top back pack!

The event was a total blast, and we had so much fun with our friends and customers. Thank you for those who came out, and to the WCC staff for organizing this great event!! 

WCC posters, postcards, and "West Coasters" 

 WCC totes!

 

Preparation for West Coast Craft

 

This week, we are heading the San Francisco to attend West Coast Craft. WCC is 2 day event featuring vendors from West Coast of the US. There will be variety of makers, brands, and food vendors. It will be held in Historic Fort Mason Center, right by fisherman's wharf. We are so excited to be part of this 2 day festivity, and enjoy staying in the city! But of course, before all that, we have to prepare...

First thing, we had to downsize our entire booth setup. 

We've been fortunate to have great events around the workshop, so we did not mind to make a couple of trips back and forth to setup our display. Now that we have to drive quite a bit further we decided to minimize the size so that we can fit it nicely to our car. We made our booth wall panels more compact so the 7ft wall will not hang outside of the car. 

Since we are trying to shrink everything down to make it easier to transport, we decided to make a collapsible stool. We got the stool inspiration from this DIY project online.  We repurposed left over wood pieces from our Leather Strap Shelf boards, scrap leather pieces, waxed canvas, and hardwares from Home Depot. 

Since we will be able to show our works in person to our customers, we decided to add wood options to our Leather Strap Shelf. These wood are much heavier and denser than Pine wood boards that we regularly offer, so we thought this would be a good opportunity for us to see if there will be a demand for different wood options. Understanding what customers want always is our number one priority, and the needs are always changing. It is great to see the reactions and response to our products in person.

The wood we chose for the show is: Maple, Cherry and Walnut. Maple is lighter hue, very close to white, it is similar to Pine we use. Cherry has warmer hue, almost looks pink, the color is close the natural leather strap we offer.  And Walnut has dark rich brown tone, with beautiful grain. 

We hand sanded each edges carefully to give little bit of rounded corners. Then we apply a little bit of bee's wax. Once the wax was applied, it brings out all the beauty that the wood has. 

And then, inventory check. Making sure we have all the stuff! When it comes to storing, leather items are little bit tricky. We need to avoid sunlight from damaging our natural colored leather times, and also have to separate them from darker colored leathers. We have learned it from the hard ways in the past...!

We are also working on new items that will debut at WCC; hand-dyed camo, denim hat, new backpack, and iPhone Sleeves. 

If you are in the SF area come and hang out with us at West Coast Craft . It will be fun! ~~~~~~~~~~