The Crafter's Expo 2013!

Many of you who follow Firefly on Facebook have seen the hype about the return of the Crafter's Expo for 2013 inshaAllah. :)

Last year, we pulled off the event in a month's span. This time, we have ample time on our hands to prepare and plan ahead to make it bigger and better this year inshaAllah! :)

If you're wondering what's up with the funky doodles and whimsy feel, it's simply my vision for the expo. The nature inspired aspect symbolizes crafts... there's hidden yarn and embellishments, bits and bobbles here and there, all the colors bring in our colors of craft. The idea is to make it welcoming and fun... which is exactly what the Expo is!

The exciting news for this year's Crafter's Expo is that we will be doing a separate wing dedicated to apparel and clothing. Given it is a Crafter's Expo, we are on the hunt for creative, fresh and out of the box apparel/clothing collection to be a part of this year's Fusion Fashion Wing. Whether it's a funky Kurti, a hand embellished kurta or a painted set of plazzo pants... you can add a jumpsuit, trendy abayas and even T shirts if you feel they fit our definition of 'craft'. :) The Wing will be a separate hall part of the Expo. Those who wish to only shop for apparel and fashion wear, can hop straight to this wing in December inshaAllah! All our textile and fashion background entrepreneurs, come forward. No aunty-wear or formals. Funky, fresh and modern day eclectic is welcomed!

*note if you have a range of products that include apparel, you will need to purchase to booths/stalls. The apparel/clothing will be showcased in a separate hall.

Did I mention that the Crafter's Expo is one of the best platforms for young people specifically? We even keep our booth charges to a minimal to allow you the best exposure without emptying out your pockets! Alhamdulillah! It's not easy being a crafter, and most often we invest more than we make, the Expo however hopes to do the best for you, to have the right exposure, and allow you to make a name and introduce yourself to folks out there. :)

I have created a makeshift registration form and have received several registrations in the past few months mashaAllah. I have worked out our stall pricing for this year and will begin bookings and final confirmations after Eid inshaAllah :) You know what that means, start saving that Eidi! :)

Please fill out the registration form by clicking this link:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1KzhK1gkLFYo_MHyE-vLGZ3mSt_VblBJlLgFImdt-HV0/viewform


The form also has an overview of our Crafter's Expo. The information has been updated in the leaflet in this post as well.

I am open to collaborative efforts this time about, to ensure each of us has the appropriate exposure and smoother sailing. We're on the look out for sponsors, media partners, official photographers to cover the event and more! :)

Of course, volunteers will be selective this year, too! :)

To read information about last year's Crafter's Expo check out these Media and Press Publications:

Coverage by Dawn
http://dawn.com/2012/10/09/a-crafters-delight/

Priyanka Pahuja from Express Tribune Blogs
http://blogs.tribune.com.pk/story/14147/karachi-crafter%E2%80%99s-expo-pakistanis-are-a-talented-bunch/

Unique Pakistan
http://news.uniquepakistan.com.pk/crafters-expo-held-in-karachi/

Looking forward to making the Expo a great success inshaAllah. And looking forward to having more of you join us this time around! If you couldn't make it to the expo last year, check out some of these PHOTOS by Hocus Focus Photography! Thank you Wahaj! :))

Birthday Variety? a Competition!

So, I posted earlier today that with our Birthday celebrations being quiet with the weirded out processing arrangement and me being abroad, I figured I'd offer something to our crafty folk especially since it's Crafts Month too! I still have the Smile Sunshine Campaign happening for my fans, but I figured I'd go bigger on the 'giveaway' part to actually be of benefit to 3 individuals. :)

Are yall wondering where this is going? Keep reading.

Now we hope to conduct the Crafter's Expo in December this year InshaAllah. And as we work out all the details. We want to take the opportunity to put up a healthy and crafty competition for ALL our vendors that look forward to exhibiting with us this year!

New to all this jargon? Read some more! :)

The Crafter's Expo
The first of its kind event was coined in September last year as an initiative by Varah, me and some of my crafty friends. The idea was to exhibit together, to interact and engage specifically at the nd of my Ultimate Crafter's Workshops in Karachi. The idea grew to massive collaborative event coordinated, arranged and executed by Firefly.

The expo intends to cater to the passion behind crafting and promoting crafts of all kinds in Pakistan. The exposure is groundbreaking, and the response is larger than life! The Crafter's Expo has a turn out of over 2500 visitors, over 2500 visitors who have come forth because they LOVE crafts!

• Publicity reaches an audience of over 10,000 people.
• One day event, craft minded folk, craft minded taste, and craft minded pockets.
• The expo caters to craft enthusiasts and hobbyists of all ages.
• The event is open to families.
• Publicity is via social media, posters and press.
• Event has extensive media coverage and documentation.
• Locale is secure and safe.
• Clientele and crowd is from all parts of Karachi, inluding vicinity of Clifton and Defence. Pre event meet and greets are arranged to discuss concerns and address points by booth vendors.
• All booth vendors will be met with in person before finalizing their booth.

Affiliations for the Expo include intl manufacturers of Craft and Scrapbooking products.

Last years sponsors included Die Cuts with a View and Graphic45!

We do not discriminate between our booth vendors and look forwrad to interacting with new crafters, and helping them with a platform to exhibit their talent! :)

TENTATIVE DETAILS:
Venue: Royal Rodale, Phase 6 DHA, Karachi
Date: December

The Competition

To commemmorate Crafts Month AND celebrating 3 years of Firefly we invite all of you to come forward and participate. What do we have to do?

Each participant must complete a Firefly themed project to be included as an entrant.
The projects must be original, out of the box, and must comply with the project guidelines.
The competition is open to all our fans, friends and fellow crafters across the globe! YES! across the globe!
There is no minimum age requirement, under 16 need their parent's consent to be on board. :)

The prizes?
*drum roll please*

The grand prize winner of the competition receives the following for their efforts and dedication:
- a FREE exhibition space at Crafter's Expo 2013, standard 2x4 ft table setting.
- a Rs 5000 cash prize to go towards your exhibition preparation!* The cash prize is an allowance provided to you for your expenses towards the expo. You will be reimbursed for expenses you incur for preparation which includes, banner printing, visiting cards, paper, display, pamphlets, etc. A receipt and account of these must be submitted at the end of the expo.
- a FREE listing at Firefly's website under the Crafter's Expo
- surprise gifts to be revealed on the Expo day!

Second Place:
-receives a 40% discount on booth booking!
-a FREE listing at Firefly's website under the Crafter's Expo for a year.
-surprise gifts to be revealed on the expo day

Thurd Place:
-receives a 20% discount on booth booking!
-receives FREE listing at Firefly's website under the Crafter's Expo for a year.
-surprise gifts to be revealed on the expo day.

OHMG! Now how do I participate? What is the project?

GENERAL GUIDELINES:

-create an art piece no smaller than 6x6 inches in size and no bigger than 15x15 inches in size.
-the art piece can be made of paper, felt, clay, ceramic, textiles, wire.. metal, so forth.
-the art piece can be 3D, 2D, a card, a textile item, a canvas, a painting, a sculpture, a box, a scrapbook, a wall hanging, an album, anything!
-the piece must reflect your original ideas and your creativity
-the art piece must reflect Firefly, the brand. Either symbolically, conceptually, or metaphorically
-the art piece must be prepared and submitted for entry by the 15th of October. via post to the provided Karachi address. If you are abroad, you may dispatch this submission sooner.
-along with the art piece, the entrant must submit a 200 word description/paragraph describing their crafted art piece and the concept they implemented in depicting Firefly.

JUDGING CRITERIA

Given the theme is based on Firefly and is open ended to an individual's interpretation. We will look into details such as execution, dexterity, neatness, innovation and creativity. How original and thoughout your project is, will show through in the final result.

Who gets to decide?
I, Varah Musavvir the Firefly girl will review each project submission for that Firefly energy.

The results to this competition will be announced on the 29th of November. inshaAllah.

Final details, stall applications and other information regarding the Expo will be carried out in October. If you intend to take part in the expo, gear up :)

If you are abroad and take part in this competition, you will need to ship your entry to us. If you get selected as an exhibitor, you will be represented in Karachi at the Crafter's Expo 2013. You will be sending us an inventory list and your products to display. Shipping of remaining items after the expo are expenses to be covered by you.

What happens to the artwork after that?

All artwork will be displayed, exhibited at Crafter's Expo 2013 and further kept with us, at the Firefly Studio. The day we have an outlet, we will display these pieces with your name :) So make an impression guys! :)

Question.
ask! :)

Why are we doing this to start with?
We love what we do and love giving others an opportunity to explore similar avenues. In Pakistan, crafting has taken on a new market. And with so many talented folk out there, we'd like to give em that stage to put on their best show. :) Wishing you guys heaps of luck. Rock it! :)






 

The Crafter's Expo, and a dream called Life

So everyone has pretty much been holding their breath waiting for my post on the very first Crafter's Expo we held last Sunday at Royal Rodale. Alhamdulillah, the event turned out to be a phenomenal achievement, and MashaAllah is a milestone, not just for me, but my country, and my crafty friends! I've always wanted to attend scrapbooking fairs and things in the U.S... but for some reason or another my travel plans are bonkers and I can't quite make it to any of them. I skipped out Maya Road's Mixed Media workshops to I could be here to host the Crafter's Expo under the Crafters' Guild.

The Guild, was formulated to facilitate crafts and crafters of all backgrounds... it's a platform that I've taken up to promote crafting to the next level with inshaAllah. As of now, we're working on developing the website, to get the listing going, we're also forming the The Guild Team, which is our design team! :D We get to put together fun projects every month for our members to take inspiration from and learn new techniques and things with. Members only content though.

Nearing the expo date, we gave our scrapbooking goodies a new home. MashaAllah we're authorized retailers for scrapbooking products in Pakistan. A Cloud 9 kinda feeling if you ask me! On the day of the expo, I launched Jugnoo & Junoon. A grown up Firefly for our fans that grew up with us... I was in my 3rd year of university when Firefly began. Today I'm a Textile Designer, a graduate, a married young woman! Just because we grow up, doesn't quite mean our tastes and palette have to. I came up with Jugnoo & Junoon to cater to our necessities for work, our evening ensembles and of course, our day to day accessories. Jugnoo & Junoon will be developing collections for accessories such as bags and scarves... and the occasional tunics and tops. inshaAllah. We debuted our first collection of clutches in jewel colors at the expo. It's been a week and we're pretty much sold out. MASHAALLAH.
There's so much happening in this realm, that I cannot find ways to thank my Rabb for His countless favors and abundance of blessings. Alhamdulillah!

Looking back now, thinking about what the Crafter's Expo began with, as a small stall after my workshop... grew into an event that brought people from all over Karachi to visit. We had over 2000 visitors on Sunday at Royal Rodale. So many of them specifically came looking for me. It was pretty neat interacting with a lot of people who actually took interest in finding out more about the Guild and the Expo itself. That's colossal! At the end we had over 55 vendors. Two of them participated from Lahore and Faislabad. One of them, Shereen Aunty from Many Happy Returns actually came to Karachi FOR the expo... That was amazing. Gave it the real expo feel! We had paper crafts, suppliers, party planning and favors, gifts and greetings, lamps, clay work, handmade accessories and jewelry, home textiles and handicrafts!

What topped this 'Sun-dae' was the fact that Die Cuts with a View and Graphic 45 had send us paper stacks to give away and use specifically for the event. How cool is that?! MashaAllah, we came up to par with international events of the sort to be able to acquire such favors, don't you think?
What marvels me is the support I've had from everyone throughout the whole expo prep and execution process. MashaAllah, our country is full of talented and dedicated people. So  many of them exhibited for the very first time. I feel over the moon elated when they tell me their experience was fab or the response they received was amazing. It makes me take a breath of relief that Alhamdulillah, we worked hard to promote this, and it worked. :)

It's going to take a little bit of time to make people understand the value of crafts or the concept of crafting in general, going to pursue that through the Crafters' Guild inshaAllah. :) I may not reside here 12 months of the year, but here's my promise inshaAllah. Firefly and the Crafters' Guild will work on an expo every year, so Karachi, Expo 2013 is inshaAllah a feat we're working on. God willing. :) Super excited!!!

The venue, the crowd, the set up, the format. Everything worked. It was the first time and MashaAllah we got it right. I'm going to post my thank you's and a few 'vendor' notes so that all can follow up. Thank you Karachi for visiting us. And thank you to all the Crafters that took a leap with me on this. No one had the slightest idea this would be what it is. Allah Kareem is awesome.. and life is just as beautiful as we make it :)

http://blogs.tribune.com.pk/story/14147/karachi-crafter%E2%80%99s-expo-pakistanis-are-a-talented-bunch/#comments

We were featured in a blog by Priyank Pahuja at the Tribune :) worth a read everybody!

I request you all to keep Firefly, me the Firefly Girl and my family in your kind duas. We need them lately as my nani has been in the hospital :) She's recovering but it'll be a bit til she's a 100%.

Til a day before the expo, everything was disoriented for me. I had no bed to sleep on as every where I stepped there was inventory, packing, wrapping or something or another. I had actually left my inventory at home on the day of the expo. -_-; The floor plan I issued the venue was pretty well followed except for our Hall One, which was a disaster when I walked in that morning. We gave booth numbers to all our vendors... we issued badges/passes for all of them. Our event backdrop never went up :( but oh well, our wall of crafty thoughts was awesome!

My thoughts on The Expo, the day after:

Allahu Akbar.. all praise is to Him Alhamdulillah! What an out of this world experience!!! In a state of Euphoria at this point...For every person that said Congratulations or Thank.you... I want to remind everyone that this event would be nothing but a dream without amazingly talented people being on board. I thank each of you that participated for leaping forward with me on working towards an event of this magnitude not just for crafts, but Pakistan. I am humbled by the love, support and overall appreciation.

I want to send out thank yous to Hera, Erum, Noveen, Anaum and Ghazal Api for being with me when this idea was just a little hatchling... I want to thank my biggest support system ever, my husband Zaiq for believing in my whimsical adventures and being there for me round the clock. My parents, aunt and uncle for bearing with the madness. My baby sister for being my little assistant... My brother Ali who leaves for abroad on Tuesday and dedicated his time to Firefly. My sister Sheena for putting in her day off to help out! Nivy I missed you heaps during this one month! My printer, uncle thank you SO much! Ahmed Ilyas, for working out our bags for Jugnoo & Junoon. Saud, for working so hard on getting cushions done for launch time. Royal Rodale management for being so so accommodating and cooperative. My best friends, for coming out to see me and be ng th me! A big big thank you to my volunteers, my super stars. This bunch of young people did an outstanding job! Namely Sabita and Rabbiya along with Iqra and Ramsha's group of friends. Rahat Bhai, thank you for looking into matters for the last ten days and helping me out all the way! My photographers, Rija, Fahad, Shaykh Yusuf, Wahaj at HocusFocus and Nadeem Bhai!

Thank you to Handmade Memories for sending heaps of wishes and offering gifts for the draw. Thank you to Many Happy Returns that flew in from Faislabad to participate at this event! Thank you to Craftaholics and Fancies & Flutters for being ever ready to participate in Karachi!

I cannot leave out the 2000+ visitors and fans! It was wonderful finally meeting so many of you!!! Thank you for coming with your loved ones. :) especially Shahrain and her family who visited us from Hyderabad!

This Crafter's Expo was the first... And mashaAllah it was great! We hope to carry it forward every year! InshaAllah. Congratulations Pakistan... At the end of the day it really isn't about a match won. We have tons of victories to celebrate... Like yesterday... When over 50 crafters united on one platform to share with the world what they are most passionate about, when international manufacturers sent items for an expo of this sort! Thank you Kelly at Graphic45 and Ashlee & Chuck at Die Cuts with a view!

The Firefly Girl and her journal thank everyone for a chapter to muse and write about. Alhamdulillah! This is all due to prayers of my Shaykh and the Great Favor of Allah Subhanau Ta'la upon all of us. May Allah Kareem grant barakah to all, and may He give us the hidaya to promote good and be a means to support efforts of all deserving.

Love,
Varah Musavvir
The Firefly Girl
(Founder of The Crafters' Guild & Organizer of Crafter's Expo Pakistan)

My fabulous participants:

Kaghaz Kay Karnamay

Simplicity by Sumaiya Yahya

Zee-Handmade With Love

Rung and Craft Bug

Butter Cup Creations & Baker's Studio

Cartolina

Many Happy Returns

Glitters & Swirls

All That Sparkle

Phulwari Crafts

Creative Party Favours

Favors & More

A Craft Greetings

SAJ Design Store & Candyz Creation

Fizy's Art & Arty Crafty

FLO

Life. Twinkles & The Junkyard

Ain Crafts

Everything That's Creative

Ghazal Pirzada Creative Studios

Glitz

Just Things

Whipering Emo-tee’s

Art Aesthetics

Tints and Flints

Cocoon

Artel by Bina Ali

Sadia's Clay Jewelry

Be Exclusive

Lil Lady Bug

United Youth of Pakistan

Orange Tree

Special Children's Educational Institute

Sanki King

Handmade & Madiha Raza Accessories

La Maison by Atikeha Adnan

Thardeep Rural Development Program

Adorn

Al Falah Village Embroidery

Wes Malhaar

Mingle Mangle

Rainbows Hair Accessories

Flutters & Fancies & Craftaholics

Artesenia

Shine with Zaini's Creations

Kapra by Fawad Beyg

Love in a Basket

Ayesha-Nimra

3Footwear

Rangeen & Zaa’s Collection

The Wall of Crafty Thoughts