In The Box

Part of having this shop that we really like is the ability to support our neighborhood and everyone here that is doing their own thing. We are dedicated to getting the word out about other local businesses, but at the same time the thought having a messy cork board full of business cards or our windows covered in fly posters isn’t too appealing. Thanks to AM Radio, a vintage shop on Etsy, we were able to find an excellent solution:

This little shadow box is made from old yard sticks, and it’s the perfect size for business cards, as well as sweet treats for customers.

Sweet as Candy

Thanks to Daily Candy for their sweet post about the new shop!

We’ve got a lot of store additions to post up over the next few days, including some great new display pieces from AM Radio. More to come!

Music To Your Ears

We are selling independent and local music as well as design and paper goods… and you’ve gotta have a listening station for CDs and vinyl, right?

Using an IKEA CD/DVD rack, we set up a simple listening station. First we built a box to house the iPod nano…

…and a stand on which the iPod could rest. We picked up some new headphones, put together a little bit of signage, and voila.

Currently we’ve got titles from Sidedown Audio, all of which feature handmade album covers, an independently released album by Silvergirl, and two jazz albums from local label two five one records. We’ll have more music as the shop progresses.

Stop in and have a listen!

Taste The Rainbow

Artist G.L. Smothers stopped in over the weekend with some amazing paintings! We’re currently figuring out the best place to feature them in the shop. They’re mezmerizing.

G.L. is quite talented and we’re excited to see some of his most recent work. We have one of his smaller prism pieces in our home, and it’s great to have some in the shop as well.

We Like To Work

It’s been so time consuming getting the physical store ready that we took a break from making things. Now that we’ve got everything set up, it’s great to step back, take a look at the studio side of our shop and get back into creating new products and custom work:

Today we’re fulfilling orders from our Etsy shop and printing new shopping bags. It’s a calm, cool day in Chicago and we couldn’t be happier to be at work on a weekend!

Take Luck

Today’s our opening day, and we are done with most of the construction and building. There are still plenty of tweaks we’ll be making, but for now we’ll be settling into the retail groove.

It has been an extremely fun and exciting process, and everyone that has helped us over the last few months.

More picture and news on the way! We’re open, but there’s till a lot of progress to be made.

Vinyl

Some of our window graphics. We’ll be applying them this Friday. And on Saturday…

Bubble Bobble

Thanks to Chip & Kim Wentz, we have a fun new toy for the shop…

Visitors to the shop will be able to pick up buttons, mystery prizes, discounts and more from our new capsule vending machine! We are going to customize it with some vinyl graphics next week.

Thanks for the amazing store gift!

Off The Wall

As we near the opening of the store (now little more than a week away!), we’re putting the finishing touches on the space.

Earlier our friend Lauren came by to help with odds and ends. She replaced the old pulls on our card catalog drawers and helped us think through some of our furniture arangement. We installed paper hanging rods as well.

Yesterday we put up the picture ledges that will be used to display cards, books, music, prints and more. We wanted to create a wall that was orderly and organic, that didn’t look too rigid but still had the amount of shelf space we need.

And today we took some small IKEA drawers (FIRA mini chest) that we weren’t using and repurposed them as shelves. We plan to back each one with paper or cork board and use this section to highlight the different designers and production methods featured in the store.

Just a bit more work to do! Look out for our opening announcement VERY SOON!

I Saw The Sign

Or rather… I saw it go away! This morning we arrived at the shop to see that our sign company had come and removed the existing bridal boutique sign, preparing for the future installation of our new awning and hanging sign.

This is the last signifier of the old business, and we’ve been very anxious to have it removed. Now when people pass by there will (hopefully) be less confusion about what’s going on in the space.

Later, sign.