Counting Down to Popping Up: The Poperative Elves build a Workshop!

As you'll see from these photos (from the camera of Poperative Cari), we Poperatives gave Santa's elves a run for their money this weekend as we transformed a host of found/recycled furnishings into our LB PopUp Shop displays. Under the guidance of Poperative Jen -- and with the help of supportive co-Poperatives Eric and Eric --  our set-up has started to come to life.

Jen's extensive experience in the retail design/merchandising arena has translated into a clever, inviting, yet brilliantly functional floor plan that manages to conquer all of those pesky space challenges that go along with popping up in non-traditional locations.  Check out our postcard and poster image on this site and around town to get a preview of our unique holiday wonderland.

Now that it's all coming together, we can't wait for you to see it!

 

LA Times Gives Props to Handmade

There's a great article in today's LA Times Home section, titled Craft-making grows in popularity among young artisans. Although the story is a bit heavy on felt (who knew LA had a Felt Club??), it's a great glimpse at the resurgence of handmade goods on the marketplace. It even includes a quote from Etsy Vice President Matt Stinchcome.

This cute gal and her handmade friends were at the Felt Club's recent annual holiday sale, which drew about 4,500 shoppers and included 144 booths. Go handmade!

Join us for three Pop Ups in December!

We’re So Happy You’ve Popped In!

Welcome to the LB Pop Up Shop blog.

We're the Long Beach Poperatives, a group of local artisans, trend spotters and all-around smart shoppers on a mission to share the kinds of "where did you get that...?" items that we especially enjoy. Through LB Pop Up Shop, we'll bring you all of your new favorite treasures; most created locally, and all creatively cool.

We thrive on the unexpected. We'll offer up our goods with a dash of surprise and delight, in a way that makes people look forward to their next LB Pop Up Shop encounter. When you see us, it won't be in your typical retail setting, and it will be for a limited time. And we promise you: we'll never be the same Pop Up twice.

In between Pop Ups, we'll keep the good energy going through this blog. We'll chat. We'll give you clues as to where we'll Pop Up next. And we'll tell you about the special and unusual things we've come upon that we think should be on your radar, too. We invite you to do the same for us.

LB Pop Up Shop debuts at the 4th Street Holiday Open House on December 6th, 2008. We've teamed with the wonderful folks at the Art Theatre (If you haven't been since the reopening, go. Today. You'll thank us for the tip.) to plan a handful of Pop Ups that we hope will give you a whole new outlook on holiday shopping. Unless you love it already. In which case you'll want to marry it once you get a load of us!

Full details will follow. We hope to see you there.

Warmest Wishes,

The Long Beach Poperatives