So, we've done it again! We are up for another Pepsi Refresh Everything grant and we need your help!

Last year, Neal & I (the creators of the INDIEana Handicraft Exchange), earned a $5,000 grant through Pepsi, which, along with donations through this Kickstarter project, enabled us to get Homespun: Modern Handmade, a boutique selling contemporary handmade goods from over 120 different artists from around the country, up and running. Our original goal for Homespun was to have a retail, gallery and workshop space - all devoted to contemporary craft - in one, but the retail portion grew so quickly that our current space was filled before we were able to fit in the classroom and gallery portions. We have the tables and a lot of equipment and supplies funded through our Kickstarter project, and we've been given permission to use a space in another neighborhood business after hours, but we'd love to spread out and have our own space to be able to provide even more offerings.

This year we have applied for a $50,000 grant, which will allow us to secure a second space in the Irvington neighborhood and equip it with sewing machines, small kilns, screenprinting stations, a photo studio, computers, and more, where we can teach classes like Intro to Knitting, Basic Garment Construction, Glass Fusing, Needle Felting, Bookbinding, Soapmaking, Product Photography, Branding, Social Networking for Your Small Business, How to Make an Etsy Shop Work for You, etc. The space will be available for community members to rent for special events, as well as for group meetings, and the classes will be hosted through Homespun and taught by local artists, experts and professionals.

We're not asking for your money, or even your hard work. All we need is 30 seconds of your time. Seriously, that's it.

If you voted for us last year you still have a Pepsi account. If you're new to this, simply register at www.RefreshEverything.com for an account (they just ask for your contact info and a valid email address and you can opt out of all email solicitations) and then link to our project here:

http://www.refresheverything.com/homespunindy

and click on the "VOTE for this idea" tab. Our project will be up for voting from now through May 31 and you can vote once a day, every day, for us. Make sure you are signed in (bottom left hand corner of their website) or your votes will not apply.

You can also vote by TEXTing 106229 to Pepsi (73774) to vote from your mobile.

You can also vote by logging in through Facebook.

Please help us out when you can. We would sincerely appreciate your daily vote. Making the complete vision of Homespun finally materialize means a lot to us and to many of the artists whose work we sell in the store. The east side of Indy could also use an arts center like this, since we don't have anything of the kind right now. Plus, we still owe many of you classes for your donations last year - don't worry, we plan to make good on those no matter how long it takes us to make this happen! We haven't forgotten you!

Set an alarm on your phone, put a note on your iCal, write a post-it note and stick it to your computer screen....whatever it takes to help you remember to vote each day. It would mean the world to us if we could pull this off and bring $50k more to Indy's east side. We're currently at #15 and at the end of the month everyone in the Top 10 wins their grant, so we don't have far to go, but we do need every vote we can get!

Thanks a bunch!
-Amanda & Neal

P.S.) Please pass on this info to anyone else you think would be interested in supporting us. We need all the votes we can get! Your husbands, wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, co-workers, crafty comrades, kind-hearted grannies...anyone! Repost on your Facebook page, blog, Twitter, etc.

P.P.S.) Also, make sure you are only voting for our project once a day from one email address. Setting up multiple email addresses for voting could get us disqualified, and they are being much more strict about enforcing this this year.

P.P.P.S.) If you are a Pepsi product drinker, you might REALLY be able to help us out...The yellow caps on 20 oz. and 2 liter bottles and inside the cardboard cases of 12- and 24-pack cans have a "Power Vote" code that can be entered on the Refresh Everything website to give your selected project between 5-100 extra votes. Look for it on specially-marked "Refresh Everything" Pepsi products. It should be under the bottle cap or printed on the inside of your multi-pack. Save the code to enter on the website. Applies to Pepsi, Diet Pepsi or Pepsi Max. Codes are 10-character alphanumeric. If you don't use them yourself, email them to us at the following address and we'll put them to good use:

INDIEana_Handicraft_Exchange@yahoo.com

Let's see....what have we been up to?

Our May 1 fundraiser went pretty well. Big thanks to all the folks who came out to The Irving Theater to see the film Handmade Nation and bid on silent auction items. The evening was a success - despite a few small technical difficulties - and we made a little bit of money to put toward the cost of getting the doors of Homespun open by July 10.

We signed a lease beginning on May 1st for a space at 5624 East Washington Street. It is conveniently located between two fabulous restaurants...The Legend to the west and Jockamo's Upper Crust Pizza to the east. At 850 sq. feet, the space we are in is half the size of the space we were originally looking at, but with the denial of the bank loan we had to make some tough decisions. Hopefully, we will be wildly successful and have tremendous growth in the first couple of years, and then have the opportunity to move into a larger location. We are still offering everything we want to in the smaller space, we've just had to come up with some strategic ways of making it all fit. Our friend and interior designer, Nikki Sutton, of Level, has helped make that possible through the stellar floorplan she has created for us.

We have begun buildout of the space. Walls were knocked down, drywall replaced, electrical reconfigured. We've made a few fixture purchases and we're getting Chris Foster started on the tables and Eric Nolan started on the sign. Karli Kujawa has created our business cards, gift certificates, merchandise tags and more and sent those files off to print. We're capable of doing many things ourselves, but we also have friends who can do great things, so we are deferring to the people who have the expertise in metalwork and woodwork and design to handle those items. Part of the goal of this store is to help local artists make a better living for themselves, so we're beginning by employing our friends and other recommended individuals to help us make the things we need for the space.

More thanks goes to Karli Kujawa for getting the splash page for the store designed and online at http://www.HomespunIndy.com.

We're on a roll. Once the ball started moving, it picked up crazy momentum. This is my last week of teaching and then I will be devoting each and every waking hour to store plans. Vendors have begun submitting merchandise and contracts for consignment sales, and we have our POS system operational and ready for input. We're keeping a sharp eye on our finances and sticking to a very strict budget to make sure the funds we have in the bank will get us through the buildout and to the grand opening. Again, we're aiming for July 10, so put it on your calendar now!

P.S.) If you want a preview of the work of many of the artists who will be featured at Homespun, come to the INDIEana Handicraft Exchange on Saturday, June 12. We'll have over 100 vendors at the Harrison Center for the Arts selling their well-crafted modern handmade goods. We'll be there from noon to 8 p.m. and the event is FREE and open to the public. We'll have Homespun tees for sale, too, so be sure to pick yours up then! For more info check out http://www.INDIEanaHandicraftExchange.com.

Well, it's official. After several appeals, we've ultimately been denied by Key Bank for a small business loan. It's extremely frustrating because we're bringing over 30% of what we're asking for to the table in owner investment, we have a rock-solid, well-researched business plan, and we've had a really clean, sparkling credit history over the past few years. We've also paid down personal debt and saved in a big way. And thanks to the Pepsi Refresh Everything grant that we won in February, we've received all sorts of local and national press coverage, and it's been clear that we have support from the community and a great interest in seeing it happen in Indy.

Because of the loan denial, your donations are ever so much more critical in making this project happen, and they mean ever so much more to us personally. Your generosity is deeply appreciated. It means a great deal to us to have so many people interested in our idea and invested in seeing it come to fruition in our neighborhood.

At this point, we've got to figure out another, less tradtional means, of scraping together the rest of the funds we need to make this store happen in full. We haven't given up on the project because of the loan denial, but it has certainly made things more difficult. If you have any leads on grant opportunities, please let us know. We've applied for, and received, grants through the Pepsi Refresh Everything program and through the Irvington Development Organization. And this Kickstarter project has been very successful, as well. However, all those funds put together are stilll just a drop in the bucket. We're open to suggestions on where to look next. Send 'em our way.

Please continue to promote Homespun and spread the word about our Kickstarter project. Again, we appreciate your contributions and your support. We'll keep you posted on where we go next. We'll be discussing ongoing plans this week.

Thanks again! Take care.

On Saturday, May 1st, we will be hosting a screening of the documentary film Handmade Nation. The film will be shown at The Irving Theater, at 5505 East Washington Street, on the east side of Indianapolis in our Irvington neighborhood. The event will run from 7-10 p.m. and will also include live music from Pholly and The Jack Davies, as well as a silent auction for many wonderful handmade items donated by some of the vendors whose work will be sold at Homespun. Sun King beer will also be sold and served by the Hoosier Beer Geeks. The event is open to all ages and is a $9 admission at the door. Children 12 and under will be admitted free.

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Handmade Nation: The Rise of DIY, Art, Craft, and Design
A Documentary by Faythe Levine, 65 minutes

Handmade Nation documents the new wave of art, craft and design that is capturing the attention of the nation. It is the feature film debut of director, author, artist and curator Faythe Levine. Levine traveled to 15 cities and covered more than 19,000 miles to interview artists, crafters, makers, curators and community members. Today’s craft world has emerged as a synthesis of historical technique, punk culture, and the DIY ethos, also influenced by traditional handiwork, modern aesthetics, politics, feminism and art. Director Faythe Levine captured the tightly knit community that exists through websites, blogs, and online stores that connect to the greater public through independent boutiques, galleries and craft fairs. Interviews were conducted on-location in artist studios, homes, boutiques, offices and craft fairs, giving the public an exclusive and rarely seen look into the lives of these creative individuals.
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As many of you know by now, before Neal and I posted our Kickstarter project, we had a grant proposal up on Pepsi's www.refresheverything.com site. We won $5k through that program in its first month, and it has resulted in a lot of great attention for the Homespun project.

This past weekend, Ghost Robot, a production company from NYC, came through Indy and spent part of Friday afternoon and all day on Saturday with us, shooting hours of video for a 60 second spot to run in about three weeks on MTV, Hulu.com, Comedy Central, Spike TV and Nick Teen. Neal and I were interviewed by SuChin Pak, and we were able to get about 12 of our local vendors involved and interviewed, as well. It was a very fun, and very exhausting, day for all involved.

This morning, Neal and I were up bright and early to head out for a radio interview. We spoke to Don Stuck, of X103, for a 30-minute program called "Now Hear This" that focuses on community events and not-for-profit organizations. The interview will air next weekend on the following stations at the following times, in case you'd like to catch it.

WNDE-AM - Saturday, April 17 at 7 a.m.
WFBQ-FM (Q95) - Sunday, April 18 at 7 a.m.
WRZX-FM (X103) - Sunday, April 18 at 9 a.m.

Thanks again!

We've surpassed our initial goal of $3,000! Thanks to the 36 backers we already have, our project is a success - and we've still got 68 days left to go! We are ever so grateful to each and every one of you.

To get the store open and to do it right, this project is going to cost a whopping $50k. We've tried several different approaches to earning funds to make it happen, and we've had great luck thus far. We earned a $5,000 grant through the Pepsi Refresh project, and now we'll have the funding through Kickstarter, as well. We also applied for and will receive money through our neighborhood group, the Irvington Development Organization, for facade improvement and technical assistance. And we should hear back from Key Bank this coming week on an SBA loan we applied for. We have also brought a good amount of money to the table ourselves from our personal savings.

All in all....we're getting there. However, any additional funding we can get here, through our Kickstarter project, would still be tremendously helpful in putting the store together, and of course, we will use the money locally as much as possible by hiring local designers and laborers, crafters and craftspeople, artists and artisans to build out our retail location and develop the atmosphere of the store, gallery and workshop.

Please continue to spread the word about homespun!