Chippewa Valley Logjam: Opening Weekend

That's a wrap on the first weekend of Chippewa Valley Logjam Wild West Fest & Steampunk Spectacular!  I've driven the longest solo drive I've ever driven (twice - once late-ish at night!), slept in my homemade hammock in the booth for two nights, and generally had a fantastic time hanging out with rennie and college friends I hadn't seen in three or four years.

Our shop!

The shop I'm working out of is called The Smuggler's Emporium, selling inventory that totally didn't "fall" off the back of an airship, just ignore the "Property of HMS Serenity" shipping crate we're using as a floor...  In real life, we're a group of four single-person businesses all pitching in to make the booth happen.

Our headliner and procurer of booth space is Safety Pinner, maker of fantastically nerdy resin-cast jewelry and awesome distressed and/or tentacley hoodies.  Also ray guns.  I feel awful about not being able to place her in my memories of the old renfaire days until after not only meeting her but then Facebook-stalking her old pictures (despite the fact I've had her Etsy shop favorited for like a year or more), because she is just one of the best people.  Some small children of her acquaintance call her "Magical Alex" as if "magical" was actually part of her name, and I think they might be on to something.

Kim, making more Grimly hats.

Then we have Grimly Costumes, stocking the shop with bustle skirts, high-waisted bloomer-style shorts, waist cinchers, and tiny top hats!  Where most tiny hats are made from the same blank hat form and then decorated by each artisan, Grimly hats are completely handmade.  And also freakin' ADORABLE... or as adorable as anything with a skeleton cameo on it can be, that is.  Kim also happens to be one of my best friends from UWEC (although we both suck at staying in touch now that we live in different cities), and was the one who contacted me about this business venture in the first place.

Angela (left) posing with one of the cast members.

Finally, we have Lil' Evil Genie Designs! Decking out the shop with bolo ties, ribbon barrettes, and fantastic air plants growing in oil lamps (and there are rumors that they'll be in tiny hot air balloons starting next weekend, as well). She also does costume design work.  Angela gets more than a few warm fuzzies from me, because while I don't think I've ever described her as one of my best friends, I do think she was the FIRST friend I made at UWEC, and that's kind of a big deal.

The shop interior, shortly after I arrived.

My greatest fear about this adventure was that I'd arrive on Friday to a fantastic, fully-stocked booth, and just set up my nine pairs of bloomers in the corner - in other words, that I'd end up mooching off my friends (old and new) without actually contributing anything but product to the business venture (which may explain why I went so overboard when purchasing snacks for the weekend - if I couldn't give them elbow grease, I would at least give them food!). 

This fear, of course, neglected to consider that all three of the other people in the shop were also helping run the fest itself, and had spent most of their time building costumes for the cast and generally whipping the show and grounds into shape.  So I actually had something to do when I arrived Friday afternoon!

The front door - doesn't it look inviting?

While the other three were wrangling dress rehearsal and hanging signs, I found a stiff brush and dry-scrubbed the last three years' worth of dust off of every surface I could reach, then set to arranging the moveable furniture and displays on hand and distributing my curtain stash where necessary.  With a few more curtains and yet more displays from Alex, everybody pitched in and got their inventory up Saturday morning to create a not-too-shabby looking booth space!

The front table - Lil' Evil Genie's air plants on the right,
Safety Pinner's jewelry, jacket, and ray guns on the rest.

There's still a lot more to be done. More inventory to be built, and we did some brainstorming on how to take the shop from "not-too-shabby looking" to "amazing" - ranging from simple plans of making sure not to put random utility crap on the not-pictured back shelf above counter level (my fault, I put a few things there while setting up, intending to find better places for them later, but they just turned the shelf into a crap magnet for the rest of the weekend), to grand schemes of hanging stuff from the ceiling and building new display racks.  I fully expect to find the space completely unrecognizable when I come up for the third weekend!

Back table and rack - Grimly's hats (and an SP pendant!)
on the left,the Unbeatable Unmentionables on the right.

It'll be a mad scramble to get ready for that third weekend, with more Unbeatable Unmentionables in the pipe, as well as some other small things.  The Smuggler's Emporium is providing prize support for the fest's daily costume contest the second and third weekend, with each business contributing two small items, so I'm doing a few runs of key fobs (and maaaybe dice bags if I have time), the materials for which I just picked up at Day Job earlier this evening.  Hope they turn out well, I wasn't expecting to need small steampunk objects, so I landed on the fobs as the first fast thing that occurred to me...

Okay, it's past my bedtime.  Good night, all, and I hope some of you can make it out to the Fest!