I was led to Fancy Tiger Crafts on a hunch. After visiting the Denver Art Museum on my unforeseen layover in Colorado, I wanted to get a sense of the more emerging arts businesses of the city. Fancy Tiger Crafts seemed like a good place to start.

Inside the shop the walls were filled with yarn, fine fabrics (a whole rack of gorgeous Liberty patterns), and bookshelves filled with specialized craft books. The very back room housed a classroom lined with sewing machines and a clothing rack holding hanging patterns.

Their sister clothing boutique next door, Fancy Tiger, was also a treat to explore. I loved their visual displays featuring raw edged wood and old wooden pallets.

Fancy Tiger & Fancy Tiger Crafts
55 & 59 Broadway
Denver, CO 80203

I always say to my husband that an ideal business scenario for me would be to come up with the idea of a shop: to envision it, go through the logistics of opening it, design and furnish it, market it and then sell it to someone who would love to manage the day to day of it.

Since I’m always dreaming up shops & ideas I thought I’d start chronicling them here. And if anyone out there wants to help me fund this or any of these future ventures, please do get in touch…

The weather in Raleigh is downright spring like with temperatures in the mid-sixties. The windows open and birds chirping have me daydreaming about opening a flower shop.

Image Credits: ** La Motte, 1. Linen Apron 2. Green Roof Birdhouse 3. Galvanized Floral Bucket 4. Twine 5. French Bistro Chairs 6. French Bistro Table 7. Flower Coaster Set 8. Copper Garden Labels 9. Catalogue of Ferns 10. Meyer Lemon Tree, Coriander Girl, 11. Terrarium 12. Green Glass Vases 13. Ceramic Wall Planter

Tags: boutique, dream business, floral, flower shop, Garden

Terrain, the garden focused shop of the Anthropologie/Urban Outfitters/Free People conglomerate has an ivy-covered barn on it’s premises.

** Image Credit: Daily Bits of Beauty

My husband made these Gougeres from the Tartine cookbook this weekend. Gourgeres are soft, flaky pastries with a hollow center like a croissant and are typically filled with cheese, mushrooms or ham.

Tartine’s Gougeres Choux Au Fromage – French Style Cheese Puffs

Choux paste

• 1 1/4 cups nonfat milk (or water)
• 10 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 5 large eggs
• 3/4 cup gruyere cheese , grated
• 1 teaspoon fresh ground pepper
• 1 tablespoon fresh finely chopped thyme (or 1 1/4 teaspoon of your favorite dried herb)

Topping

• 1 large egg , for egg wash
• 1 pinch salt
• grated gruyere cheese , for sprinkling

** Image Credits: Michelle Smith

Tags: cheese puff, gougeres, recipe, tartine

While walking around Denver I lucked into finding the super cool Broadway neighborhood where I stumbled upon this hip little boutique called Ironwood.

As a vintage loving photo stylist, the store was a visual feast for me. The displays are overflowing with inspiration with perfectly styled vignettes, succulents and antique ephemera everywhere.

My only wish is that I could have perused their offerings longer before having to catch my plane home.

If you are in Denver with more time to spare I highly suggest checking out this gem of a shop.

Ironwood Boutique
14 S Broadway
Denver, CO 80203

** Image Credits: Michelle Smith

Tags: antique ephemera, colorado, cool boutique, denver, ironwood, store displays, succulents, vignettes, visual merchandising

I have a new card in my etsy shop, just in time for Valentine’s Day. Buy it here.

** Image Credits: Michelle Smith

My notes from attending The Alt Summit last week are too numerous to post just yet so instead I’ll fast forward to the after the conference. Exhilarated by the camaraderie and all the information I gleaned, I was excited to come home and dive back into the business projects that were awaiting me. But, after a snowy 2-hour delayed departure from Salt Lake City, I ended up missing my connecting flight in Denver, Colorado. The next flight to Raleigh wasn’t until a full 24 hours later. This was frustrating at first – the trip was expensive enough without having to spend an extra night in a hotel, in a foreign (to me) city and of course I was tired and missed my husband and daughter.

Eventually though I realized that this could be a fun adventure and that I had the opportunity to get a small taste of a city that I’d never explored before. Here are some pictures I took at the Denver Art Museum.

Tags: colorado, denver art museum, travel

The best part of Alt Summit was hands-down connecting face-to-face and developing real relationships with people who I’d otherwise worked with solely online. Below are just a handful of the people I adored “meeting” at the conference. And though I connected with many in brief spurts, there were still a few other business friends who slipped through the cracks due to the sheer number of attendees.

- Amy Butler

Since the start of my business I’ve had the goal of licensing my designs. Amy has served as a model of modern, pattern based licensing across a broad range of products. She connects the dots between styling, photography, color and pattern in her line and has an obvious love of home, community & her garden – sound familiar? Not to mention her warm and down to earth persona. She is a seriously relatable businesswoman and I am so glad I got to tell her so.

- Nicole Balch

I roomed with Nicole at the conference and we stayed up late talking until our eyelids drooped. We’ve known each other since the beginnings of our businesses, mine in 2004 and hers in 2005 but had only met once prior, and briefly. The conference was a great opportunity to get to know each other better.

- Rena Tom

Rena Tom is a kindred spirit, a voracious reader with ideas a million and a passion for promoting emerging artists. She has a fantastic plan to start a library/event space/hotel in San Francisco and knowing her this will happen with great success sooner rather than later. In 2004, my first business foray was an online shop called SmashingMirrors (viewable as a screenshot via the wayback machine) that profiled emerging designers and sold their goods, before the days of Etsy. Rena was one of the first designers I featured on the site, and has since gone on to open & sell the notable boutique, Rare Device. These days she offers up her smart business advice as a consultant and speaker. I look forward to watching her next business venture unfold. You can read a short interview I did with Rena a few years ago on what inspired her then, here.

- Kristen Appenbrink

Kristen featured my jewelry in the holiday gift guide of Real Simple Magazine in 2007 which was a turning point for my business. But more than that she is sweet, funny, and a food lover like me. I wish we lived closer so we could cook and gab together.

- Julia Rothman

Though I only talked with Julia briefly, I got a glimpse of her self-deprecating humor and lack of pretentiousness. She has successfully licensed her illustrative brand of patterns as well as put out a few books with Chronicle Books (and is working on another). You might also recognize her drawings from design*sponge where she illustrates posts regularly. We were both vying for the win in Anya from Project Runway’s fashion design contest, alas, neither of us got our coveted prize…

- Jenny Mitchell, Frecklewonder

Jenny too is one of those online friends I’ve had for as long as I’ve had my business. Hailing from Virginia like myself with an unending love for her family, all things thrift, and gardening. She is just about the warmest person you’ll ever come across. I can’t wait to go on a thrifting/roadtrip adventure with her someday soon.

- Alma & Mike Loveland, Ollibird

Alma & Mike teach online photography, Photoshop & pattern classes which I’ve had my eye on for awhile. I met them by coincidence at the conference and thoroughly enjoyed their company. They made me laugh a lot, as we each showed off our talent for juvenile impressions. Watch out Jimmy Fallon, you’ve got competition.

And, as if that weren’t enough, I also met these incredibly cool people who I look forward to getting to know better in the years to come:

* Kasey Fleisher Hickey – Turntable Kitchen * Danielle Wiley – Sway Group * Allison Barta Bailey * Elle Rowley – Ellemnop * Jessica Jones – How About Orange * Rebecca Wright – Permanently Disco * Merilee Liddiard – Mer Mag * Marissa Anne – Creative Thursday * Arianne Foulks - Aeolidia * Alessandra Gutierrez – Tribal Times * Tracy – Shutterbean * Deb Averett – Dose of Happy

** Image Credits: Bio shots from designer’s sites, photo collage via flickr

I’ve just added a page on the blog that features a house tour. You can see all the photos here. I’ve also added a photo link in the sidebar to the right. Eventually, I’d like to also add a section with ongoing house projects since I am always working on something. Would you be interested in seeing those works in progress?

** Image Credits: Brie Williams for Do It Yourself Magazine

On the plane ride back from my trip to Alt Summit I couldn’t help but take note of the following passage from the book, Netherland, that I was reading:

“The business world is densely margined by dreamers, men, almost invariably, whose longing selves willingly submit to the enchantment of projections and pie charts and crisply totted numbers, who toy and toy for years, like novelists, with the same sheaf of documents, who slip out of the bed in the middle of the night to pitch to a pajama’d reflection in a windowpane.”

And though Alt Summit was populated by a sparkly sea of passionate, women design entrepreneurs, the above passage still applies.  The undercurrent of the conference was each attendee’s love of tinkering and striving, and oftentimes accomplishing our greatest business aspirations. That each of us, similar but different, are driven dreamers on the path to making our unique visions come to fruition.

Since Alt was such an inspiring trip I’ll be posting more about it as the week continues.

** Image Credits: Justin Hackworth & Michelle Smith

Tags: alt summit 2012, business, dreamer, Joseph O'Neill, Netherland, women entrepreneurs