Are you voting for your town?

America's Top Ten Craft Towns....
Voting is open for America's Top Ten Craft Towns... are you voting every day for your town? or your favorite craft town? Head over to American Craft Week Facebook page and vote... it's important!

Welcome back to a wonderful participant!

It's always good to see old friends! Every year we love having supportive participants of American Craft Week return for another grand celebration in October. We're going to highlight a participant every so often over the year and today we're delighted to welcome back Vermont Artisan Designs, they are stalwart of ACW. So, welcome back, Vermont Artisan Designs and thank you for your support!

Check out their website, make a note of their info and see how they do it so well!

Vermont Artisan Designs – plus their upstairs’ Gallery 2 – has been an extensive “showcase of fine art and hand-crafted gifts” in downtown Brattleboro, Vermont for more than 40 years

When you’re in southeastern Vermont, be sure to head to 106 Main Street and see this great gallery. They’re open 7 days a week. And they always take part in the local monthly event, First Friday Gallery Walk and are strong supporters of American Craft Week every October.

Phone is (802) 257-7044

Visit and like their facebook page 

VOTE! oh yes you must....

Here's a heads up folks! 
Voting for the Top Ten Craft Towns starts March 15... and there's room on the ballot for a couple more. Do you think your town should be listed? Go to the American Craft Week Facebook page, add it to the poll and start voting. Time is short.... it is a great boost for your town, travel writer's follow the competition every year. 

But you have to vote! Round up your town's fans and vote....and have fun.

Be inspired

Joining us for American Craft Week is easy and we want you to have fun. We ask you to arrange one event at least during the week. This can be a demonstration of throwing pots on a wheel, an artist talk to an elaborate multi-media group exhibit. You can get a number of arts related businesses near you to join up and throw an arty party for a weekend with studio tours, gallery events and performance art. Whatever works for you, the activities help the chorus of voices to highlight how important our crafts are to the quality of life and the economy of our communities.

So, now you've signed up to join us in 2018 and you need some ideas to get the creative juices going? Try checking out what previous participants have done.
A fabulous example for an exhibit during American Craft Week is North Carolina's Asheville Area Arts Council. They were the winner of the 2017 Star Award for "The Perfect ACW Exhibit." Check out all our Star Award winners AND other participants...they're all are fabulous!

We're looking for you to join us

Are you an individual artist?..join us! Should your organization, studio or shop be an American Craft Week participant? Join us! It's time to sign up for this years celebration, Oct. 5-14. Get more information & sign up now

Save the Date

Time to start thinking of creative ways to celebrate American Craft Week!  It's never too early to be prepared...first, sign up to join us and then put on your creative thinking cap... we'll share ideas to inspire you over the next few months. Looking forward to seeing you

Western North Carolina's DEDICATED FACEBOOK PAGE

Inspiring Ideas 

for your successful ACW event

 facebook.com/AmericanCraftWeekWNC

This “Inspiring Ideas” post follows up on the previous article about creating a dedicated website for your ACW event. Creating a Facebook page dedicated to your event is a free and productive tool to work alongside a website or to act as the centerpiece of your event’s web presence. Not only can you use the page to promote your event, but you can also use it all year long to foster support for craft in your community and recruit enthusiastic people to join the effort of planning and implementing your event.

Western North Carolina (WNC) has a long rich history of handmade craft and will continue to remain leaders in the industry because artists, retailers and patrons join forces to make stuff happen! One such group is simply called American Craft Week in Western North Carolina, and their mission is to “bring together individuals, small businesses and organizations in recognition of the countless ways handmade objects enrich our daily lives and contribute to our national aesthetic and economy.” Sherry Masters of the planning committee tells ACW that one of their keys to a successful week in October is running a Facebook page.

This exemplary page always has ready-made fresh content because it grabs news from all of the area participants in ACW. WNC uses the Facebook culture of invitations to drum up a crowd. “We invite you to join American Craft Week this year! We will be promoting all the great craft businesses in WNC. If you are an artist, gallery, museum, craft organization or art business we want you to be part by telling your story!” Participants will be compelled to join knowing the group’s Facebook page will in turn promote them. Another key invitation is publicizing when and where committee meetings take place and encouraging new people to attend. You might be surprised with the amount of help you receive when the public knows how much fun ACW will be!

Don’t think you have time to administer a Facebook page? Share the load. Try giving your page three administrators. Give each admin the responsibility of posting content once per week on an allocated day.

 Here are some inspiring ideas for your own dedicated Facebook page:

• Invitations to planning meetings
• Posts promoting participants’ events year round
• News stories about craft and the region
• Facebook events open to the public for your ACW events
• Profile and cover photos borrowed from facebook.com/AmericanCraftWeek
• Hashtags, including #ACW2015
• Ask questions to encourage comments
• Set goals for page likes and reach
• Like the pages of other ACW participants and craft organizations