08/13/2026
Didja know the retail/shop side of Unglued started as a pop up shop?!
We did not start Unglued Craft Fest with the idea that we'd become a full-time retail shop, but following the first Unglued Craft Fest in 2011 we opened a holiday pop up shop at 68 Broadway after a maker (Beckamade) made the suggestion that we try a shop following the Fest to connect the world to makers regularly!
It was open Thurs-Sun when I was able to take the weekend off from my cardiac nursing job. We also hosted workshops, a photo booth, and live music with 65 makers involved in selling their work through it! And also - totally was only possible thanks to local commercial realtor Jay Nelson who didn't know us at all at the time and spent soooo much time trying to find any landlord in town willing to do a short-term lease. In 2011 pop ups were not a normal term and no one was willing to do a short lease...it almost didn't happen!!
After we opened our full-time location on the 400 block in Aug 2012, we somehow also decided to try another holiday pop up shop TWO BLOCKS AWAY in 2013. It included a live reindeer for a day (just making my own dreams come true lol) and we sold things like Karen's Kuchen! More makers were able to be involved, our first pet date night happened, and we learned we don't need to have a pop up shop that close omg what were we thinking.
THEN we did a pop up shop in Sioux Falls in 2014 when we started hearing other cities were interested in an Unglued - and we met some kick ass makers and crew down there and found a temporary location for another holiday pop up (prior to opening there in 2015-2018 which is another story I love to tell). My brother would drive from Minneapolis each weekend to run the shop with me on most weekends!!
THEN we did a pop up shop in West Acres Mall in 2016 for the holidays that went through Valentines and we sold an insane amount of Jen's Cookies, Hello Lucy's coasters, and Dot's Pretzels! We also saw someone walk away with a giant pillow in front of the actual maker. It was wild. (We did get it back😅). Also the white pegboard displays Justin built came back to life in our Brewhalla location!
I'm kind of surprised looking back we haven't done another pop up since then (am I forgetting one?!!) because they are SO FUN, BUT our first summer camp for adults was in 2015 and then began our life for crafty events that we are pretty dang obsessed with being alongside our shop life!
Anyways...all this to say it's pretty fun to look back on the adventure! And while on the outside it looks like every step made sense and snowballed into the next thing, we really had no idea what we were doing each time. But if you don't take steps into the ideas you have and problems you can solve, you'll never know! I'll share another post soon about all the things that haven't worked 😉 but for now here we are!! See you tomorrow for our 14th lil shop bday and free Craft Rave 6-9pm (Thursday!)!!