Showing posts with label event. Show all posts
Showing posts with label event. Show all posts

Saturday, October 8, 2011

Industrial Terroplex

The Industrial Terroplex is now open for business.  We were able to go inside the haunts on their opening night and take pictures of their awesome props and actors.  Make sure you go and check them out!  You can find our full gallery here, and you can order prints here.





Friday, October 7, 2011

Yew Dell Botanical Garden

Tonight, Bellawillow and a few other hula hoopers will be performing at the Yew Dell Botanical Garden.  We had costumes made by Bad Apple for the event.  We also had a fun little photo shoot for the event.  Make-up was provided by the wonderful Jocelen Barnett.


You can find a complete gallery of this photo shoot here, and a shop gallery here.


Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Flow Camp: A Story About the Most Wonderful Place on Earth

Making and selling hula hoops is a big part of Bellawillow.  Not only do we love to hula hoop but it gets other people active and is a good way to promote the other things we do here at Bellawillow.  Last year we had attended the Terrapin Hill Harvest Music Festival and we had a blast.  It was one of the places where we had first started getting into hula hoops so when we found out that they were hosting Flow Camp at Terrapin we immediately signed up to go.

The music festival at Terrapin Hill was great; it was big enough to feel like you were a part of something awesome, but still small enough to feel like you were a part of something special and exclusive.  Flow Camp, since this was the very first one, was small and intimate.  There were a variety of classes and instructional workshops that you could attend.  You could learn anything from hula hooping and poi, to belly dancing and fire breathing, and so much more.  Not only could you join the classes but you could learn so much from every person there, and everyone was willing to share what they knew.  You weren't on a strict schedule and could wander in and out of any of the classes.  There was the most laid back feel to the entire thing.  It was as if all the most amazing people came together in one spot to just share their tricks and teach everyone else how to be just as awesome.

The camp wasn't just for experienced tricksters either.  There were a lot of beginners there and we met a ton of people who introduced themselves as "Hey, I'm [insert name (for some reason if it was a girl then her name was most likely Sara)], I've only been hooping for about three days now.  Do you have any advise?"  It is so great to see so many people getting into things like hooping.  And just in case you are a newbie and would like some advise...don't get discouraged, especially when you are covered in bruises and can't seem to stop hitting yourself in the face!  If you are an experienced trickster, especially after attending Flow Camp, you will know that there is always a new trick to learn and with that new trick comes a whole new batch of bruises and sore muscles.

It did rain on the second day of Flow Camp.  That really didn't dampen anybodies spirit though.  As soon as the rain let up we were all right back out in the fields practicing our tricks.  There was even a variety show put on by all the instructors at the camp.  Starting with a batch of aerial performances (including a guy doing aerial tricks while suspended from nothing but the hair on his head!), then there was belly dancing, music and a fire show.  And I should mention that the members of Bellawillow each got to hula hoop with flaming fire hoop during the camp's Virgin Burn session!

Flow Camp was such an amazing event.  It was one of those things that you want to go home and tell everyone about every detail.  As it was raining and we were huddled up in our tent we were discussing how Terrapin Hill is like one of those Twilight Zone places were it seems like time stops, all your worries go away, and you just have fun no matter what.  It was pointed out, "The only bad thing that has happened was that some little girl lost her Gummi Bear bracelet...but she found it so that kind of cancels out and NOTHING bad has happened at Flow Camp."  Hopefully there is one next year and we go again because it was a truly awesome experience.

Edit:  You can now find our photo gallery of Flow Camp here.  You can purchase prints from Flow Camp here and here.

Saturday, July 30, 2011

Waterfront Wednesday: Uh-Huh Baby Yeah! Pictures

Last Wednesday we took some of our hula hoops down to Waterfront Wednesday.  The frist band to play was an amazing local band called Uh-Huh Baby Yeah!.  Their music is super upbeat and fun.  Great party music and awesome to hoop to.  Check them out here!












Edit:  You can now find the photo gallery for this show here.  You can purchase prints here.

Monday, May 23, 2011

Howard Steamboat Museum: A story of surviving the end of the world in the best way EVER!

The world was suppose to end on Saturday, May 21, but of course that didn't happen.  I guess we are going to have to wait around for the whole Mayan Calendar December 21, 2021 Doomsday prediction now.  What is up with the 21st?  I thought Friday the 13th was suppose to be the day of bad luck...

Whether the world was going to end or not, Bellawillow was going to go down while having fun.  We set up shop at the Howard Steamboat Museum Victorian Chautauqua Arts and Crafts Festival in Jeffersonville, Indiana.  People were constantly remarking that we have the best jobs ever.  They are totally correct!  We spent two beautifully sunny days outside, hula hooping, working on our tans, hanging out with our best friends and making money.  I don't think there ever could be a better job!




We also got to meet some really amazing people while we were there.  It is so fun to see an adult walking by and eyeing our booth, and then when we ask them if they would like to hula hoop with us there is always that moment of hesitation, a big smile, and then a YES!  We hook them up with a hula hoop that fits their size, give a quick demo, and then they are off...hula hooping like a they did when they were kids.  Or, we have people who tell us they could never hula hoop so we show give them a couple of tips and suddenly they are hooping like a pro!



Of course we have a ton of kids that hula hoop with us.  Either kids who are walking around the festival or the kids of other vendors, we welcome them all.  One vendor, Goat Milk Stuff, had eight super fun kids that would come and hula hoop with us all day long.  They were awesome hoopers and so friendly.  We were also able to snag some new hoopers who were waiting around to get their arms painted by the man in our neighbor booth.  He would shout out "Arm painting! Arm painting!" (but with this thick Asian accent it would sound more like "Arm candy! Arm Candy!" which was kind of funny, especailly when he would specify "Hey, Girl, arm candy!" so it would sound as if he were implying that the girl was some dude's arm candy).



The event was a huge success (We were even able to sell a hula hoop at a gas station after the first day of the festival!  We are some serious hula hoop selling fools!) and we had so much fun.  It is always so great to get a chance to meet all of these new interesting people and to get everyone hooked on hula hooping.  To find out when our next event will be check out our website, Bellawillow.com, or follow us on Facebook!


Edit:  You can now find the photo gallery for this event here.  You can purchase prints here.

Trunk or Treat: A story of how everything can go wrong

*We have switched our blog from Tumblr to Blogger.  This was a post we had previous made back in November 2010.*

Halloween is one of those days that you can just plan on expecting surprises.  Inanimate objects will jump to life to give you a scare or pranksters will be lurking in the shadows waiting to startle you.  But when we were getting ready to head out for the Trunk or Treat event we thought we had everything perfected.  We even uttered the phrase, "I feel like we are really prepared for this event."  Big mistake!  The universe does not like to hear that phrase and it will make sure you never want to speak those words again.  We have learned our lesson, Universe, thank you.

We started off right on time.  Our set-up was quick and easy.  Other than heavy winds that blew around some of our papers, everything was going great.  We started taking test shots for our photography area and that is when everything started to go wrong.  Surprise!  Only one of our brand new lights was going off.  Now, we had just done a couple of photo shoots with these lights and they worked perfectly.  We started trying to set the lights up differently.  Hooking cords up in different configurations.  Setting the lights up really close to each other and then farther apart.  Nothing was working.  We ended up going back home and getting one of our older lights and tried to see if it would work...nothing...We called the camera store that sold us the lights and they told us to bring them in and we could exchange them.  Suddenly it seemed very lucky that our advertising for the event had fallen through and we didn't have many people there between 1pm and 5!  At the shop, they tested some new lights that worked and sent us on our way.  However, back at our booth, the lights still would not sync!

After calling the camera store back, we came to one conclusion.  We were set up in front of a bank.  There could be a possible chance that banks will only allow so much electric to pass through an outlet at a time to prevent people from breaking in or something.  For both of our lights to work we would have needed a lot of electric.  Using two lights...it wasn't gonna happen.

We ended up setting up our one light and waited for Trunk or Treat to start.  At first nobody wanted any pictures made so it didn't seem like a big deal that only one of our lights worked.  Everyone was entering into our Candy Count contest and our Coloring Contest so we were kept a little busy.  Then one person asked for pictures...and then everyone asked for pictures!  We were so suddenly slammed that we began running around trying to figure out what was going on and who was suppose to be doing what.  Some jobs had to be switched due to lack of technical skills.  It became pure maddness

Cue the battery in the camera starting to go dead!...and we didn't have a spare.

Seems like a good time for the printer to run out of ink!...luckily we had more.

Oh, and now the computer memory is filled to the max! Ahhhhh!

Thank goodness it was finally time for the event to be over and we could start packing up all of our stuff.  In the end, our pictures were ok, but not great.  We had a lot of people enter into our contest so that went well.  We were able to walk away feeling very tired and stressed out, but ultimately successful.  This was certainly one of the biggest learning experiences we have gone through and next time we will know that we will need to be even more prepared.

Sycamore Arts and Craft Show: A Story of Being Blown Away

*We have switched our blog from Tumblr to Blogger.  This was a post we had previous made back in November 2010.*

Going to any kind of an event is a bit of a physical task.  You have to pack up product, tables, tents, chairs, display stands, and much more.  After it is all packed you then have to transport it to the event somehow, unload everything, and set up.  After the event is over you then have to pack everything back up (hopefully with a lot less product), load it into your vehicle and then take it home...where you get to unload everything, unpack it, and put it away.  Then take a nap for about three days and recover.

Over the weekend we went to the Sycamore Band Boosters Arts and Craft Show in Cincinnati, Ohio.  Fist off, we had to take a large truck and I was blown away by the simple fact that we didn't crash into anything the entire trip or run over any small children (although there was this one bump in a parking lot that was questionable).  Then, when we got to Sycamore High School about fifty band students came running up to us with trolleys yelling "I've got this one!  I'm helping this one!"  We get help?  We don't have to drag all of our stuff a million miles away?  WE ARE IN HEAVEN!!  In one trip we were able to get all of our stuff out of the truck and where it needed to be and we didn't even have to carry any of it!  Amazing!

During the show, we were doing our thing and suddenly another band kid came over and asked if we would like to order lunch.  They took our order and delivered our lunches to us!  Normally we would have to go one at a time and find our own food when we got hungry.  This was the best place on Earth!  They even made one of our meals vegetarian.

Guess what happened when the show was over...if you guessed that we had help loading up all our stuff and taking it back to the truck then you are totally correct.  This was for sure the least back breaking event we had ever gone to and it was so awesome!  If only they were all like that...

Saturday, May 21, 2011

Earth Day at Falls of Ohio

Last weekend Bellawillow attended the Earth Day Fair that was held at the Falls of Ohio.  We took all of out hula hoops out with us to sell and had such a successful day!  Not only was it beautiful outside but everyone had a really great time testing out our hoops and playing with us.  We even got Smokey the Bear to hula hoop!


We were really blown away by how quickly everyone learned how to hoop.  Kids and adults had a wonderful time. 



Check our event calendar to see when our next event will be so that you can come out and join us!