Wintertide!

The season of music, tinsel and lights is upon us after the whirlwind of summer. We've had an incredibly busy show schedule this year and are now buckling down on winter work (even if hibernation sounds better).

One of the biggest steps forward we have made is the organization of our party and event company, Fantasy Arts & Entertainment (FAE) Productions. We've spent the better part of the year collecting character actors, face-painters and more and brought them all together under the umbrella of F.A.E. Themed parties with live guest-stars are on track for 2016!

You can check out the new website for Fantasy Arts and Entertainment or visit us on facebook.

As if that wasn't enough excitement, FAE will be producing the 2nd Annual Fairyblossom Festival, June 25 - 26th in Chehalis, WA.  We have an all new (yet to be revealed) Guest of Honour Artist.  Our first Volunteer Meeting will be on January 15, 2016.

Naturally, we are continuing with both the Festival and with the Coupon Fairy Book as fundraisers for Dreamhaven.  We have ended 2015 with nearly 200 participants in the current book. In this last month of the year, we are rounding up any and all interested vendors, artists, musicians, fellow events, etc. for the production of the new 2016 Book!

Happy Holidays to one and all and may you have the brightest of seasons!

Twitches Amulet & $25 Gift Certificate Giveaway!

Hello my faerie friends! It's been a minute since I've done a giveaway so hooray for Friday! This week Faeries for Nature brings you GREAT offer!  Faerie Queen Rose features enchanted hand-crafted jewelry, accessories and find gifts for every faery and mermaid's fancy.
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Once of a kind designer originals including steampunk, faery, mermaid, renaissance, gothic and woodland styles.  Put some magic in your life with enchanted jewelry, candy filled enchanged roses and other magical gifts from Faeries for Nature.

Giveaway! EMP Museum Myth & Magic Faire!

Whew!  The last month has been a whirlwind of glitter and fabulousness with the successful culmination of our first ever Fairyblossom Festival!

As a part of the fest, we held a cosplay contest and now, the Fairyblossom Court and two special raffle winners will get to attend the EMP Museum's Myth and Magic Fantasy Faire!!

This event is scheduled for July 11 - 12, 2014, click below to enter. :)

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Dreamhaven Update #22

In the last post we discussed the Hobbit Hole attribute as one of the three aspects of our camping module. Today we'll take a look at the second leg of lodging on-site at Dreamhaven Park: Campgrounds.

As you can see top-center on the bubble diagram to the right, we've got an area reserved for camp grounds.  This portion of the park will be meant to accommodate all you rugged types who love to get out there with your tent and roast up marshmallows.

Our camps will be a simple design ranging from totally open "national park" style camping spaces, 3-sided to adirondack spots.  Each site will have the standard grill for cooking food and plenty of space for groups to pitch a few tents.

This area of the park will be connected to the larger body via trails and walkways, making it easy for people to move about, explore and enjoy the larger amenities.

All camping areas will have access to a site bathhouse with running water, showers and flush commodes.

We hope to provide a welcoming and educational environment to LARP groups, Boy and Girl Scout troupes, families, weekend gamers, SCA/Amptgard and renfaire groups and more!

Check out the website for even more information!

Dreamhaven Update #21

As we work with Coupe, our vision takes increasingly better form which always makes me excited to share it with everyone!

I've made a ton of updates to the website over the past couple weeks really elaborating on the various module bubbles you see in the diagram to your left here, but I always like to give time to the particulars.

We've discussed the vision for the Castle, Great Hall and Market Plaza so this week I thought I might share a little bit about our vision for the various lodging facilities.  The yellow circle represents the area of the park that we intend to put a 3-fold style lodgings.  Visitors will be able to choose from The Inn, the Hobbit Holes, or Open Campgrounds.

Originally, the Hobbit Holes were going to be Yurts, but in the process of researching cool, sustainable options that were in-theme with the overall park, I stumbled across the Hobbit Holes.

This was a super-exciting find because who wouldn't love to camp out in one of these??  Hobbit Holes also presented serious advantages that are in line with our philosophy of green-tech and sustainability.

They do not require much disturbance of the terrain to embed them into a setting (if you're putting them under a hill, rather than on top of the ground).  If they are above-ground rather than partially covered, as they become overgrown with natural terrain their heating and cooling costs are dramatically reduced.  It's really a win-win.

We hope to have anywhere from 6-12 Hobbit Holes eventually installed in the camping area with basic amenities inside.  You can check out the website for even more information!

Birds Eye Treasures Giveaway & Dreamhaven Update #20

We have been studiously preparing for our Fairyblossom Festival which is now only 6 weekends away!

There will be Epona horseback and Dragonsteps fiery entertainment, turkey legs, TONS of handmade shopping in the Fairy Market, games and feasting for all.

It has been keeping us all here at Dreamhaven exceedingly busy in a very good way and the energy is amplifying.

Proceeds from our event will help go toward the building of our dream location so it has been quite exciting watching it all come together.

That said, our wonderful vendor Birds Eye Treasures has donated this week's giveaway prizes!  Winner will get their choice of not one, but TWO different upcyle necklaces from her etsy store.  Start earning chances to win right here by leaving us a blog comment with your favorite item from her store! a Rafflecopter giveaway

Fairyed Treasures Giveaway & Dreamhaven Update #19

In order to lessen the cruel sting of Monday's we start this week's post of with a giveaway from Fairyed Treasures! To your right you shall witness a beautiful fairy with a unicorn figurine that is just waiting to be yours!  This raven-haired beauty has a $40 retail value - you want to put her on your shelf, you know you do. :)

All you have to do is enter to win.  Start by visiting Fairyed Treasures on Esty and telling us in the comments below what your favorite item from her shop is.

All entries do get verified so please be honest!

We have been incredibly busy here as we seriously gear up toward the Fairyblossom Fesitval (the proceeds of which go toward Dreamhaven and the Black Knight Society).  This has required a bit of a diversion of time and energy but this week, it is on our plate to begin to polish up our modules, one by one.

Over the last few weeks of radio-silence, we've been collecting information, business plans, and general market research as relates to the various portions of Dreamhaven (plus selling a TON of our Coupon Books for fundraising, for which we cannot thank our participating vendors enough!).

This weekend will be the Wenatchee Renaissance Faire, produced by our partner the Black Knight Society.  If you see us there, feel free to ask any questions at all!

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Dreamhaven Park Update #18

Hello Dreamers!  This week I'd like to talk a little bit about the Castle portion of Dreamhaven Park.  This module of our park is meant to be comprised of three particular aspects, The Castle, Banquet Hall and Conference Meeting/Breakout Rooms.

As you can from the bubble diagram, it is centered off to the left of the main entry and plaza.  This will help keep the plaza and handmade shopping mall the center of the park for small businesses.

We've added in a parking lot to the left of the Castle so that wedding parties, office events or other groups have a way to access only this area for their special occasions.

The Castle: We are looking toward a castle that elicits a little more fantasy and a little less medieval in appearance.  To the left here is a sample picture of what we might consider.

The interior of the castle will have a limited amount of private VIP sleeping rooms for rent with an open kitchen for public use by the guests.

This would be the perfect place for the Bride & Groom, their wedding party, parents, VIPs and Guests of Honor for conferences or tournaments, Kings and Queens with their courts for SCA and Renaissance Faire style events.

Inside there will be a selection of amenities such as hot tubs, pool room and more with the potential for rooftop activities.

The Great Hall: This area shall be adjacent to the castle with private and public entrances.  The large open space will contain a commercial kitchen for use by caterers or other parties renting the facility.

The Great Hall will be the perfect area to host large assemblies, dinner parties, receptions, tournament gaming and more.

With the versatility for meeting, conference or banquet standards, it is great for the grand ceremonial feasts, bazaars, seminars, balls, and other events your company or gaming party may wish to host.

Conference Rooms: Smaller break-out rooms are adjacent to the central Hall in order to accommodate workshops, panels and team-building or pre-qualifying events.

Role-playing groups will have the ability to host their major events in the hall with private gaming rooms for smaller scenes, combat rooms, or tangent storylines.

Artists, Crafters, Trainers, or other instructors can use these facilities to host hands-on workshops, classes or sessions as suits their particular business.

As a reward for taking the time to read all that, I'd like to just offer you this week's Giveaway from Hennatopia for a hand-made, henna-inspired felted gift box!  FREE to enter!

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Dreamhaven Update #17

Last week we had a meeting with COUPE Architecture to go over the first draft of our bubble diagram.

We spent the better portion of December streamlining the concept for the park, omitting superfluous elements and categorizing the attractions that we are set on, in order of priority.

The next step was to get these modules into a bubble map, the purpose of which is to get a generalized idea of the Dreamhaven layout, and to illustrate the adjacencies between various park features.

This first bubble diagram shows our Entry and Public Plaza concept, highlighted in the yellow circle.  The plaza is where the public market will be located.  Here are some of the features of the plaza:
     1) All 3 market strips open directly onto the plaza for shopping
     2) Meandering pathways leading in and out of the plaza
     3) Lawns and Benches for seating
     4) Mounded, Earth-scaping opportunities
     5) Hardscape
     6) Serves as a secondary (rooftop observatory)
     7) Artist work-live spaces are located here

The Plaza is defined by an open "center" with three market rows. Each market row caters to a particular type of shopping: 

     1) Permanent Handmade Market
     2) Farmer's Produce Market
     3) Day-stall Merchant's Market

Permanent Handmade Market
Our permanent shops are steady fixtures in Dreamhaven.  Owned an operated individually, these stores are sub-leased to high-quality artisans, crafters and costumers! Each permanent storefront has living/storage space above the retail outlet so that our artists may live or keep their studio on site.

Farmer's Market
Located adjacent to our community P-patches and homesteading garden plots, is the Farmer's Market. This row of stalls and shopping are dedicated to food products, general produce, flower vendors with an emphasis on providing a retail venue for our on-site gardeners and community farmers.

Tend your garden plot and sell the fruits of your labor to campers, over-nighters, our customers and the general public. Campers staying on-site can pick up a few fresh groceries to take back to the cabin or campsite!


Day-stall Merchants 

The Day-stall market strip is conveniently located off the main plaza. It features a daily variety of vendors and artists based on a first-come-first-served basis. If you would like a place to host vendors for your event or gaming group during your stay, this is it!

Looking for the perfect cosplay accessory? Did you forget your best earrings and necklace? Did your sword frog break? Wand holster left at home?....Did you leave the soap in your shower?? Worry not!

The merchants in our plaza have what you need to outfit and supply yourself and your merry band of intrepid explorers accordingly for your time with us at Dreamhaven.

Grab your mug, get your growler and head out on that quest. You'll want it at the tavern for a tasty flagon of mead as you boast about your conquests of the day!

                  

Faeries for Nature Giveaway

Hello my faerie friends! This week's giveaway is brought to you by Faeries for Nature.  Faerie Queen Rose features enchanted hand-crafted jewelry, accessories and find gifts for every faery and mermaid's fancy.
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Once of a kind designer originals including steampunk, faery, mermaid, renaissance, gothic and woodland styles.  Put some magic in your life with enchanted jewelry, candy filled enchanged roses and other magical gifts from Faeries for Nature.

Dreamhaven Update #16

Slightly late on announcing the news, please pardon the delay! Our relationship with the Black Knight Society has been sealed.

This is an exciting partnership that mutually builds our community by donating a portion of our proceeds toward supporting their organization.

The Black Knight Society is an organization developed to foster a love for education and exploration through the field of interactive recreation.  Hailing from the Wenatchee Valley in Washington state, they are visible in their community often volunteering or hosting mini-events and fundraisers.

Each year, the Black Knight Society produces the Wenatchee Renaissance & Medieval Faire (#WenRen), which is held at Wenatchee Valley College.  2015 dates are: April 25-26!

They performing and putting on educational panels and workshops that demonstrate various aspects of medieval life, combat, dress & fashion, and more!

A portion of the proceeds from every Coupon-Fairy Booklet goes to support this non-profit organization.   This year (2015), you can save $3 off your Gate Ticket by purchasing a copy of our Coupon Booklet!

If you're interested in checking them out more, or looking for information on how to join up, you can find them either on facebook, or contact them directly at: ncwblackknightsociety@gmail.com

Dreamhaven Update #15

In the news this week we've got a little peek from Coupe Architecture. These bubble-diagrams on the left are initial sketches of the park layout, as per our last meeting. A charette is a collaboration where design solutions are brainstormed and then proposed for a project. \

It is quite a bit different from our original concept map (which was to be expected), and reflects the overall concept a bit better in regards to the "Fantasy Village" layout. We should be seeing some more formal drawings as time goes on, as well as an updated color map.

We'll be using these sketches to create a large-scale modular map of the park as we move into the phase of collecting relevant business data in order to do our financial analysis.

The coupon-booklet continues to be both a growing success and endeavor. We've already got some excellent names signed up for the next edition like Jasmine Beckett-Griffith!

Our Pinterest Board for the booklet is also another new addition to this version of the book. It conveniently shows which businesses are offering what sort of discounts. It is our hope to develop a phone app for the next incarnation (fingers crossed). 

In other news - this week's giveaway comes to us from Herb Leonhard Art! 10 Pairs of Tickets to MythicWorlds in February! Get your entries in and enjoy. :) a Rafflecopter giveaway

Fairyblossom Update

In Fairyblossom Festival news this week, I am most pleased to share a few highlights.  We've included the festival in the Coupon-Fairy Booklet 2015.  What this means is that with the purchase of the booklet, you get 1 Free Pass to the festival AND coupons and savings at over 100 vendors, events, indy-authors, musicians and more!

If you purchase before February 6, you ALSO will get a FREE PASS to Riona's Cave of Treasures coming up in Portland, OR.  RCoT is an artisan craft faire located at the Doubletree Hotel Lloyd Center in the wonderful and weird City of Roses.  If you're local, we definitely hope to see you there!

On the DIY adventurous side of things, Ion the Leprechaun and I got industrious over the weekend!  We had collected some free pallets with the intention of deconstructing them as pallets, and reconstructing them as stages for the Festival.

This is my YouTube short documenting our experiment.  It turn out SUPER great so...this weekend we'll be making more!  The part that just pleases me all to pie is that A) pallets are free, so we are saving BIG bucks to build our stages and B) the leftover pallet frames that we tear planks off of are still in working order so they get to now become our walling and backdrops.

I LOVE it when a plan comes together!

Dreamhaven Update #14: 2015 Coupon-Booklet is Live!

The big news in Dreamhaven this week is that the Coupon-Fairy Booklet 2015 is live and ready for purchase! 

In Q4 2014, we had almost 50 participating vendors/events in the booklet and it was our goal to at least double that for 2015.  It's great to say that we have roughly 120 participating businesses now.  This incarnation of the booklet includes stores from overseas in the UK and France, the addition of musicians, authors, new events and hundreds of dollars in savings.

If you're not familiar with what how it works, it's like this: the coupon booklet is packed full of coupons from small businesses and events.  You buy the booklet and then get to redeem the coupons inside for savings at the participating stores/places.  Most of our vendors are online sellers so you can shop from anywhere for the interwebs cover the world!

The awesome part about the booklet is that it not only supports the vendors and small-business community, a portion of the proceeds get donated to Dreamhaven Park as well as the Black Knight Society (historical re-enactment & education non-profit).  Last year, this stream of our fundraising efforts brought in ~$250 - not bad for a first time effort that only had a couple months to get out there. :)

Righto, my wingéd friends -  until next time!

Dreamhaven Update #13 Year-in-Review

Happy New Year to one and all!  I hope everyone was safe and enjoyed the holiday season. :)  Before I jump into my 2015 year of posts, I wanted to take a moment to review some of the 2014 milestones for Dreamhaven Park.

I have committed to making a very sincere effort toward community involvement and transparency with Dreamhaven Park and its development.  Over the course of 2014 I diligently logged our progress, successes and general advancement in a timeline of ongoing work (which you can see below).

This year we're really hitting the ground running.  One of our major fundraising efforts, the Coupon-Fairy Booklet 2015, has over 100 vendors, events, storefronts, musicians and artists internationally!  This is very exciting as the purchase of these booklets not only contributes to Dreamhaven, but brings the buyer savings AND supports small business.  It is the first of its kind!

To add to this, Dreamhaven Park has officially partnered with the Black Knight Society non-profit.  A portion of our booklet proceeds will go to support their educational re-enactment organization.  This is exciting news as it couples well with the part of the Dreamhaven vision to demonstrate modern education on old-world practices and eco-friendly living through the lens of fantasy, history and gaming.

Our other big highlights were:

• Raising enough money to secure our architectural agency (COUPE)
• Becoming a certified member of the Office of Minority & Women's Business Enterprises
• Securing a site for the Fairyblossom Festival (from which funds will be donated to Dreamhaven Park).

All that said, here is the review of last year's timeline! :)

2014 Year in Review
Nov 26, 2014: For those of you following the Dreamhaven Project at home, you may recall that two weeks ago we formally secured the architectural firm that will be designing the park.
This is really exciting news and we're looking forward to seeing some initial bubble diagrams and drawings by the end of the year!

In the interest of elaborating on the various module components that we are incorporating, here's a little bit about the banquet hall...


The Great Hall: This element of the park will be attached to the main castle. It's concept is to be a large hall with supporting industrial kitchen and side break-out rooms for small groups. We wish to make as many aspects of our park as multi-functional as possible. Our aim here is to build a space that can be used to host receptions, bazaars, large scale gaming tournaments, workshops, corporate retreats, seminars, banquets and more.


Lastly, we've now added donation portals to several of our facebook pages/supporting businesses to increase the ease of donating as well as visibility.


Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!


November 12:Formally retained Coupe Architecture to begin our project design.  We've focused the scope of the project quite a lot, and narrowed our land-search areas (in order of prevelance) to Snohomish, Lewis and Grant Counties.  These will be contingent (ultimately) on what our market studies bear out.  We've added some detail to our "project plan" outline as well to help streamline the process.  Some of these changes will be evidenced in our "Wish List" here on GoFundMe where we've itemized the various aspects of the park in estimated cost breakdowns for that component.  We'll be looking to start seeing some new concept bubble-maps between now and the end of the year from Coupe.

In other fundraising news, we've grown our Coupon Booklet to approximately 70 vendors and events as the idea gains steam.  We're looking to get that number up to 100 by Jan. 1 2015 and are excited to be including fantasy artist Amy Brown and steampunk band Abney Park amongst our new participants.  Thanks, everyone!

October 6: We are almost to our first $1000. This is exciting because it allows us to get the ball rolling with our architect! We've been selling the coupon booklets and an influx of new vendors for the 2015 book as well. Thanks to two of our booklet contributors: Solvang Faerie Fest and Spokane Renaissance Faire who both had their amazing events this last weekend!

Sep 27: We've applied for a $150,000 grant through the Chase Bank small business program.  Each year, Chase awards 20 winners a $150K grant for their small business.  These funds would be used to: find and purchase land for Dreamhaven.  Additionally, we would win a $2,000 toward marketing research study.  You can read more about the program benefits here.  Winners are notified in January 2015.


Aug 18: I'm really excited to say that three of our other fundraising efforts are well underway now (we are putting multiple streams of revenue generation into the works). The first is the Coupon Fairy Booklet. It's drafting is moving along and we will have the first version of it by this weekend for final reviews! Once live, people will be able to support both the artistic community AND the Castle Project by purchasing an "entertainment-style" coupon book filled with savings from online and brick-and-mortar businesses!


Second is the Fairyblossom Festival! We'll be holding our very first festival on June 20-21, 2015, centrally located in Chehalis, WA - partial proceeds will be donated to this fund for a permanent event venue. Thanks everyone for your continued support - we're doing it!
Third, our efforts to get the OMWBE membership (which will assist with grants and loans) is *almost* complete...bureacracy takes a long time to process!


July 31: In the last month, we've begun a number of efforts, foremost the Coupon-Fairy Fundraiser in conjunction with online sellers.  Its purpose is to help raise the $15,000 needed for the feasibility study.  At this time, we have several stores signed up to participate and are nearing completion of the booklet design (eta first week of August).  We've also drafted (loosely) a visual map of the intended project so that it can be seen.  Our aim is to let the architecht work off this general premise.  There have been very preliminary discussions about expanding our eye toward the Oregon area for property (when the time comes) so we'll be including some land that direction in our econimic-marketing study.  We are almost complete with the review process for the OMWBE to gain membership (and small business assistance for grants and loans).


June 23rd: Beginning RFPs to solicit proposals from additional architectural firms. Drafting up $15,000 mini-fundraiser for interested vendors and etsyians to participate in to help raise funds necessary for to reach our first milestone!

June 20th: First architectural proposal is in and WHEW. Not cheap (by which I mean it costs more than the average vehicle), but not impossible. The next step will be to put together a formal RFP (request for proposal) to submit to some other firms so that I can get some general pricing comparisons. I will have this done by Wednesday.

June 14st: This month's stock option investment has seen ~7.5% return (investment capital).

June 10th: First meeting with prospective architect (Brandon) to discuss feasibility study. The meeting went very well and I can expect to have a proposal, with costs, for the feasibility study within the next week

June 5: Business license renewal is in

May 26: Mailed off OMWBE application to State of Washington; filed credit report dispute to vanquish the one negatively impacting item

May 24: First secured loan was a success. Took out a second secured loan to build credit.

May 21: Initial project discussion with the financial planner (Steve), outline of process and next actionable steps

May 14: Sedro Woolley property visit, first sample grant obtained

Apr 2: TD Ameritrate account established