Finders Keepers
Concept Development, Event Planning & Coordination, Creative Direction, Partnerships & Marketing, Hosting and Photography
Once upon a time, I was the founder of Eden & June. A feisty 21-year old with a simple goal to get creatives in a space that fosters conversations, collaborations, and of course, more creating.
For many months, I would organize small, intimate gatherings—10 creative humans around a single table. We would just talk, share some insights, exchange handmade gifts, someone would sing or read their poem aloud for us to enjoy. I also organized movie nights, workshops, and before I knew it, I was working on a huge 3-day creative fair I decided to call Finders Keepers.
The concept was simple. Get all the creatives I admire in one place to sell their products & pretty pre-loved things, teach workshops, perform, and make sure all of them leave as friends. You can say that Finders Keepers was my ultimate excuse to get all my favorite people under one roof and get to spend time with them, learn from them, get to rummage through their stuff. And I know I’m not the only one who wants to do all that, so I just had to make it happen 😁
As with any event, moreso with a 2-whole day fair with many moving parts, my tiny team (me and my two uh-mazing interns Yani and Bianca) spent over a 5 months meeting up at coffee shops and having countless email exchanges with friends, partners and brands to make Finders Keepers come alive.
I was in Europe the entire May, basically the whole month before the fair—just the craziest thing a fair organizer could ever do, never again!—and spent late nights cooped up in whatever apartment we found ourselves in the 13 countries we visited, real jealous of the snoring of my family, planning, coordinating, designing, writing, dreaming of all the goodness to come June 3 & 4. Worth all the sleepless nights, a b s o l u t e l y.
Side kwento: I would carry my laptop in my backpack every single day we went out thinking I would be able to sneak in some work while we lunch-ed or had some downtime in a park somewhere, but nope, not even for 5 minutes did I get to work on any of our days out. Too funny, but also sorry shoulders!
I worked closely with Raxenne Maniquiz of Studio MaMa for all our design needs for the fair, from the branding, marketing graphics for our socials along with our event collaterals including tickets, photo booth frames, even the tarpaulins we hung for decoration.
The highlight of all our collaterals were the signature Finders Keepers paper cutouts, which we’d move around, enlarge or make smaller for other different needs. The colors were raw, draft-y feeling, down-to-earth but rememberable.
It was a breeze collaborating with Rax, and I learned a lot about myself as a creative director then. I found that I don’t really nitpick the work of those I collaborate with. I give suggestions here and there, but I run with the concepts they propose, only refining what needs to be refined. I trust the people that I work with. I’m not the type to focus on kerning or the “perfect” color palette. I guess you can say as a designer, I like to wing it too. To be uptight with design I think is the saddest thing. And I find that when you let go, with design, and life in general, things just fall into place naturally. That’s how Finders Keepers felt like. Not forced, unpretentious and easy.
Setting up a fair that’s unforgettable was half our job, half our merchants’ to be really honest. We made sure to have everything in order, but it was our merchants’ labor of love, their products, their smiles, and their beautifully curated booths that made Finders Keepers come alive ✨
We would tell them that beautiful doesn’t have to be expensive. And so proud to say, ingress night before June 3 we were visiting each other’s booths and admiring each one’s makeshift setups, squeals everywhere.
I wish I can show photos of all booths but here on the right we have the booths of Gela Muñoz, Bea Marquez and Neon Island. Bea’s was a crowd favorite!
If anything, apart from the pretty booths, it was the creative and friendly atmosphere that made Finders Keepers standout from any other fair, and everybody could just feel the kinship, the rooting-for-you energy in this tent. Everyone was all smiles, having a great time, learning from each other. It was really, reaaaally lovely. And I’m glad to say I wasn’t alone in feeling this way.
Check out more photos of this day using the #EJFindersKeepers hashtag on Instagram 🤎
And then we had workshops and live demos scheduled throughout both days. I don’t know any event that I genuinely enjoyed and felt my time was well spent where I did not learn a thing or two, so this was a must.
We did macrame weaving, acrylic floral painting, fashion illustration, hand lettering, rubber stamp carving, brass jewelry making, leather crafts, can you just imagine the creativity in the space those two days?
We set up the workshop area in the middle of the tent so we can all have a view of the activities and laughter wherever our booths were situated. I would literally overhear laughter from afar and run to the workshop area to see what was going on. I think the location worked out quite well 😁
How infectious are the smiles of these girls! They were literally having the time of their lives together, and to think most of them met for the first time for that workshop. Such a delight to witness. I wish I could’ve joined in as it was a writing workshop hosted by brilliant women and writers I get to call my friends, Sofia Cope and Camille Pilar.
It was extra special for me to have Camille join us because 1) she is such a special person to me; I discovered her poetry and pieces of writing back when I was a fresh off of high school and with a whole lot of feelings to translate into words, and there she was hosting her blog on LiveJournal and a side Tumblr account that I’m sure I kept open on my browser never exiting it, it was a wonderful time 2) she became my professor for Comm in college (seriously, a story for another time. I could not believe it either.) and 3) she was based in La Union by this time and traveled 6 hours to join Finders Keepers, host a workshop and read poetry out loud she’d written few minutes before she came on stage (seriously, another pinch me moment).
Finders Keepers was a celebration of art and music and creativity and poetry and crafts of all sorts and friendship and passion and I was just so grateful to have been there to experience it, moreso for the trust I was given to make it all happen. Truly precious. I think we should do it again 🙈