She saved $24,000 to launch a craft festival in an old Joann store
An old Joann fabric and craft store is getting new life, if only for a weekend: Hundreds of Southern Californians are expected to visit in search of new art, clothes, decor and an afternoon of communal crafting.
That’s the mission behind Lauren Tetef’s Open House Creative Fest, which will run June 27 and 28 from the old Joann location at the Del Amo Fashion Center mall in Torrance, California.
The event is part artisan market, part workshop series where guests can learn new skills directly from the makers behind what they’re buying.
“As an attendee, you get a little taste of what somebody does,” says Tetef, 40, a long-time events producer. “You get to sit down and metaphorically break bread with them, have a conversation with them, get to know them. And by doing that, you’re so much more invested in their business.”
A weekend of shopping and crafting
Admission to the Open House Creative Fest event is free to walk around and shop from roughly 25 vendors, each of whom will also host their own crafting workshops. The creatively inclined can purchase an activity passport, starting at $40, which will give them access to do each booth’s activity.
For example, a participating florist plans to host sessions where she’ll guide visitors on arranging dried flowers onto a greeting card for people to keep; another vendor who sells clothes plans to show people how to make a keychain by upcycling old selvage material.
The activity passport will also give shoppers free range at the event’s “activity garden” with tables full of fabric, paper, paints and other art supplies to create their own projects.
“This is my dream come true,” says Tetef, who attended the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising (FIDM) in Los Angeles and was inspired by the campus’s free materials library. “I just want to go to a thing where everyone’s sitting down making stuff.”
Saving roughly $24,000 after a layoff
Much like the temporarily revived Joann space, Tetef’s creative fest is a kind of comeback.
In March 2025, Tetef started a corporate marketing job but says the import-heavy business was impacted by the Trump administration’s new tariff policy; Tetef says she was laid off just six months later in August. Despite the unexpected turn of events, she says, “it was a good opportunity for me to figure something out: What do I do next?”
She started brainstorming Open House Creative Fest and sees it as an amalgamation of everything she’s done in her career.
Tetef had previously worked as a director of events and produced dozens of meet-ups, from large-scale pop-up markets to intimate influencer events. About two years ago, she also started her own business, Flourish Locally, which hosts networking events for small businesses and creative workshops like charm-making sessions.
Tetef says she and her family lived off her severance check and her husband’s income. She took on events clients through her own business and put aside all of her earnings to go toward the creative fest, saving roughly…
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