#iheartartcleveland

So, many of you may follow my whereabouts in picture form on Instagram…and you may have noticed a few dozen or so pictures that weren’t my kids with the hashtag #iheartartcleveland.

Well, before this trip all I knew about Cleveland could be summed up in two people: Michael Symon and LeBron James. Oh, and I knew Cleveland boasted some of the best museums in the country.

It snows there, too, or so I’ve heard:

You’re probably wondering what brought me to Cleveland!? Right? Well, tucked away in a plain warehouse in Independence, OH is the Faber-Castell USA Headquarters!!!!!

So after, Naoko (our social media queen) picked my up for the airport, we headed to the headquarters.

After meeting up with my roomie, Rita, and fellow designer, Mou, we high-tailed it to the warehouse for an official tour given by out CFO, Don! Did you know that each of the pencils below on the map represents a component of Faber-Castell? Or that they make over 2 million pencils a year? Craziness! Or that they’re a carbon neutral company? So just as many trees as they’re using for wood pencils, they’re also planting!? Or that they’re 250 years old!? Or that we’re the only company to have a castle?

Here’s the first room we entered. It’s a conference room for meeting clients and retailers. Look at that complete wall of Design memory Craft! Wouldn’t you want it all if you saw this at your Local Scrapbooking Store???

This wall to the left houses all the Art & Graphic line which caters to Art Professionals whereas the all dark blue packaging (above picture, right) is for Art Students! You get a little peek of Limor Webber, our newest designer, and seasoned veteran, Rita Barakat!

Here’s a division of the Play & Learn brand, Creativity for Kids. Look at all those yummy kits! My kids would have a field-day…

Here’s the red-packaging, which caters to kids of all ages! My own kids own several of these on display.

Here are some of the kits on display throughout a hallway. They encourage everyone to product test for themselves!

And my favorite is this Tape-A-Doodle:

There’s Christa Trivisonno! She used to work with us in the Design Memory Craft line, but now she’s over on the Creativity for Kids side!

This is just a small section of the shipping warehouse!!! There’s a mezzanine and more rooms of awesomeness! Our CFO, Don, jokingly told us he’d give us 2 minutes to fill a cart 😉

Here are the shenanigans the graphic design team is up to when they’re not making pretties:

I can’t take Naoko seriously when there’s a dude dangling from the ceiling…hahaha!

Within the halls were glass cases containing products from their Fine Writing division…drool. They even gifted a pencil to President Barack Obama!

Here’s the pencil they gifted. It has a real wood barrel and a built-in sharpener:

After the tour, we were off to The Melt, a restaurant dedicated to all things grilled cheese and beer! I has the Jalepeno Popper Sandwich (which was HUGE) and a Three Philosophers Beer…tasty!

The designers (minus Jill Foster):

The Faber-Castell Team (Amy, Christa, Naoko, Tammie):

The next day it was back to work for all of us. Most of it is TOP SECRET…product testing…numbers…brainstorming, etc. But, here’s what I can share!

There are lots of new possibilities for Faber-Castell Design Memory Craft on the horizon and I’m so honored to be a part of it! Here’s a pen they gifted us along with some of the best herbal tea I’ve ever had (thanks Tonya):

Here’s the 250th Anniverary Book we were given. Did you know we even have our own make-up line? Feast your eyes on this:

In the last half hour or so, we were given the opportunity to get crafty here’s what I created with the Faber-Castell Design Memory Craft® Tropicals Gelatos Double-Scoop®, Gesso, Gel Medium, Whipped Spackle, and Chalkboard Paint:

Afterward, we went for another big dinner at Zocalo’s Downtown. The food was meh, but the drinks were fantastic! The company, phenomenal!

This trip was SO needed! It was nice to spend some extra one-on-one time with the design team and get much-needed feedback and training opportunities from the office team. I’m so happy to be a part of such an awesome company!!!!

If you’d like to see more pictures, Rita, also has a blog post about her experience up on her blog!

Much Love,