Ampersand Creative Co.

02/11/2024

RI Monthly says The Good Trade is one of the best things to do this month. Who are we to disagree?! Check out the article here: rimonthly.com/november-events

We sincerely can't wait to see you all on November 23rd and 24th at WaterFire Arts Center for The Good Trade's 4th Annual Makers Market. Having a ton of the most talented and kind small businesses from Rhode Island and 11 other states come together for an entire weekend really makes for a special holiday market. We hope you'll come be a part of it with us!

As a reminder, tickets are $8 in advance and $10 at the door (if they don’t sell out!). As always, with entry you’ll receive a complimentary drink ticket to redeem for your choice of a small 5oz cocktail from The Industrious Spirit Co. and Inside Voices, beer from Proclamation Ale, a small hot coffee from New Harvest Coffee, or a non-alcoholic beverage from Topo Chico. Want a full sized cocktail, mocktail, beer, or hard seltzer? You can redeem your drink ticket for $2 off any full sized item from the Inside Voices bar.⁠ Tickets are available at goodtrademakersmarket.com.

12/10/2024

We can't believe that it's already been a week since LCT! We've broken down, cleaned up, hugged our team, taken a couple of days off, and watched the flamingos fly south for the winter. The high from this event truly seems to last forever. There never seems to be strangers at LCT, just friends, and that's because of the overflowing kindness, support, and sheer personality that everyone brings through the doors throughout the weekend.

As we wrap up three full years of LCT, we're left floored by you. You amaze us every single time and we're forever thankful that you're a part of our little community and that you've let us be a part of yours.

Love,
LCT

03/10/2024

We open doors to Little City Thrifty Vintage Market on Saturday and there's A LOT to see, shop, eat, drink, and do at this big ole vintage shindig. We've created a little guide to help you prepare.

Here are some highlights, but be sure to swipe through for all of the details.
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TICKET UPDATE⁠
Tickets are going quickly and some sessions have already sold out. As of now, there are only tickets still available for Saturday's 3pm Entry, Sunday's 12pm Entry (almost gone), and Sunday's 3pm Entry. Tickets will not be available at the door for any sessions that sell out in advance. Get tickets at littlecitythrifty.com or the link in bio.⁠
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OVER 90 VINTAGE BOOTHS⁠
That's right, we'll be packing WaterFire Arts Center with over 90 vintage booths with dealers from 10 different states. You'll find vintage clothing and accessories, vinyl records, housewares, home decor, barware, art, jewelry, tools, and more.⁠
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COMPLIMENTARY BEVERAGES⁠
With entry you'll receive a drink ticket to redeem for your choice of a small 5oz cocktail from Mad River Distillers and Inside Voices, a small 5oz beer from Rejects Beer Co., or a Topo Chico Sparkling Mineral Water. Want a full sized beer or cocktail? You can redeem your drink ticket for $2 off any full sized beer or cocktail from the Inside Voices bar menu instead!⁠
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MADONNA INSPIRED COCKTAIL MENU
Speaking of the bar, Inside Voices will be serving up all sorts of fun Mad River cocktails in our trademark flamingos inspired by the Queen of Pop herself, Madonna!

RESTAURANTS⁠
Hungry from all that shopping? We got you. JA Patty, Diego's East Side, and Knead Doughnuts will be popping up inside with all sorts of delicious goodness, including vegan and gluten free options.

100% COMPOSTABLE
Thanks to Bootstrap Compost, Little City Thrifty is 100% compostable this year! All food and drinks served will be in fully compostable materials and you'll be able to compost them in the green bins placed throughout WaterFire Arts Center.

THE LITTLE CITY THRIFTY MIX TAPE
Our dealers have curated a playlist of their favorite pre-Y2K tracks!
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THE LITTLE CITY THRIFTY FREE LIBRARY⁠
Don't forget to bring your pre-loved books for the Little City Thrifty Free Library! We'll have a big table right next to our check-in where you can drop and swap your books, and we'll be kicking things off with a massive haul from our own collection. Don't have your own books to swap? Don't fret! You're still welcome to help yourself to whatever you like.⁠ All we ask is that you leave your encyclopedias and text books at home.

01/10/2024

Honored to Little City Thrifty named one of RI Monthly's top events of the month! There are still some tickets available starting at 3pm on Saturday and noon on Sunday, so be sure to pick yours up in advance.

Tickets: littlecitythrifty.com
Article: rimonthly.com/39-fun-things-to-do-in-rhode-island-this-october

28/09/2024

TICKET UPDATE: Alright you beautiful vintage lovers, Little City Thrifty is only one week away and all Early Buying Hour tickets and Saturday’s 12pm Entry tickets are now SOLD OUT! There are only a few 12pm tickets left for Sunday, and they are very likely to sell out as well.

We’ve just opened 3pm Entry tickets for both Saturday and Sunday. These tickets come with all of the same perks as 12pm Entry, like complimentary beverages and staying as long as you’d like, but you enter starting at 3pm instead of noon.

Tickets will not be available at the door for any session that has sold out in advance. Don’t risk it and get your tickets early! Get yours at littlecitythrifty.com.

20/09/2024

🦩LCT TICKET UPDATE🦩: There are now only 10 tickets left for Sunday’s Early Buying Hour and very few tickets remaining for Saturday’s 12pm Entry. Don’t forget to grab your tickets early at littlecitythrifty.com!

As a reminder, you’ll receive a complimentary drink ticket to redeem for your choice of a small 5oz cocktail from Mad River Distillers and Inside Voices, beer from Rejects Beer Co., or non-alcoholic Topo Chico. Want a full sized beer, cocktail, or mocktail? You can redeem your drink ticket for $2 off any full sized beverage from the Inside Voices bar menu!

19/09/2024

We started our little company because we believe that for small businesses to thrive, they need more opportunities to connect with the community and sell the wares that they’ve devoted their lives to. We know that no single event or opportunity could possibly fulfill all of a business’ needs, which is why we try to encourage others who are passionate about their small business communities to host markets. Long story short, businesses need to be able to sell all year round or they cannot survive. This is why we happily cheer on other events and event organizers. Our mantra is an old one: “A rising tide lifts all ships.”

Here’s the part that we never thought we’d need to worry about, let alone share. It might sound trivial at first, but please, let us explain.

Another local event (which has some vendor overlap with Little City Thrifty) has been seen taking down our posters, all over Providence, and replacing them with their own. It happens around the same time every year. Yes, it bums us out because we invest a lot of money into printing. Yes, it bums us out because we’ve paid a living wage to someone who spends over 20 hours working hard on this. Yes, it bums us out because fewer eyes on our promotional materials could hurt our ticket sales… but why we REALLY take it personally is because harming our event harms our vendors - some of the very same vendors that this other event claims to be supporting. It’s selfish, it’s petty, and it’s harmful to the entire small business community. Simply put, if your vendors don’t have opportunities to pop-up year-round at other events, they’ll cease to exist and you’ll be left without a community to work with.

To all of the other event planners out there, let us know what you’re up to! We’d be happy to share info and try to send our incredible shopping family your way. If you can set us up with fliers, we’d love to put them out at our entrance.

To brick and mortars out there with windows or bulletin boards willing to help us promote our events, say hi in the comments and we’d be happy to get you some!

To the event that’s doing your community harm, we know who you are and we really don’t want to tag you. Please stop. Full stop.

18/09/2024

Whew! We had just finished returning rentals, unpacking, and cleaning up from the Hope Street Block Party this morning, when Carly Rae Photo's stunning shots from Sunday hit our inbox. We can’t thank the Hope Street Merchants Association enough for allowing us to produce and curate such a special and uplifting event. The community around Hope Street is like no other. Watching an entire neighborhood come together to celebrate is a lot of fun to be part of.

It would be impossible to thank everyone who helped make it happen, but here are a few key folks that made this event sing:

❤️ The HSMA board and event committee of Leah, Jim, Adam, Jan, and Line. Thank you for entrusting us with such a longstanding and beloved party!

❤️ The near 150 brick and mortars, makers, artists, retailers, non-profit organizations, restaurants, and food trucks who came together to celebrate and support each other. Your energy and kindness is truly what makes this event like no other.

❤️ Our AMAZING event, security, and bar team that went above and beyond to make the event as smooth and safe for all of our vendors and attendees as possible. Bianca, Brent, Juan, Mandy, Cam, Kendall, Carolyn, Becky, Mindy, Scarlett, Jenny, Steve, Vanessa, Marisa, Judie, Jake, Chris, Alexia - we love you more than you’ll ever know.

❤️ The bar partners of Narragansett Beer, ISCO, Moniker Brewery, and Topo Chico for being so generous and lending your staff to help raise funds for the work that the HSMA does all year long.

❤️ All of the street performers for bringing THE PARTY! ERB, The Providence Drum Troupe, Big Nazo, and the RI Kung Fu Club - Providence wouldn’t be the same without you.

❤️ Gregory Rourke for curating and running The Parlour’s stage! Special thanks to all of those who performed - Maddie McGill, Sharks Come Cruising, Chloe, Steve Delmonico, Indria Trio, and I’m Not Crying You’re Crying.

❤️ All of the ongoing family-friendly activities and entertainers like the New England Revolution, Gather Glass, Full Range Fitness, the Drum Group Services children’s drum circle, and DJ Greenwood Hi-Fi.

❤️ Ballet RI, Seven Stars Bakery, Cumberland Farms, and Citizens Bank for allowing us to borrow their parking lots.

❤️ Thanks again to Carly Rae Photo for really capturing the true essence of the event. You’re such a special person, and we’re all better for having you around!

❤️ Finally, and perhaps most importantly, thanks to the roughly 10,000 of you who showed up with bells on to support small businesses. You have no idea what spending your day shopping from and partying with all of these businesses means to them. Thank you!

Personally, we’re sore and exhausted 🤣 and we’re going to take the rest of the day off. If you’re sitting in our inboxes, please hang tight for a day and we’ll be sure to get back to you after we catch our breath!

06/09/2024

Our good buds, Vito & Art from are opening their second restaurant on East Ave. in Pawtucket. It's called and we were Lucky Enough to design their logos and provide them with a brand kit. We sincerely cannot wait for this place to open! Give them a follow to learn more and watch the renovation unfold.

05/09/2024

We can't wait to party with you all at the Hope Street Block Party, and it turns out that Rhode Island Monthly can't wait either!

  After an unfortunate rain out forced it to cancel its original August date, the Hope Street Summer Block Party is back and ready to close out the

05/08/2024

🦩T-Minus 60 to Little City Thrifty!🦩

That's right, Rhode Island's biggest vintage party is only two months away. Tickets have always sold out in advance, so if you haven't picked up your tickets yet, don't slack. Head littlecitythrifty.com now.

As always, with entry you'll receive a complimentary drink ticket to redeem for your choice of a small 5oz cocktail from Mad River Distillers, beer, or small hot coffee or non-alcoholic beverage. Want a full sized beer or cocktail? You can redeem your drink ticket for $2 off any full sized beer or cocktail from the bar menu! ⁠
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In addition to the tasty beverages, we'll also have two restaurants and a bakery popping up on site to keep you powered up while you dig through 15,000 square feet of pre-Y2K vinyl records, housewares, art, jewelry, size-inclusive clothing, and so much more.

01/08/2024

THE SHORT OF IT: The Hope Street Merchants Association’s Summer Block Party needs to be postponed due to the likelihood of thunderstorms on Sunday. We’ll be enacting our rain date of Sunday, September 15th and we hope you can all join us then!

THE LONG OF IT: Above all else, the HSMA and Ampersand Creative Co. care about helping small businesses, artists, and performers, and our goal with the Hope Street Block Party is to create a fun way for everyone to have a fun and a successful day. Hosting the Block Party involves thinking about a million small details, like delivery of rentals and supplies (product for the bars, portable restrooms, dumpsters, picnic tables, trash and recycling receptacles, a big misting tent to keep you cool, etc.) - and many of these have a cancellation period, after which there is no refund. We organize with the city (permits, street closures, bus rerouting, security and fire detail, etc.) and assemble a team of people to help set up and run the event - and we have to communicate with all of them in advance. Hope Street’s restaurants and the participating food trucks were about to start purchasing and preparing food for an enormous crowd, and they can’t risk the financial loss if we waited to cancel the event at the last minute. For all of those reasons, the HSMA Block Party team met last night, reviewed as much news around the weather as we could, and made the tough decision to reschedule. This was not taken lightly, as it impacts so many businesses and performers, and reorganizing all of the above is not a small or easy task for our little team. Putting participants at risk in unsafe weather conditions is something we can’t do.

We’ll be moving the event to our scheduled rain date of September 15th in hopes of a safer and brighter day for all.

VENDORS & PERFORMERS: Please check your inboxes for an email from us with more information regarding the postponement and next steps. If you have any questions at all, just reach out and ask!

Thanks for all of your support, patience, kindness, and understanding!

28/07/2024

This year's Hope Street Block Party is one week from today on Sunday, August 4th! From 11am to 5pm we'll be working with Hope Street Merchants to close Hope Street to vehicles and open it up for a FREE massive five block party where you'll be able to not only explore all of Hope Street's incredible shops, restaurants, and arts, but experience over 125 makers, vintage dealers, non-profits, food trucks, street performers, family activities, and live music. You'll even be able to grab a cocktail, beer, or hard seltzer from Narragansett Beer, Moniker Brewery, ISCOSpirits, and Topo Chico Agua Mineral while you walk the street.

100% of the bar proceeds benefit Hope Street Merchants' mission to support the small businesses of Hope Street through programming (like this event!) and street beautification projects all year round.⁠

There’s a whole lot going on at this event, but here are some highlights:⁠
🖤 Makers and artists from The Good Trade Makers Market.
🦩 Vintage dealers from Little City Thrifty.
🥁 On street performances from Extraordinary Rendition Band, Providence Drum Troupe, RI Kung Fu Club's Lion Dance, and more.
👽 An invasion from Big Nazo.
⚽️ Meet Slyde Fox from New England Revolution and play their Accuracy Kick game.
🎨 Kids activities with Ricky Rainbow Beard and Providence Drum Group Services.
🤼‍♀️ Professional wrestling from RWA - Renegade Wrestling Alliance.
🏋️‍♀️ Interactive games with Full Range Fitness.
🎤 A live local music lineup from The Parlour Providence.
🎧 An all-day set from vinyl-only DJ Greenwood HiFi
🔥 Glass blowing demonstrations with Gather Glass.
🍺 Beer, hard tea, and hard seltzer from Narragansett Beer and Moniker Brewery.
🍹 Cocktails from and Topo Chico USA.
💧 A misting tent to keep you cool on a hot day.

This event is free to attend and suitable for all ages! See you there!

Please note: Hope Street between Rochambeau and 5th will be closed from 6am to 7pm, as well as connecting side streets. If you can’t bike, walk, or bus down, you’ll be able to find plenty of parking in the area, just a short walk away.

23/07/2024

We are so excited to announce that Bloom Flower and Home will be back in Providence, RI & Burlington, VT in 2025! We'll be taking over WaterFire Arts Center in Providence for a 4th straight year on April 5th & 6th, 2025, and Hula in Burlington for a 2nd year on April 26th & 27th, 2025.

We'll have A LOT more on these events soon, but for now, we're looking for the kindest and most community-minded petal pushers, houseplant hawkers, and decor dealers that we can find. Head to bloomflowerandhome.com to learn more about vending and to apply.⁠
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Not a vendor, but have a business that you'd love to see at Bloom?! Tag them below!

17/07/2024

We're so excited to work with the Hope Street Merchants Association for the second year in a row on the big Hope Street Block Party! On Sunday, August 4th, we’re shutting down Hope Street in Providence and filling five full blocks with over 150 small businesses, bars, food trucks, restaurants, family activities, street performers, and a stage from The Parlour. You’ll be able to roam the event with beer from Narragansett Beer and Moniker Brewery or a cocktail from The Industrious Spirit Co. and Topo Chico and shop, eat, and party with us from 11am to 5pm. There’s a whole lot going on at this event, but here are some highlights:⁠
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In addition to a ton of makers and artists from The Good Trade Makers Market and vintage dealers from Little City Thrifty, we’ll have on-street performances and entertainment from Big Nazo, the Extraordinary Rendition Band, RI Kung Fu Club’s Lion Dance, the Providence Drum Troupe, kids activities with Ricky Rainbow Beard, live glass blowing with Gather Glass, local bands curated by The Parlour, and Renegade Wrestling Alliance will be back with live professional wrestling!⁠
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Clear your Sunday and come on down to Hope Street on August 4th. This event is entirely free and bar proceeds benefit the Hope Street Merchants Association's mission to support the small businesses of Hope Street through programming (like this event!), support, and street beautification projects all year round.
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Please note: Hope Street between Rochambeau and 5th will be closed from 6am to 7pm, as well as connecting side streets. If you can’t bike, walk, or bus down, you’ll be able to find plenty of parking in the area, just a short walk away.

08/07/2024

We're bringing The Good Trade back to Hula in Burlington, VT for the 3rd straight year on December 7th and 8th. With the addition of Vermont VegFest and Bloom Flower and Home, northern VT has quickly become our home away from home. This holiday party is a ton of fun in a beautiful space and we can't wait to do it all again at the end of the year!

06/07/2024

We couldn't be more excited to announce The Good Trade's 4th annual makers market in PVD on November 23rd and 24th at WaterFire Arts Center!

We can't tell you how much we love this event. Being in a room for the weekend with some of the country's best, kindest, and most positive-minded makers really is something special. We'll be announcing vendors, sponsors, Plinko for a Cause beneficiaries, and more soon. For now, tickets are on sale at goodtrademakersmarket.com.