February 2015 First Friday Recap

Clayton Gray Home turned into the Love Shack on Friday night. Another fab­u­lous turnout for First Friday that filled Clayton Gray Home with love! We are so grateful for our spon­sors and all of you who attended our event. We hope that you enjoyed meeting some new busi­ness owners from the neigh­bor­hood and learning more about our spot­light charity. It is amazing how this event has grown over the last year and we love seeing our reg­u­lars as well as meeting new guests.

We were so thrilled to have High Risk Hope as our spot­light charity for the month. Many of you shared your sto­ries of high risk preg­nan­cies or having a baby in the NICU and how either this orga­ni­za­tion could’ve helped you if it had been around at the time of your preg­nancy or how this orga­ni­za­tion did indeed help you or someone you know. Cel­e­brating their 4th anniver­sary, High Risk Hope is a fab­u­lous orga­ni­za­tion devel­oped by Heather Barrow, who strug­gled with her own high risk preg­nancy. They partner with some of the top hos­pi­tals in the area to iden­tify high risk moms to be and cater to their needs in mul­tiple ways. After the birth of the baby, they also pro­vide sup­port to fam­i­lies with infants in the NICU. Deliv­ering bas­kets of “sur­vival” items, the little things that you don’t think about needing but that make all of the dif­fer­ence in the world. Unfor­tu­nately with high risk sit­u­a­tions, there is a per­centage of preg­nan­cies and live births that do not sur­vive. High Risk Hope is also there to help fam­i­lies con­nect with the right agen­cies to make it through the bereave­ment process. High Risk Hope is kicking off their Books For Babies cam­paign, designed to col­lect book for par­ents with infants in the NICU. Studies show that NICU infants improve fast and catch up with devel­op­mental mile­stones when they are spoken to while in the NICU. The NICU being such a quiet envi­ron­ment it can be a little intim­i­dating to carry on a con­ver­sa­tion with your­self just for the sake of talking. By pro­viding books, it gives the par­ents and family a pur­pose for talking and helps to ease the process. Look for book col­lec­tion sites or make a mon­e­tary dona­tion on the High Risk Hope Face­book page.

What a sweet night indeed! Treat Me Sweet, con­fec­tion by design, spe­cial­izes in custom mac­arons and sweet treats. Guests enjoyed the fab­u­lously light and deli­cious vanilla creme and choco­late straw­berry mac­arons as well as fudge and rasp­berry fudge bites. So super yummy and very addic­tive! Treat Me Sweet offers a wide range of mac­aron fla­vors as well as custom ideas. These are made fresh, by hand, espe­cially for you! Whether it is for a gift, shower, dinner party, after­noon tea, cor­po­rate party or client appre­ci­a­tion — Darla can offer that spe­cial some­thing to set you apart from the mun­dane muffin basket.

Need some­thing a little healthy to bal­ance out the sweet? Swami Juice pro­vided a fan­tas­ti­cally fresh juice sam­pling bar. Cold pressed juices in fab­u­lous fla­vors that were so fan­tastic, we even paired some of them with vodka and cham­pagne from the bar. Talk about cel­e­brating life! Swami offers a wide selec­tion of juices, detox pro­grams, holistic nutri­tional coun­seling, smoothies and acai bowls. The juice fla­vors are dis­tinc­tive, deli­cious and light. You def­i­nitely need to stop by and check them out if you didn’t make it to First Friday!

It was quite simply a night of fab­u­lous! Our fab­u­lous bar­tender, Brad­ford Stevens cre­ated an incred­ible cock­tail, the Love Shack! It was a def­i­nite hit! If you loved his cock­tail, then you’ll love Bradford’s spin class and free boot­camp. Check out the schedule for Soho Cycling Studio and Viking Fit­ness. Vera from Fruit of the Vine Organics was back with her yummy appe­tizers. Weekly fresh, organic bas­kets avail­able each Monday for pick up will keep your din­ners from get­ting boring. Part­nering with farmers and growers in the Tampa Area, Fruit of the Vine delivers fresh­ness only topped by growing it yourself.

We def­i­nitely had plenty of goodies to tan­ta­lize your taste­buds, but we also had fab­u­lous new items for your home and skin. Olfac­tion shared with us a sam­pling of home­made face scrubs, clay masks, bar soaps and soy can­dles. Sev­eral of you scooped up these goodies that not only smell glo­rius but are also bril­liant for your skin. We all love and under­stand the ben­e­fits of clean burning soy can­dles, but what we really love are scents that create that dream atmos­phere. The candle line from Olfac­tion def­i­nitely fits the bill. Make sure to check out the Olfac­tion Etsy page.

Make sure to check out the Clayton Gray Home Face­book page and that of 4d Stu­dios LLC for all of the photos from the night. Feel free to tag your­self or your friends. We are for­ever grateful to 4d Stu­dios for playing paparazzi for us and encourage you to check out their social media sites and web­site. 4d Stu­dios is so much more than just event pho­tog­raphy, they also offer mod­eling and acting class and acting work­shops. Talent Direc­tion and Devel­op­ment for Actors and Models; Dig­ital Pho­tog­raphy and Video Pro­duc­tion; & Dig­ital Design of Logos, Branding, Web Sites.…4d Stu­dios is so much more than just photography.

Please take a moment to spread the word about your favorite First Friday par­tic­i­pant. We are so very lucky and grateful for each and every vendor that donates their goods to First Friday and have helped our event grow into such an awe­some fun filled night. Please help us show our appre­ci­a­tion by vis­iting each of them and help the small busi­nesses in Tampa con­tinue to grow and blossom. Save the date for our next First Friday, March 6th. As always, if you are a vendor/​charity or know of a vendor/​charity that would fit well with the Clayton Gray Home First Friday theme, please con­tact us at events@​claytongrayhome.​com for more information.