Photo's have Arrived!

The photo's have finally arrived!  It was a long process and we waited as much as we could.  We are so happy to have photo's done and tangible.  Check these out!  Super hot pictures and amazing folks.  Thank you Christopher for your amazing talent.  You did a smashing job.  Ladies, your a Star!

See and download the full gallery on posterous

October Thoughts

It's been a month of change and adventure for us here.  As we watch all our efforts come together it leaves me with so many thoughts.  I have had a difficult time trying to write about just one.  Prolonging this posting.

This is my recap for now.

Change happens to all of us.  Each year, month, week, and day.  You really never know what you will wake up to in the morning. Today I was trying to catch up on some lost sleep, to find a painter at my window.  This forced me out of bed.  Which then I discovered I had to pop off to the market to purchase creamer for my coffee.  The only thing keeping me happy about this was knowing I could go to the market to purchase my creamer for my coffee.  What if I didn't even have this little luxury I indulge in each day.  First thing in the morning practice: first cup of coffee sitting on the deck watching everything come to life.  It's the only time my phone doesn't ring, the emails are piling up, and my children are to tired to say "mom" every five minutes.  The only thing I hear are the birds, and the breeze.

Some days we had so much happen, I didn't think I would get any sleep.  Other days we waited to receive results from others.  As the roller coaster for business continued I was able to experience and view this in personal lives as well. 

I was fortunate enough to accompany 5th graders to camp Killoqua http://www.campfireusasnohomish.org/killoqua.htm.  Watching them bond, grow, face their fears, and push themselves out of their comfort zones at camp, was watching history for their lives.  Never will they have this opportunity again.  Nor will they understand (until later in life) how profound the impact was for them.  I was so proud to see how they charged in with the tasks and challenges.  To witness pure compassion no matter the subject.  It gave me hope for our future generations.

 

We lost some people and gained others.  One of my dearist friends is moving to another state.  I find myself feeling so happy for him and wishing him the best of luck on his new adventure and the future it holds.  He will truley be missed.  A new artist is starting this week and I am anxious to see what she can do.

In this economy many people wake up each day praying and hoping they can have something positive happen to them.  Maybe someone finally finds a job after being out of w

ork for over a year.  Another can receive a hot meal.  They reconnect with a lost loved one.  Each day I'm happy to be meet with my family, warm home, and all the wonderful people in my life. 

Take each day for what it is.  Let the worries pass you, the joys embrace you, and never forget how lucky you are no matter what you posses.

 

Take care and take your time.

Fall is here and so is My Eco M O!

Oh, we have been busy, busy, busy. 

You can always tell when companies are going through growth.  Somethings get tabled.  The good news is we are growing again!

Who's new:

We have a few new artists to our team.  They are adding to our jewelry and bags.  It's so exciting to see what they are making just for you! 

Amazing photographer joined us as well.  You will see his art work on our site here soon.  I'm so excited for this!  His prior work is amazing.  Chris captures each moment and focus with percision and passion.

Adding to our new photographer we have brought on models for the first time.  This should be so much fun.  I know Nicole is having a blast putting all of this together. 

From what I can see, of the plans and story boards, these folks are smashing!  We have such a talented team! 

What's new:

November and December are looking to be busy, as well.  The holidays are coming and so are all the shows.  Dates and locations are coming soon.

Check out our cute new hat!  Oh yes, we have hats coming!  It has been so much fun playing with the styles and fabrics.  This has become an obsession for sure. 

We have new fabric to play with as well.  We were able to acquire a few bolts of Ecofi.  This fabric is magnifisent.  Looks like wool...feels like wool...but it's not.  Ecofi is made from recycled plastic bottles.  We have six colors to chose from.  Our hats and bags will showcase this lovely new find.  Here are some samples of each color.

I can't wait to see what other recycled fabrics come out this year!

Here is a picture of our new prints and hobo bags.  Super cute.  I love that I can have this stylish bag inside my little clutch.  Then when needed (like magic) I have a big bag. 

 

Until next time.

Super Cute Bag!

This is my new favorite.  I have been working on a plastic bag line.  All made from bags you get at the market.  I have several folks give me their bags (Thank you).  Several have been made.  This one is my favorite.  My lovely Jordy was nice enough to show it off for us.

August News

It has been a busy and long month already.

Found to many people to hire. I had to stop replying to people because I was running out of time. I can't wait to get all the new items up from them!

Got a good friend of mine to work his magic on the site and it's going in a better direction then I had it. Thank you!

Estate Sales are crazy right now. I have been able to visit a few and found some little gems. I'm a sucker for bags, especially when the cool old ones are so hard to find.

More materials were purchased this month. I hope since I have more materials to play with now, I will be able to get time to make some fun things.

Another good friend made my logo finally and it is perfect. I spent days on the computer trying to create what took him minutes to toss together. It's good to know folks.

I have not heard back anymore from any of the grants. Since the deadlines, I had the time to research this more, and I am losing my hope of receiving any of them. I found some more to submit to and am looking forward to this again.

Thank you all for your support and I'll be back to write more as time allows.

People

People in any ones life are key to life itself. I feel truly blessed to have the people in my life I have.

Today I scrambled to complete my grant. This week a very intelligent women helped me edit my paper and a very patient man helped me print it. I had been working on this paper for a month - off and on. I set my mind to finish it on time and not request the offered extension. Because of my dear friends I was able to finish it!

I knew it needed overhauling. My feeling was I could have this really amazing friend look it over to give me the hard truth. Boy did she come through. I owe her big time. This women has taught me many things, and I love how honest she is with me. Once the paper was done I had to print it. For some reason (full moon) I could not get any printers in my house to work. This brings in friend number 2. He came over at a drop of a hat looked over my paper, made the necessary changes, fixed my user error with the printer to find I had ran out of ink. While I was doing multiple other things and babbling, he was awesome enough to make a copy and go to print my paper for me. He then ran to the post man for me while I ran after, because I could not figure out the necessary postage to send such a package. I then fell down the stairs onto the rock wall, to discover the post man didn't know. The attempts to catch me were appreciated. However, me being in full moon, dead lines, and totally not grounded fell in the most amazing fashion there was no hope. Thank you both so much for all your help and taking time out of your busy lives to deal with mine.

In the process of my new events this has added a fresh flame to my fire for My Eco MO.

I believe everything happens for a reason. In the last few months I have been contact by folks and crossed paths with others. Each leaving their impression on my mind. Some were to ponder my ability of success others to keep me motivated. Now I knew what to do next.

Taking in a deep breath I typed the help ad's. After 10 minutes of the ad's going live I actually received responses. I was shocked and delighted. I spent hours thinking of who I really needed and what I knew I could let go of. After this I had to figure out how to attract the people I actually wanted to hear from. One ad went smashing. I received just enough replies. The folks I have heard from, spoken to, and meet with have been amazing. The passion they express and the excitement was exhilarating. The other ad...huh...well...could have had more time spent on it. I forget sometimes how that industry thinks, and now know I did not make myself clear enough. I received close to 100 emails and only had three I could reply to. I'm still hopeful on all accounts. In my experience of hiring and training people first impressions are not always correct. However, in this case for these positions the first impression is critical. For one main reason. If you can't communicate well (reading or writing) how do you plan to work for a company that does everything remotely? Emailing was a great start for a reply to my ad's. This forced them to show me they can communicate and have the ability to use the computer. Secondly the phone call. If you don't answer after you told me to give you a call, and you gave me your cell number. How can we move forward? These two steps cut my list down to 10 people. Now I have a number I can deal with.

Tomorrow I start the interviews in person. This should be really fun. I already know who I'm getting and what to expect from them. What will be exciting is I don't yet know which one of them is bringing the bad skirt. Oh yes, the bad skirt. It's multiple pieces of old jeans that has been turned into a poorly stitched, ratty looking thing from the wrong decade. The sad part is, I feel so bad for them I want to bring them on. I don't mainly because they end up not being able to learn and take to much time away for the rest of us.

This brings me back to people being key. The right people regardless of where they are in life and the skills they have; can do anything if they have the passion, want, desire, and ability to learn or change.

Exciting News

I meet some guys a few weeks ago making silk screen shirts. The girls ended up making some shirts with them and loved them. I have been trying to get someone to do printing using eco ink. These guys hooked me up! Now I'm looking at purchasing a setup of my own to print my bags and other items. I'm very very excited! Can't wait to get started!

In addition to this good and fun news I meet with some ladies today to be a vendor at an Eco fashion/art show in the Bellevue area, November 19th. They really liked my bags and jewlery. Again - Very excited!

Now if I could just keep my nose in the computer long enough to finish this next grant. It seems like each time I work on my paper it gets longer and longer. I believe when I'm done I just might have a novel. I hope to have it off my tomorrow. I'm really pushing the deadline date.

Oh and I almost forgot. I have been working on these bags made from the plastic super market bags. I have been using my home iron to fuse the plastics, but it is just not what I had in mind for the final outcome. I am going to try a heat gun now and see if this helps the material fuse better. If so you should be seeing some new little cute tote bags up.

Because of the November bit I'm not sure how much clothing you will see up on the site anytime soon. Just saying...I might go on a full blown bag rampage to get enough done.

More new stuff!

I'm so happy to have finally gotten a few new items up on the site. I love them so much. Dresses with pockets! I hope to add more soon. It's a process.

See here is the bit about the website. We don't communicate well. We have only been together for about 6-7 months now and I'm the creative dreamer while website is the literal reality check. I always know what I want to do and website is excellent and always reminding me of what I am able to do. My relationship with camera is growing very distant since website requires so much work. Camera didn't want to produce so we spent some quality time together which made website mad so website thinks it's funny to change my buttons.

I hope you enjoy the new items and I have more to add as soon as this whole relationship calms down a bit.

In the mean time I have found a few others who are doing the same thing I am. Well not totally the same but very close. It's great! One gal buys all her stuff at the thrift store and cuts it up to re create new trendy clothes. Another gal buys used coffee bags and makes them into messenger bags or the like. Both had awesome ideas and fun stuff to show off. I don't know if I will ever get over a few things though. One being, "Holly Cow Batman, people really pay that much for your stuff?" and the second I'll keep to myself. The awesome part is the gals I looked at today were both local here in Washington and both professional designers. It amazed me to see what the thrift store gal could make. Total talent. The other gal said all the employees are local too and everything done in the USA. I hope to watch these companies grow and see how it all lays out.

I love the idea of reusing all the clothes and fabric people toss. It amazes me at how much fabric you can find. I see ads in the papers, garage and estate sales, thrift shops. It's darn near everywhere! I love heavy cottons with strips, or dots. More commonly known as the bed linen. I have bins, drawers, and shelves of fabric. I just watch it and wait for the ideas to come.

It has never made much sense to me that an XL sweater could be tossed out that was gorgeously knit, when you can cut it up and turn it into a vest, skirt, or what ever you fancied. Duvets are the best for tea dresses or wrap skirts! The fabric is heavy enough to drape in a flattering manner while not getting caught by the wind. While it's still light enough to keep cool on hot days and not weigh you down.

Oh and the handbags - I love the older bags you get at estate sales. They are sublime. No one else has that bag, the materials are no longer used, and they don't break or wear out like the new ones. I love the classic sharp lines and the way to decorated or shinny dress purses. It's so hard to find fun bags and purses these days. I get so excited when I find them. I had a gentlemen ask me a bit back why I was buying a bag I saw as the best find of the year. He said "there is no label on that bag, no one will pay for that." My reply (I thought) was cheeky "Well I'm buying it for myself which should tell you that yes someone would pay for this bag and real women don't care what the tag says, we care about what we like" I still love that bag. I might never use it. But it's there just in case. My advise...If it makes you smile for any reason keep it. The smile could come from knowing how silly you look, that you just have to go that tacky and try not to laugh, to the smile that you can take anything on today because you are armed with your "happy item", or even if you just know you look damn good in it and there is no chance there is another like it.

I'm getting off my soap box now regarding all this. Just one last thing; don't toss your clothes in the trash. It's only rubbish to you. Take it to a clothing bin or re-tex. So they can be given a new life. It takes a lot of nasty chemicals and other pollution to create the clothing everyone has been wearing. Let's try to lighten the load on the planet.

Thinking

I'm getting ready to order some t-shirts to start off with. However, I don't want just any t-shirts. These are from recycled plastic bottles. In addition to this. As most of you know, I have to say something I believe would be funny. In the process of tossing around a few ideas I discovered my vocabulary is more expansive then the average bloke. So now I'm stuck with thinking of things that will make sense to the average being. Not so easy really, because it leads me to think of mean things to say about gits. I read a few things today that made me laugh so hard I cried. Oddly enough the part that was funny to me was a word that made the whole joke; most people didn't know the meaning of. Even funnier, these folks are and were totally smarter then I. Huh...what to write. I know my first shirt will be a logo and label. Obviously. But wouldn't it be cool if the logo and label where on the back of the shirt and the funny bit on the front or the like?

What about:

"I am listening, promise. How else will I ever find out if you have a point?"

"Don't even think about it. I'm not looking at you because your attractive. I'm wondering who screwed who to make you." Or "I'm wondering if anyone else has told you about the food in your teeth." (to mean?)

"Why is it when you meet a tree hugger the you instantly think, "do they shave?"

"Save the water, save the trees, save the air, save the planet; and while your at it - Shower, Please!"

Oh wait what about this one:

"Cute, Friendly, and Sustainable" (I think this is my favorite)

"Just saying..."

"I might be opinionated but you're a Git"

"Q: If you put a tree hugger, a granola, and a environmentalist all together in one room what do you get? A: _______" (no really, what would be your answer)

Help me out here people!

How bad would it be to have a purchase button on the site for donations for the cause LOL - Just a thought.

While I'm going off on tangents -

I missed one of my grants, which made me kick myself. I had no idea the amount of folks applying.

I'm still working on another grant that is due July 30th. I'm totally nervous. Why is it so hard to do all this. I find if I focus on the business end of things, the creative end and marketing end lack. If I focus on marketing the others lack and so on. One women shows are hard work. Really it's simple. I am great at many things and horrible doing all of them at once. I just want to create a company using fashion in a safe sustainable way. In doing so hire less fortunate people and help them to become independent and self sufficient while learning a trade and earning money. I want to help people and the planet. I only ask in return for some help and a very small income so I can keep doing this. Sounds simple enough, right?

It all came to me when I discovered how horrible my smashing wardrobe was for the environment and that little kids in other countries were making them. I tried to find clothes that were fashionable, affordable, and sustainable. I couldn't. So I thought, "I can sew, and I have awesome ideas for clothes." While doing this I thought, "If I could only get some help" which led to "I could teach people how to do these things so they could move out of the ghetto and have happy healthy families and futures!" Brilliant!

See, I live near the ghetto and have had the lovely chance to live and visit the ghetto's. These folks deserve better. I wish they were given a chance. Most of them want to change and improve but get kicked down every chance they get. They need help. Not a hand out. They need guidance, dreams, and a chance.

I'm only asking to place several small orders $200-$500 to start with. Once I can start to hire and help these other folks "Bamb". Dreams start happening. That is what life is about.

To put this even more simply

I watched a loving mother help her little guy reach and cross the monkey bars. He was so excited and happy with himself once they reached the other side. The mother had week numb arms by the time he finished. But to see how this effected her little man was priceless. In a few years he will be doing on his own with confidence because she took the time to help him.

It doesn't take much. Just time and the ability to care.

Brick Red Tunic Baby!

I'm so excited to finish my tunic I have been working on. It's brick red with same color pin strips.

I finally came up with a logo as well. I just finished coloring it today. Yes, that is right, coloring. I love good old fashioned art. I used my daughters crayons to color it. I love the logo. I hope to have it on the site this week.

One final note on current projects. I'm looking for someone who is good with pen art. I am not.

Really?

Two bits of points here.

This weekend we attended a parade in a near by city. The parade was fun for the family and friends. However, I was shocked at the lack of responsibility and respect the local people had for their own city. I am certain we are one of few that actually brought a bag for trash and who picked up after themselves. As the streets vacated and traffic commenced the sidewalks were littered with trash. To the point that they will either have to hire a large crew to clean it up or spend days doing so. "Really? You care that much?" was all I could think. It was sad to all of us who cared.

I received a link to an article from a fabulous friend of mine. I was disgusted at what I read and appalled as I continued to read. How sad is our world and what people choose to do with it. These people have been suffering from the damn oil companies for decades. Here is the link www.guardian.com.uk/world/2010/may/30/oil-spills-nigeria-niger-delta-shell

On another happy bit. I found a great vendor and can't wait for my items to become tangible. I was able to work with a company who is located in the US and they use recycled materials. I'm so excited I feel like a kid who finally hit a home run at my game! Months and months I have researched trying to find anyone in the US who makes recycled jersey fabric and willing to work with me. Not only do these folks manufacture in the US using recycled fabrics but they also sell the fabric so I can create new items. Nothing drives me more crazy then the selection of what you can purchase of eco clothing. I don't want to walk around all the time wearing t-shirts, yoga pants, or long skirts. I want dresses, jeans, tanks, hoodies, fun clothes with color. This was a big break through for my bags as well. Some of you know I have been making bags out of used plastic supermarket bags. This is very time consuming. I started the plastic bag project because I was not able to find the fabric in the US already fussed. Oh yes, that's right, they offer this as well! So much fun! Before I place my first order for material I have to work out some designs and specs. If there are any requests please let me know. Oh and the prices will stay minimal as they are now. Most tops will be around $20 and bottoms around $30 to $40.

This brings me to another thought. How many of you would purchase Eco linen? I love the waffle towels every since I used a Eco one in Italy. So soft, light, and shocked to discover they were organic. I found a vendor for this fabric as well. When I was placing my order for my new towels in my home I thought...I wonder if anyone else would like these?

Have a fantastic day!

Website is working!

I'm so excited! I have spent several months trying to get product research done, products and materials purchased, made, and marketable. Then I got to my website and hit a brick wall. I still have more work to do on it yet. The good news is you can finally actually make purchases. I am in the process of linking other sites, marketing the site, getting new products made, and negotiating with some vendors. I feel like I can take a big breath now and sleep tonight...today.

Do me a favor. Take a look at the site and tell me what to change or add. I don't want comments like "looks good" or anything. I would like some real feed back. When I get the time I want to add a voting area for customers to vote on the products we should supply.

In addition to me finally understanding my site I also have been very busy on the green side of things. I volunteered at the Green Festival this year and it was so much fun. I will again next year. I have the family helping me with an organic garden in our back yard (cross your fingers, it is one thing after another). My oldest daughter of 10 years old has started a "Think Green Team". She had her first meeting and it was all very exciting.