Green Envy Girls Celebrates a Birthday

Green Envy Girls celebrated our first year as a legitimate business in October.  The year has been amazing!  We haven't counted how many items we've sold but we can tell by our inventory of magnetic snaps and our constant hunt for straps that we've sold a BUNCH of our totes, jewelry, hair pins, zipper pouches, bobby pins and rings.  We are so proud of ourselves.  I think it really hit home during The Girlie Show that we SHOULD be proud of ourselves.  We've worked extrememly hard and it has paid off.

Our experience during The Girlie Show really proved to us that our pre-planning and organization skills were beneficial.  The booth was only an 8' x 8' which is pretty small.  Bags are really difficult to display correctly.  We chose to cover the paneling that was provided by the show with black silky fabrics so that the bags would really show up and show off all of their color and detail.  We used "S" hooks to hang the bags so that clients could easily remove the bags to try on and touch. 

We also utilized a coat rack to display our small totes.  People really responded to the smaller bags.  They can be used as a purse for an adult or a child and they fit iPads perfect!  I think we sold all but one or two of those. 

We're starting to develop the look of what we want our clients to remember when they visit us at an exhibit.  We've pulled the "g" from the Green Envy Girl logo and used it as a brand stamp.  We also will continue to use our green flags made from used fabrics that we first used at The Plaza Festival.  Hopefully, as we grow and continue to show our brand, people will begin to recognize us and therefore buy from us. 

As we did the show, it was easy to let the customers look and touch but we discoved that if we talked about the products and what our mission is, the more people got interested and I really think they purchased more because of the stories we told.

You can never tell what is going to be a big seller.  Each location is so different because it pulls different kinds of people.  We didn't sell any of our diaper bags.  However, we've made multiple contacts regarding diaper bags and have gotten a couple of orders for custom diaper bags because of what was displayed at the show. 

Our zipper pouches sold like hotcakes.  This particular set didn't sell a single one at Plaza but we sold out at Girlie.  We've learned that we can't get discouraged about a certain product that doesn't sell at one show because it will probably sell at the next one. 

The same can be said for our jewelry.  Every piece sold except for the sea glass jewelry.  The sea glass jewelry was a little more expensive and that could have been why.  It may have also been that we needed to talk about sea glass and the story behind it.  I wear it all the time but it's probably because it's so special to me because of the story it holds.

We had so much fun explaining and talkng about our tie flower brooch/pins and our hair pieces.  Every age group buys these tie flowers!  I LOVE it!  One of my favorite moment of the show was when Maggie's dear friend Amy came to see us wearing a custom ordered tie flower that she has us make about a year ago.  It looked fabulous!  It was also so humbling to have friends come visit our booth wearing their big and small totes that they have bought from us in the past!  Love our friends.  Maggie and I were so heart happy to have the support from our friends.  That may have been the best part of the show.

We are finally gearing down from the show and have reorganized our work space and have several special orders for diaper bags and Christmas.  It feels so great to be busy!  Our goals include getting our items listed back on our Etsy store and we are now talking about eventually getting a legitimate website up and running. 

We also gave eachother high fives for each time we utilized the Square app on the iPhone to make credit card transactions!  What would we do without the iPhone and iPad?  I would have never guessed we'd be using an app for sales with Green Envy Girls!  Awesome stuff.

We want to thank The Girlie Show organizers for an incredible experience.  We'll definitely apply next year.  And of course the old Farmer's Market building is incredible and will hold a special place in our hearts!

Thank You

Maggie and I want to thank everyone who came out to support us at The Girlie Show.  It was a great success, we met lots of wonderful people and had a blast!  We will post stories and lessons learned once we get unpacked and can organize our thoughts!

Stories

When Maggie and I create one of our custom totes, we love the idea of a story.  We choose a bag design beginning with one piece of fabric that tells us a story that we can build around. 

We sold this bag in the Plaza Festival.  It's definitely a bag with lots of stories that we hope people will ask and share.  The straps are either WWII or Korean War.  They have been through some type of wear which in turn gives the bag so much character and individuality.  The metal has a beautiful patina which we think adds to the richness of the bag. 

We've also used the digital military camoflouge, faded camo from a pair of men's pants and a vintage olive green fabric.  The orange fabric is from a vintage women's scarf.  We loved the interplay between the masculine military fabrics and colors with the feminie designs in the scarf.  And of course, our fused plastic always has a story.  We collect plastic bags from mostly friends and family.  This particular plastic was from some packing material from my husband's job.  Taking a piece of what most people consider trash and turning into an original piece of wearable art is what our business is all about.

We singed the scarf fabric to make a flower for the front of the bag and added a military button with the same color of patina as the metal in the strap.

This tote was a special order.  The client had a favorite demin mini skirt that she could no longer wear.  I immediately knew what type of design to do for this bag once I saw the skirt.  We pulled the warm, fall colors from the stitching in the skirt to carry out through the rest of the bag.  We used a men's brown and plaid tailored shirt to give it a little bit of a western feel.  But we added some shiny brown satin to give a girly flare.  We also added small hints of pearl buttons throughout the bag to the continue with the western theme. 

We usually do a 5" square pattern for these totes but I did a 7" square on this bag so that I could keep the large pockets from the skirt.

So, it is our hope and mission that this client will have some sort of story to tell with her new bag and hopefully it will carry more stories and memories as she wears it.

The Plaza Festival Experience

Thanks to everyone who came out to support Green Envy Girls and the other local artists at the Plaza Festival. 

Maggie and I had so much fun! 

The weather was perfect! 

The food was good! 

The drinks were fantastic!

And the people were amazing!

Here are some pics that captured our fun packed day!

We need a pedicure!  This is what your toes look like after a day on the blacktop at the Plaza! 

Jackets, Girlies, and iPads

Our latest news is that Green Envy Girls has been accepted into The Girlie Show!  We are so super excited and of course we are working daily building our inventory.  We have The Plaza Festival October 1 and The Girlie Show November 4 and 5. 

Green Envy Girls moved last month from the cellar to a room inside Maggie's house on the second floor!  The cellar was too hot to work during our record breaking 100 + temperatures.  We've thrown everything upstairs and started to work.  We've had hardly any time to organize and with our two shows coming up, it looks like a fabric factory exploded.  But we are happy.  We'll clean when it slows down.

With all that's going on, we've been working on a masculine iPad pouch.  I found an awesome men's jacket at a thrift store.  I loved it so much that I made my husband try it on before I cut into it to make sure he didn't want to wear it.  Of course, he didn't like it.  Yea! 

I did some measurements for the iPad and cut away making sure to get the awesome pockets.

The fabric is a heavy duty khaki so I wanted to make sure and line it with something super soft that would make the iPad happy. 

This was fairly simple to assemble and sew.  And I think it's looks fabulous!  I would totally carry my iPad around in this pouch.  I love that we utilized the pockets so that a person can carry their phone and any notebooks, pens, etc with them without having to carry anything else.  I made sure to make a latch on the top with a magnetic snap and a vintage blazer button.

Rejection Stinks

About the time I think I have my blogging on a role, the time gets away again and I lose a few weeks.  This blog is always on my mind though.  I have so many ideas on what to write and share.  I just have to figure out when and how I can manage to get it all done. 

In the time since I posted last, Green Envy Girls has been busy with orders and building up our inventory for The Festival on the Plaza on October 1.  We also have been applying to a couple of local craft shows.  We applied for the Indie Deluxe Craft Fair.  When I visited the show last year, I definitely saw a gap that needed Green Envy Girls bags.  I felt so confident that we would get accepted without a hitch.  It was very dissapointing when we were rejected.  That is such a yucky word.  No matter what type of rejection the word is in reference to, it never feels good.  I come from a visual arts background and they teach you to never let rejection get to you.  You have to keep trying.  It still hurts.  It definitely affects the way you look at yourself and your work.  What is it exactly that wasn't good enough?  I spent a week really questioning myself and Green Envy Girls.  Well, I'm back on track and concentrating on our next show. 

In the last few weeks, we have created a one of a kind diaper bag for a dear friend who is having a baby girl in November.

We did a zipper this time instead of the flap over the front.  We upcycled a pair of army green girl's pants for some small pockets on the front, back, sides and a pocket on the interior.  We also upcycled a pink and white infant girl's dress.  We utilized the pleats on the dress and the brass button for some added interest.  We also used our new t-shirt technique with the hotter pink for some added fun.

We're really proud of this bag and are hopeful that this little baby girl will get lots of use out of her new Green Envy Girls diaper bag.

I have been obsessed with jewelry lately.  As a visual artist, I have always been a nut for found objects, especially objects with a story to tell.  Below are some sneak peaks at some of my favorite pieces that will be featured at our next craft show.

This detail shows an antique skeleton key and an old vintage button.

This necklace features an upcycled sting of pearls and some old vintage aged buttons.

This detail shows an old rusty watch buckle integrated with our t-shirt jersey necklace and a touch of fall colored beads and brass elements.

World War II

A person could write volumes about war and the toll it takes on society and I'm sure you could also write volumes about what good a war has or could have.  This is not what this particular blog is about.  This is about Green Envy Girls fascination with all things military that could be turned into super cool and fashionable wearable pieces of art.  I've been sewing and upcycling old military clothes for years.  People love anything military whether it be camouflage, military patches or military symbols.  It can represent different things for each individual, whether it be personal, purely asthetic or for its design elements. 

As Green Envy Girls makes more and more bags, we learn more and more.  I need to write a blog about all the things I've leaned about webbing and strapping for instance.  I'm always on the lookout for good, strong, attractive strapping.  It's hard to find used.  I am always visiting thrift stores and resale shops looking for such treasures.  I focus on fabrics that can be turned into a nice strap or I look for bags where I could take the straps off and use them on our bags.  Recently, I was teaching in Del City and I knew that the Brigadoon Military Surplus store was close so I headed over.  I started out dissapointed.  Everything seemed too expensive and new for Green Envy Girls but then on a bottom shelf in the middle of the store I found a bunch of old straps with metal ends on some and metal clips on others.  I sat down on the dirty floor in my skirt and began to pull all of the older, beat up straps 'cause they are the coolest.  I went up to pay and the guy informed me that these were all from WWII and the Korean War.  I absolutely love any type of object with a story.  So you can imagine how thrilled I was to get a dozen of these beautiful straps!  Some of the straps have faded writing and some have some faded print with some dates. 

This bag was made for my mother-in-law.  She had seen a bag that we had made but had already sold so she wanted one similar.  This was the first bag with these new straps.  I had to do some maneuvering to get the straps right and I think they turned out terrific.  My brother-in-law gave me his name tag to add her bag to personalize it.  I originally had decided to put the name tag on the front of the bag but my husband told me to try it on the strap.  LOVE IT!

My brother-in-law also told me about this website: 

http://1800nametape.com/. 

You can order name badges.  I haven't ordered yet but it would be neat to personalize bags with people's names or words. 

Here is the finished bag.

 I utilized the zipper again off of the military parka for the flower.

And finally here is the interior of the bag using some

pretty burlap from CISA coffee.

 

You may noticed the pretty lilly pads in one the pictures.  These were in bloom in Maggie's yard the day I took the pictures of this bag!  Enjoy!

Again thank you all for reading!  Please sign up as one of our followers and help us spread the word about Green Envy Girls. 

Back to School

Oklahoma City's public schools are beginning this school year August 1.  It is a new extended school year plan.  I like the idea so I hope that it succeeds.  I'm worried about the heat.  The kids will not be able to go outside for recess until the temperatures reach the 90's which could be until September.  I just hope the old buildings and the new can withstand the heat and cool those kids! 

My daughter will start 4th grade this year.  She is growing up so fast.  With her age, comes her strong opinions about her clothes, hair and anything else involved with her image.  You can imagine how happy I was when she asked me to make her a bag for school Green Envy Girls style.  She has always been so excited and proud of Green Envy Girls.  I think this is the biggest compliment.  She chose the colors of turquoise, lime green and brown.  So Maggie and I chose the fabrics and went to work with a deadline of August 1.

I was pretty excited about my new t-shirt jersey technique.  I discussed it with Kya and she said she'd love the lime green jersey on the sides.  We also added a brown vinyl on the bottom so that the bag can withstand some 4th grader abuse.

Kya also chose her fabrics for the flower design on the front which included a zipper flower in the center.

She also needed a pocket to store goodies for school.  We took a pocket off of a girls pair of cargo pants and added a lime green button for a special detail.

In other news, Maggie and I have been busy working on a new design for iPad bags.  They will hang about hip length with a long strap.  Maggie and I both carry our iPads everywhere.  I've really started to pull away from the desktop and utilize all the wonderful technology and apps available on the iPad. 

Stay cool in every way and thanks for reading!