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!

I Don't Feel Old

I used to babysit a lot when I was a young teenager. I can remember saving all of my money that I made so that when we made our annual trip to Albuquerque I could shop for clothes. I got a call a few weeks ago from a friend of my dad's who wanted to order a bag for his daughter. She was about to have her first baby. He thought she'd like a tote that she could use for the baby and then hopefully use for a purse later. I used to babysit his daughter when she was a baby. I really don't feel like I am this old! So this tote was a new challenge. Maggie and I needed to create a bag that could easily transform from one function to the next.

When we pull fabric, Maggie and I are down on the floor arranging and rearranging fabrics that we think will work. It took a little while to get this bag going. We knew we needed it be pink but it had to be mature. There is something about pink and brown that warms our hearts. We used a fabric that resemble animal print that we found in a girls blouse. We also used a camoflouge print from a girl's skirt.

We've been doing a lot of work with old t-shirt jersey and I had an idea to make our own fabric from a pink t-shirt. We used the "new" t-shirt fabric on the front of the bag in our traditional squares but also decided to use it for the sides of the bag.  I LOVE the way this turned out and will definitely be using this technique again.  It gives the bag a feathery and feminine feel.

Jersey is so fun to work with because it doesn't fray and if you pull it will will curl. 

The bag has a small pocket on the front and the back.  We decided since the bag was going to be used for a baby too, that the lining should be softer than our burlap and it needed to have a few pockets for all of the goodies a mom carries for baby.  So we used the fabric and pockets from a pair of men's cargo shorts.  The inside wound up having four pockets on the inside. 

I am really proud of this bag.  I already have plans to utilize this same technique in a couple of other bags we have planned.  We shipped this bag and have gotten a report back that the new mommy really loved her new bag.  Hopefully baby will love it too!

Here is are some pictures of our babies so you can see how busy and blessed our lives are each day.

Nice People

I feel so overly happy when I meet someone nice.  I don't think that is good.  Being nice should just be in our nature but I find nice people to be a rare breed.  Green Envy Girls has been a wonderful opportunity for Maggie and I to run into and meet some absolutely generous and sincerely friendly people.  The following are a couple of stories of nice people.

In May, we displayed and sold our goods at the Village Fun Fair.  We met this cute little old lady who talked our ears off to the point where we were looking and hoping for more customers to come to our booth so we had an excuse to escape.  Well, she wound up buying several of our items and making some special orders.  Maggie was the lucky one to deliver the special orders to her home.  She was nervous.  Well, this sweet woman gave us two shoe boxes full of vintage buttons!  She appreciated our craft so much that she thought that we needed those buttons because she saw that we would use them with love.  We wound up giving her the special order because those boxes of goodies were worth so much more than our little hair clips.  When Maggie had to visit her on another occasion to fix a glitch, this sweet woman gave us some goodies that she had made and thought that we would appreciate.  What a nice person!

As you know, we use burlap bags from coffee beans to line a lot of our bags.  In the past, I had a coffee company that roasted the beans give us the empty burlap bags for free.  As time passed, I lost contact with this gentleman and I was worried we would wind up having to pay for these bags.  People sell them for a pretty penny online.  I contacted several local coffee places and most places wanted to charge per bag.  Well, I finally got a man who said to come on by and he'd give us a few.  Maggie and I loaded up and headed to the warehouse.  He met us outside and took us to the back and gave us a HUGE amount of beautiful burlap bags!  He had looked at our blog and recognized that we were legitimate and made something beautiful out of a dusty old coffee bag.  Let's just say that Maggie and I were both glad that we took her SUV instead of my tiny Toyota.  What a nice guy!

My brother-in-law is a police officer and is also in the Navy Reserve.  Our last visit to see him, he loaded me up with a couple of arms full of military camoflouge uniforms including a beautiful army green parka.  He had told me he might have a couple of things.  I had no idea he would give us so much wonderful fabric that Green Envy Girls would eat up!  What a nice guy!

With all that being said, pictured below are some of the bags that were created from the generosity of nice people.

This tote has vintage mushroom fabric from The Budget Shop that I mentioned in an earlier post.  Notice the khaki fabric and pocket that was cut from a men's pair of cargo pants.  And of course, the army green is from that parka that my brother-in-law gave us.

 






Here is a detail shot of the flower that we created from the zipper of the parka.  I also used the tags that were inside the jacket at a decorative element on the front and back of the bag.




And here is a shot of some of that beautiful burlap used to line the bag.  This bag sold immediately.

 

This next bag is our "Amy" bag.  A friend of ours donated a cute pair of J Crew shorts that inspired this bag.  It has some vintage floral fabric and some denim elements as well.  



I created a flower utilizing the worn denim and zipper, and we used a button pattern on the front along a small hidden pocket.

 There is also a hidden pocket on the side!

This tote utlizes a lot of the same military elements as the first one including several of the buttons from the parka.  This bag is different from the others because of the vintage tie flower and we used a piece of the tie in the fabric portion of the bag as well.

Hopefully, I'm on a roll and will be able to continue my blog posts.  About the time I think I've got everything under control, something like a sick kid, an upset husband, or the oppressive heat gets my life all chaotic and it takes some time to sort through the stacks of lifes pages.  Thanks so much for reading!







Crashes, Heat Indexes and Kids and More Kids

The last couple of months have been filled with computer crashes, heat indexes that have broken records, and of course a busy summer teaching my classes, traveling and keeping the kids busy.

I'll take you back to the month of June where Green Envy Girls created a fanny pack for the Fanny Pack Fashion Show at DNA Gallery in The Plaza District.  I loved the idea of creating an updated, modern fanny pack.  I knew we were competing with very ingenious artists who would be creating an original piece of artwork.  I wanted to make sure that our fanny pack was wearable and hopefully would sell.  I did a lot of research trying to gather ideas.  Believe it or not, there are a lot of people out there, including the younger crowd, who wear fanny packs.

This is a picture of our model during the fashion show.  It was so fun!  The models were dressed in 80's clothes and accesseries.

And our fanny pack SOLD!  I'd like to make more.  What do you think?  Would you wear a Green Envy Girls fanny pack?

So, the devastating news for me this summer is that my computer's hard drive crashed.  I lost all of my beautiful photos and the Green Envy Girls logo.  I also lost all of my teaching information.  I have shed tears but am trying hard to make lemonade out of this damn lemon.  I need to save my pennies and hire someone to try to save anything off the hard drive. 

I had my newest camera break in June.  Luckily, I had saved our old camera and it saved my life for the month of June and part of July.  Yes, part.  It also died.  Guess I'm gonna need to save more pennies for a new camera.  Having a camera is a must with Green Envy Girls!  Luckily, my partner Maggie owns a good camera. 

On the upside, Green Envy Girls applied for the Plaza District Festival.  We have been accepted and are PUMPED up!  Mark your calendars for October 1, 2011.  Maggie and I are busy working on new bags and going through our inventory.  We're going to have to find our own tent.  I can't wait to set up and show patrons our awesome stuff!  Check our their website for more information.  http://plazadistrictfestival.com/.  I hope to see your happy faces there to celebrate with us!