Why I craft....

I have been working on what I would like to do for my crafting business.  A while back my sister and I worked on our own local crafting where we made recycled goods.  I made bags crocheted out of plastic grocery bags and ones that were the grocery bags melted to create 'fabric'. My sister made jewelry from bottle caps and wallets from the melted plastic.  I loved making these items, but we'd primarily sell at our local Saturday Market and last year we both started working much of the weekends.

But in the meantime, it has helped me to re-evaluate what I want to do with my crafting and how much I enjoy crafting for others.  And I know that the environment is a big factor in why I craft.  I want to make things that are original and are sustainable, upcycled and generally take away from the super-commercialized world with too much packaging and non-personal, cheaply made, mass produced items.

So is born my upcycled fashions.  I am in the re-birth stage and am still developing. But I had to share some of the beginnings....

Here you can see my 'new' yarn from old t-shirts.  I am using the 'yarn' to create new, bulky fashion items like this...

A chunky, fun scarf for the quickly upcoming fall days.

More to come soon...I am developing skirts, panties, headbands, and more.

Ash

My hubby's jump into the food cart world...aka starting his own business!

I am super proud of my man.  After his trip to China about a year ago, he fell in love with steamed buns, or as they are known in Beijing, baozi.  After talking about how good they were, finally he found a recipe to make them for me, and they are delicious!!

He kept talking about how cool it would be to sell these little round creations on the street with his own food cart, as he can rarely find the kind he liked here in America.  After talking about this to a friend of a friend, serendipity struck.  This person had made himself a Chinese style food cart (the three-wheeled bycycle-turned-cart kind) that he was no longer using and would let Ric use it until he could buy it from him!

Isn't it a cute little cart?

Then Ric found out about this neat website that let's you do your own fundraiser for your small business.  This very cool site is called Kickstarter, and we have set up a page for Ric.  He has 8 days left to raise $600 to help .    And they make it to where you can get goodies for your donation!  Check out his page here!

He looks good on it!  So exciting!  

Ash

End of summer...

I love Oregon.  But I am not so in love with the summer that we had this year.  It was so very, very short. But we are still trying to get outside while we still can.  Last weekend my hubby, our friends and I went out to enjoy one of our last nice weekends of the year.

Even though I got us lost and didn't find the real hiking spot...we still found a neat little area.  

Hope you get a few more days of sun to get outside!

Ash