The End of the Journey - Part One

I accept that my journey did not have a happy ending, nor did it just end. And, there certainly is a story, which is only now in its infantile stages of formation. What I do know is that I am in a refactory period when I must take inventory of my situation, and carefully create my next big thing using what I have.

This isn't nearly as dismal as it sounds, because I am infinitely resourceful. But, the operative word, modifying the act of new creation, is "carefully". My modus operandi has always been to act fast to turn disappointing situations around. I can honestly say that I have never been embedded in a mess so complex, so I cannot depend on experience now. Losing my possessions didn't simply cause deep feelings of sadness. That diverted me from my career path, which is a serious issue. The whole point of finishing college was connected with my plans for the things that are no longer mine. So, by habit, I acted [too] fast and created a bigger financial mess.

Just because my future plans cannot be focused on fashion art, doesn't mean I am completely lost. My less than informed action of altering my program evaluation for a lateral career move focused on writing created problems. My plan is a good plan for the long term, but it negatively impacted my financial aid right now. Interestingly, though, it's going to realistically take the same amount of time to completely clean up the mess the botched move made as it will to stabilize finances. I perceive that to be a positive sign. From experience I can trust, interesting coincidences involving timing, even in less than optimum situations, is usually an accurate precursor of better circumstances.

So, for now, I will make the best of what I have left from my entire life, and plan for a better, and entirely different, life ahead. Even though this refractory period seems impossibly long, there is much to jam-pack into it in the meantime. Follow this blog for frequent updates. To carve out more time, and for better communication purposes, how I use social media will likely change. And, for now, this blog is going to be the home of that story, which is already forming for the purpose to be told.

I Want This Journey To End So The Adventure Can Begin

It's true. I do believe I am entitled to a meltdown, and a meltdown might be the only thing that can soothe my soul now. It has been one week since all of my possessions in storage were auctioned. I had already resolved, in my own mind that my only option at this point would be to sell almost all of it any way. In fact, I was counting on those proceeds to help heal the financial mess I have been wallowing in for since February 2017 when I decided to bail out of a home that was killing me.

As always, though, things did not quite go as planned. Extra Space Storage on Fulton Street in Indianapolis failed to notify me of the impending sale, so I did not find out about the auction until two days after it happened. I did keep the facility aware of my contact information, but there had been numerous changes in management. I suspect that Manager #2 was to blame, since she struggled with other issues I had with my account. It never occurred to me to make sure the contact information had been recorded.

The loss of almost the entire contents of my studio doesn't bother me nearly as much as losing some personal items. There is no record of the major events from my life and no photographs or any items that brought me joy and helped me take better care of myself. The sadness is overwhelming, but I am crawling forward, because there is nothing I can do to correct the situation.

I had not planned on having to start completely over from absolutely nothing, but that's what has to happen now. I did already move some things months ago, and there are some projects I can finish when I can purchase replacements for lost supplies. There are also items that don't make much sense to keep by themselves, so I can sell them and not think twice about it now.

And, to add insult to injury, my advisor is hard at work trying to solve a financial aid glitch that is going to impact my survival if we can't do something creative now. I am so weary, but my As are still straight. I don't know how I keep showing up with that when my life is crumbling more and more daily. When my possessions were gone, I hoped that would be the end of this crazy journey, but, obviously it is not. My next steps are to continue on with my coursework as well as I can, and do what I can with my Etsy shops with what I have left.

Please help me navigate this rough spot. There is a "Donate" button in the right sidebar. Or, you can donate directly from PayPal to baisebeige@gmail.com. I will need help with roof-over-head and food-in-fridge issues a little longer as well as with supplies to be able to finish some things to sell in my shops. I truly thought the end of the awful journey would be different and not more of the same. But, it is what it is and I have to deal with it. I do think I deserve to have a meltdown, but it is impossible to even simply shed tears now. The only solace I have is immersing myself with the education and e-tail tasks at hand and hope things change in my favor very, very soon.

Coming Undone

My news is mixed. It's not all good, nor is it all bad. I am stuck in the process of coming undone and I need your help now more than ever.

I moved into a residential hotel in August because this sort of housing is the only thing that closely fits my needs. I had to prioritize mail security and accessibility but compromise on location. After a few small trips to storage, I made the the wrong decision of moving a lot at once.

This is what you can see of the messy situation in my hotel-home in October. This was also the last time I have been able to afford to go to storage. I also cannot technically afford to keep my things in storage, but I pay the bills the best that I can. Most of my supplies and tools, which are the things I need to make money, are still in storage, so the locker expense is costing me significantly more than the face value of the rent.

I am coming undone in both a figurative and literal sense. It is difficult for me to unfasten and unwrap my things by myself and the process is slow. Without having everything in the same place, it is not even possible to unpack everything and create order. Those things are undone, but they are the least of the problem. The coming undone of plans and accepting failure are by far the worst.

There was a plan that got off to a good start and I was able to open my shops as soon as I moved.
The surprising thing was all three shops started producing well right away, but, after the first month, sales ceased and there was nothing I could do to restore performance. Without the ability to regularly list new items, my search rank spiraled downward. I made the mistake of being aggressive and running ads on Etsy. Hundreds and hundreds of dollars later, nothing has improved.

Between storage costs and spending money to try to resolve the storage impact on my ability to do business, I am not able to take care of my basic needs to keep a roof over my head and eat everyday.

I need your help today so I can start over.

I need to go back to the beginning, pay the past due rent on my lockers, hire help for moving and unpacking, and retrieve everything from storage. The process is going to be a little bit slow, because I can do very little on my own at once. The move must be gradual, but it will get done. I absolutely cannot do what you see in the image above again. That was a detriment to my well-being and was probably worse to have done than not done at all.

My shops are a mess. The advertising to make up for the lack of new items to list created enormous shop bills. My textile shop has been suspended for almost one month now. My vintage supply shop and chicken sweater shop are teetering on suspension now again. I am hoping beyond hope that they can save themselves since the sale of just one item in each of them will be enough to turn the situation around.

The most urgent need, and I do mean today, is money to pay room rent and to buy groceries. Storage locker rent and shop bills have depleted my funds to take care of basic economic needs. This living situation should have been sustainable, and I am profoundly disappointed that I find it impossible to come close to doing that.

Somehow, my As are still straight and my advisor admires me for doing that. I don't tell him all of the details, but he has an understanding that my personal situation is nearly impossible to navigate. I don't know how I do it either. Whether or not it is even wise, I am still "all in" with every aspect of my life and have no desire to stop, no matter how awful the circumstances are.

Can you help? There is a donate button in the right side bar of this blog for donations via PayPal. You can also donate directly using my Paypal e-mail: baisebeige@gmail.com.

My Moving Experience ... Part III

I have tried everything to facilitate finding and moving into a new home, but after four months, it has become painfully obvious that I need to do something different.

Please donate to my moving fund. The links are at the end of this post.
Also, please share this post with your social networks, and by e-mail to altruistic friends and organizations.

I have freed most of the next three weeks by working ahead in my current course to help accomplish finding an acceptable place to live and work. There is no break between the end of this term and the beginning of the next one.

Part of the reason I am considerably more anxious now is because my 60th birthday is on June 28th. There's not one living person who would know that unless informed by a social network, but it just matters to me that my birthday isn't awful. And, I am more than mildly concerned that, after being on vacation for four months, it will be challenging to get my Etsy shops to rebound to the same level of performance.

I am sure, too, considering my less than optimum health, that it will take all of three weeks to find a place and slowly move into it. The weather is no longer in my favor.

I have been without transportation now for almost two weeks, but the search resumes tomorrow. Finding a first floor (or accessible) apartment with secure mail is more difficult than I thought, but I will be persistent and am willing to live in less than optimum conditions, if necessary.

The hotel and storage locker rent has almost completely consumed the entire two months of my typical living expenses, which is part of my financial aid package.

I need your help more than ever and right now right now.

Realistically, I need:

• Hotel rent until the end of June. My room rate has slightly been increased to $55 + tax. If you want to pay for nights directly to the hotel, the manager's name and number is below this post.
• Apartment application, deposit, prorated June, and July rent.
• Transportation
• Moving help that will help me move a few things several times per week, and help me unpack, clean items, and put them away. My previous landlord soaked my apartment and everything in it with insecticide, which made me sicker than I already was, and I want to clean things up before I live with them.
• Funds for bills and food.

Here's how you can help:

• Because of intermittent disbursements of money from my generosity fund, please donate directly into my PayPal account. My PayPal email is baisebeige@gmail.com.
• The hotel manager's name is Andy Mugosa and you can call him at (317) 352-0481.

My Moving Experience ... Part II

I am mostly writing this post to be able to release everything that's on my mind and try to relax while things are stable in the present moment. This is night #91 since being stranded in the hotel, and, while trying to remain calm, the anxiety is overwhelming. That magical situation of finding a place that is for rent, a landlord who will respond to inquiries about his ad, transportation to go to see the apartment, a landlord who will show up for the appointment, cash on hand to rent the apartment, and reliable moving help is the most elusive thing. Like. Ever. In the meantime, hotel and storage locker rent eats the cash resources and I have become perpetually stuck.

This is my vacation from school, and I had once again envisioned moving during this period of reduced responsibilities. Can it happen? I don't know. I am now working a little ahead with the homework for the class that starts Monday, because something disruptive can happen, and I want to be ready. I could run out of money and end up on the streets. But, I believe in miracles, especially since my entire moving experience has been a string of one miracle after another and I do believe, to the depths of my being, that my move can be in motion soon.

I have accomplished much since being "location inspecific". I was invited to join an honor society for nontraditional students called, Alpha Sigma Lambda. I aced my cognitive psychology and social media marketing strategy courses. I took these pictures of the insides of my storage lockers when I collected the merchandise and some shipping materials to be able to open my CockADoodleDuds shop on Etsy so I could enter it in a contest. I didn't win but I got a more than average amount of votes, and I am pleased. I sorely miss my Etsy shops and am eager to get all of them open again soon. Some vintage patterns and vintage fabric ended up at the hotel during my botched move, so I am able to prepare them for listing when I reopen. Some Etsy participation is better than none. I also finished knitting a blanket for my teeny camper cot which will be my bed for awhile. Everything you see in the photos above is what I have left from my whole life and I discarded most of my furniture.

I'm going to be very honest. I need immediate help.

My Facebook friend, Ali Shanti, helped me create a generosity fund. You can donate at this link:
https://igg.me/at/HD6XVIxECsU
The fundraiser will be live until my situation stabilizes.

Because the generosity fund disburses cash intermittently and I have pressing, immediate, everyday needs, donations can be made directly through PayPal. My PayPal e-mail is baisebeige@gmail.com.

If you live in Indianapolis, here is a description, in the form of a Facebook note. It describes what I am looking for in a new home. It is probably not the kind of place that would ever be advertised by any other way than a sign on the property. What have you seen? Please comment on this post and share your lead!
https://www.facebook.com/notes/laura-fisher/you-tell-me-where-is-this-place/1302779889771389/

Thank you so much for reading this post. You can also help by sharing it with your social networks, with groups and organizations, and with friends who are in a position to help. On the theme, of helping, just writing this update helps me clear my mind and relax a little. This has, beyond any doubt, been the most challenging situation I have ever faced. But. Still. I am optimistic that I will go home soon, and somehow, life will be even better than before this mess unfolded.

Marketing on Pinterest

I admit it. In the beginning, when I was a beta-tester on Pinterest, I completely "dropped the ball" and failed to see the marketing potential that site offered. Perhaps, I was too mesmerized by the abundance of all things wonderful presented in an endless visual array. Or, perhaps, I was already feeling overwhelmed by social media in my first year online to consider exploring the site further. Just more than one year ago, though, I returned to the site with fresh eyes and began to understand why Pinterest has become a key channel for businesses.

I became an enthusiastic Pinner again, because I realized the target markets for my Etsy business were active Pinterest users. That is a fundamental motivation for any business use of a social network (Charleston, 2016). My own mostly female, Millennial or older, and low middle to upper middle income demographic was well-represented on the site. Many more market segments are well-represented on Pinterest and it is worth the effort for marketers to explore. And, certain "fun facts" about Pinterest may surprise any marketer. For example, Millennials use Pinterest as much as Instagram. And, two-thirds of all pins represent brands and products. Every day 2 million people pin product-rich pins. Considering those pinned products, 87% of users have purchased a pinned product, 72% use Pinterest to make decisions about purchases, and 92% plan purchases using their pins (Aslam, 2017). In other words, consumers create beautiful boards that they use to guide their consumer behavior. Pinterest is a marketer's dream come true.

I used Pinterest as a personal account until I had more than 10,000 followers. For some reason, unknown even to myself, I thought that would help me understand what my followers liked best. Don't make the same mistake. Use Pinterest as a business account from the beginning. Pinning your own content will automatically create "rich pins" with eye-catching information about your product. But, more importantly than that, Pinterest Analytics for business accounts will help take all of the guesswork out of understanding your followers' interests. Insights, providing data on consumer preferences based on pinning behavior, combined with the demographic details about the audience can be used to guide business strategy to generate more engagement that is measured in impressions, clicks, and saves (Pinterest, 2017). Pinterest organizes information to help businesses make wise decisions and also provides tools to collect more data from content. In addition to organic engagement, well-performing pins can be promoted with paid ads to increase reach.

Unlike tweets, or most other social media posts, pins are forever. Users curate them on their boards and they are discovered and repinned by other users, which keeps content in perpetual circulation. The main job for the marketer becomes creating irresistible pins with content targeted precisely using information from Pinterest Analytics. I may have returned to Pinterest with fresh eyes, but those eyes are now wide open. Within that beautiful array of all things wonderful lies unique opportunities for business and all of the tools to achieve success on Pinterest.

References

Aslam, S. (2017). Pinterest by the numbers: stats,demographicsand fun facts. omnicoreagency.com. 

     Retrieved from https://www.omnicoreagency.com/pinterest-statistics/

Charleston, L.-J. (2016). How much social media is too much for your business? Huffington Post

     [AU edition]. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/2016/04/28/how-much-

     social-media-is-too-much-for-your-business/

Pinterest (2017). Pinterest analytics. pinterest.com. Retrieved from
     https://business.pinterest.com/en/pinterest-analytics

Marketing on Twitter

I describe my own experience with marketing on Twitter as a blend of failing forward and learning by doing. I believed Twitter was an ideal platform for shamelessly self-promoting my own content, but in my early days online I had very little content of my own. I did the next best thing. I published sponsored tweets for an online ad agency. I could write the tweet content, and the tweets were automatically posted during times of high engagement. As pennies per click added up to hundreds of dollars, I learned valuable lessons about when to post and the best formats for tweets. Times have changed and Twitter's own sponsored tweet program has driven the agencies from the network. In fact, the appearance of the network is different. Instead of being a stream of text messages, timelines have become visual and tweets with images or video are most effective at capturing attention. I have learned to observe what others do to get ideas for my own projects.

Because big brands have marketing strategies that are not very relevant to small businesses, I have a tendency to visit their profiles, instead of following them, to look for information and promotions. Any business's well-managed social media profile is a place for sharing and discussing content (Ryan & Jones, 2009). However, the small businesses and organizations in my own timeline are a source of ideas and tactics I can model. It is especially beneficial for me to see their tweets in real time and in the context of online chatter. The most eye-catching tweets have "pictures worth 1000 words" and are crafted to complement the text of the tweet. I observe social listening practices to see how small brands engage users and see how hashtags are used for market targeting. Once again, I find myself failing forward and learning by doing as I promote my chicken sweater shop for an Etsy contest. With just one day into the project and just one brand image to promote, I am discovering that the more Twitter changes, the more it stays the same. It's going to take considerable work and patience to determine an actionable strategy to fit my purposes, but my belief that Twitter is a formidable marketing platform is still unwavering.

Reference

Ryan, D., & Jones, C. (2009). Understanding digital marketing: Marketing strategies for engaging    

     the digital generation. [Books24x7 version] Retrieved from

     http://common.books24x7.com.ezproxy.snhu.edu/toc.aspx?bookid=31037

My Moving Experience... Part I

The house where I had been living had a certain je ne sais quoi from before the time when I moved in more than two years ago. For more than twenty years, every resident who moved out filled up the dumpster on the way out. What a curiosity, right?

It didn't take long after moving in to begin to understand why. I've lived in old houses for most of my adult life and never had negative experiences. My luck completely changed. A variety of toxic conditions took a terrible toll on my health, including impacting my ability to walk.

Drastic action was required and I joined the ranks of former tenants who discarded significant worldly goods on the way to a healthier future. I snapped a quick pic of my first dumpster load from the kitchen window. It was too physically taxing at that point to even go outdoors and capture a better image. I filled the dumpster a second time. I only kept things that were well-protected from the environment in the building the whole time, which included my Etsy shop merchandise and supplies, art supplies and tools, my clothing, my kitchen equipment and tools, a couple of small pieces of furniture, and a few precious personal items.

I did have a plan in the beginning of the move and was as well-prepared as I possibly could be. Since I had lived in my neighborhood since 1989 and didn't have a good idea of where else I would want to live, I was going to live in a temporary place for awhile. However, at the last minute, my friend reneged on the room, leaving me the choice of living on the street or checking into a hotel.

To be perfectly fair to the person who was helping me move everything I had left from my life into storage, I let him choose the general location of the hotel for convenience, since there was more work to do after that apartment had been vacated. I made the final choice of hotel after seeing the selection on Shadeland Avenue. You have to understand that I have only spent a maximum of two hours total on Shadeland Avenue in the whole 35 years I have lived in Indianapolis.

Then, the most unexpected thing happened after I became isolated in an unfamiliar place. The person who was helping me with moving and transportation unexpectedly abandoned the responsibility. That left me stuck worse than I have ever been stuck as I helplessly watched the hotel room rate erode my moving fund.

I found irony in the situation, though. It was fascinating that a decision that I made to improve my overall situation put me in another precarious situation. It was a different sort of bad situation, because of the extreme financial instability. I was living the truth of that out-of-the-frying-pan-and-into-the-fire adage. On the other hand, almost immediately, after being in the clean environment of the hotel, my sleep and digestion patterns had become more normal after two years of disruption. My suspicions were being supported, but I still have a long way to go until I completely recover from living in a toxic place. And, to make matters worse, there is nowhere to call home.

[P]interest[ing] Observations

Having a short hiatus from my everyday life provides the opportunity to evaluate how I use social media for promoting my Etsy shops as well as how I share other elements of my personal brand. In the beginning,when the Internet was new to me, I believed I had to use all of the social media without really knowing much about social media at all. So, not surprisingly, I jumped at the opportunity to be a beta-tester for Pinterest. I created a profile, but didn't do much with it for years. More than one year ago, I discovered that the target market for my Etsy business closely mirrored the overall demographics of Pinterest. I, therefore, decided to explore that site with fresh eyes. Through the years I have experienced delightful personal engagement on a variety of social networking sites, but the interaction has done little to advance my personal projects or to be measurable in profit. To be effective for social business, engagement is essential to inspire collaboration between business and customers in a variety of combinations. So, as one of my social media marketing strategy course textbooks stated so well, I decided "to fish where fish are and not where I wish they were" (Evans, 2010).

Building an engaged network took longer than I had expected. The task involved creating boards that reflected my business and personal interests. I then found content that related exactly to my interests and pinned it to my boards. I kept calm and pinned on, day after day. I pinned dozens, and sometimes hundreds, of pieces of content every day. The idea was to aggregate content that would be interesting to my target market. That meant I had to be selective about the users I followed to make sure my choices for shareable content perfectly reflected my taste and creative aesthetic. As much as I might like a particular user or brand, I will only follow the account if the content relates to me. I can always visit profiles and individual boards for specific information. Avoiding clutter in my own feed reduced distraction and increased productivity. Minutes matter when there is massive pinning to do.

It's true. If you build it, they do come. Once my network was up and running like a well-oiled perpetual motion machine with 10,000 followers, I switched my personal account to a business account and began inserting my own content intermittently to gauge my followers' reactions. I now have more than 15,000 followers and that number increases daily.  Happily, my content has proven to be a good fit with my carefully nurtured followers who interact with it at the same rate as content from other sources. People click through to my shops and sales are made.

Once engagement is established, a Pinterest network grows effortlessly. Content is shared effortlessly, too. Pinned content has eternal life, never falling into oblivion at the depths of news feeds like other social networks. Pins circulate, whether or not I am actively pinning. It is simply magical.  The theory has been tested and proven, but there is still work to do. As I look forward to reopening my Etsy shops soon, the goal is to make content even more convenient for others to share. I am also exploring methods to create even more eye-catching promotional pins for my content for posting directly on Pinterest or to be shared to Pinterest from other social networks. The only disappointment is that Pinterest engagement doesn't enhance social influence scores. However, a better "social network fit" is leading to purchases and making online success finally measurable in profit.

Reference

Evans, D. (2010). Social media marketing: the next generation of business engagement. [Books24x7 

     version] Retrieved from

     http://common.books24x7.com.ezproxy.snhu.edu/toc.aspx?bookid=41104. 

From Crickets to Profit

This wasn't my first holiday season on Etsy, but this was the first time I actually had a holiday season. Look at this! My little Etsy shops did this much business in just one day and I am not particularly "seasonal." Needless to say, I got my rock star mail lady a nicer-than-usual Christmas treat for all that bending over she did. I'll bet she wonders what happened. My home-based, online business used to be the one business on her route that she could count on to not vex her during the December package rush. The deafening sound of crickets used to fill the space outside my door where the Priority Mail boxes are stacked. What happened to change that? I did the smart and right thing and repaired the titles, tags, and listing content in all of my Etsy shops and then ran Etsy Search Ads to maximize that effort. Will the trend in increased sales continue after the holiday merriment ends? Yes, it will. I can say that with confidence because I paid attention in the integrated marketing communications course I am finishing today. After I press "submit" to turn in the final assignments, I'm logging onto Etsy to discover what all of the data I collected informs me about the next direction to take.

Etsy, as a company, has such an intimate relationship with data that, in September, it acquired Blackbird Technologies, a Big Data company, to be able to apply Deep Learning and Artificial Intelligences, especially to consumer searches. The idea is be able to provide an enhanced shopping experience which is unique to the buyer (Armstrong, 2016). I want to take advantage of these changes, and, fortunately, Etsy provides me with data relevant to the daily activities of my shops in addition to data generated by my ads. I also have data from Twitter and Pinterest, which are my social media networks I use most to promote my shops. For having a tiny business, it certainly seems I have plenty of numbers. That's good because I know, that no matter the size of the business, evaluation of marketing campaigns is beneficial. In a way, I am reverse engineering research. My goal is to more deeply understand my customer and discover the messaging to communicate better in the future. The better I align my goals within the Etsy strategy, the better my results will be, and the outgoing boxes will continue piling up. I have to be able to understand what happened until now and data can tell me that.

At first glance, when I started running and paying for the ads, I felt like my efforts made a good example for the marketing concept called marginal analysis. The spending on ads seemed to have a limit to profitability (Clow & Baack, 2014, 103). Plenty of clicks seemed to generate an underwhelming amount of sales. On one hand, the increase in traffic was desirable, but conversion was elusive. The process short-circuited at the listing level and that becomes my first focus when creating an integrated marketing strategy that works better. There were sales. There also was a product-specific awareness determined from keyword searches that included exact words from item titles and listing content. Affective responses, "hearting" items and shops, increased. The short-term successes are indeed noteworthy achievements in evaluating a simple ad campaign (Clow & Baack, 2014, 413). Evaluating the metrics will help me make decisions about tailoring future ad spending to conform better to results already observed. However, I must exercise caution about my judgments since online shopping, especially for one-of-a-kind items, suggests a Cinderella's slipper situation. A poorly performing ad might simply indicate the right shoppers have not yet searched for the item. 

Doing everything I can possibly do to increase the visits to my shops is only part of the plan. The messaging, which I use in my shop content as well as the messages I create on social media networking sites to promote my shops, is also ripe for evaluation. My online metrics will provide some insight (Clow & Baack, 2014, 421). However, getting to better know the customers who were motivated to add items to the cart, can shape future communications. I have ZIP codes and the A C Nielsen company has narratives that describe, with amazing accuracy, persons living in every ZIP code in America (A C Nielsen, 2016). Knowing to whom I am speaking can guide the words I write and the images I create. Being specific optimizes effectiveness of the futuristic technology Etsy now owns. Similarly, care must be taken to avoid alienating other market segments by being too specific. Finding the balance becomes the challenge as I attempt to address what I think my customer thinks about my content and how the customer thinks that content applies to a want or need. Applying inferences about thinking as derived from generalities is beginning to sound suspiciously like the realm of cognitive science. Lucky for me, the next course I will study, beginning in January, is cognitive psychology. And, yes, I will be playing along at home.

References

A C Nielsen (2016). ZIP code look up. In My Best Segments. Retrieved from

    https://segmentationsolutions.nielsen.com/mybestsegments/Default.jsp?ID=20&menuOption=

    zipcodelookup&pageName=ZIP%2BCode%2BLookup&filterstate=&sortby=segment_code&

    prevSegID=CLA.PZP

Armstrong, P. (2016, December 15). What you don't know about Etsy (and its 2017 strategy). In

    Forbes. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/paularmstrongtech/2016/12/15/what-you-

    dont-know-about-etsy-and-its-2017-strategy/#40cd9e3b4d90

Clow, K. E., & Baack, D. (2014). Integrated advertising, promotion, and marketing communications 

    (6th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc.; 103, 413, & 421.

Thinking About Priority Mail

As an Etsy seller, and because I do 100% of my shopping online, mail is important to me. I don't want to put pressure on Terri, my rock star mail lady, especially at the advent of the holiday package delivery season, but she will be more likely, than not be, the person who will confer my diploma someday. Why not? She's my biggest fan and most important business and personal support system. My mail carrier as well as mailboxes locked far from porch-pirate-thieving-hands securely inside this building are reasons why I chose my current home. It was a sobering revelation, in the midst of celebrating the important Etsy milestone of 100 sales in my QualityJunk shop this week, to realize that meant Terri bent over 100 times to pick up those packages. Every single one of those packages was a United States Postal Service (USPS) Priority Mail package!

Priority Mail is a magnificent product that allows me to provide a superior customer experience as well as provides me with peace-of-mind that the package arrives at its destination safely and quickly. That is such a simple concept and one would think that simple concept would be simple to communicate and simple to understand. I was astounded, from the point of view as a long time user of Priority Mail, that the feedback about one of the earliest commercials for the Flat Rate variety of Priority Mail had mixed and mostly negative feedback. Apparently,"If it fits, it ships" is open to a wide range of interpretations (Audit Field Financial - West team, 2010). When thinking about that, I remembered spending significant time failing forward while learning how to use Priority Mail. When visiting the USPS web site, a user can't find one cached file of everything necessary to know about Priority Mail. I'll admit it. I get "warm fuzzies" from watching Priority Mail commercials because of my experience with the product, my wonderful mail lady, and how easy Priority Mail makes living the Etsy shop dream. However, when trying to visualize how someone who has never used Priority Mail might perceive it, the effectiveness of the message is quite different.

Currently, as I am pursuing an online education, I'm studying a marketing topic called Integrated Marketing Communications, which essentially involves creating uniform marketing messages to strengthen the impact of marketing campaigns (Clow & Baack, 2014). The first thing I notice about Priority Mail is that there is absolutely nothing to be integrated with those lovely commercials. If a viewer is inspired to explore the product, there is no next step to take except for trying to navigate the USPS website (USPS, 2016). I learned firsthand that will yield confusion more often than relevant information. I do believe research would help USPS understand this consumer dilemma. After all, important reasons that motivate marketing research include centering business on consumers and focusing on consumer needs. Additionally, research allows businesses understand target markets better and can help improve messaging and communications (Fletcher, 2013). At this point, any messaging and communications would be better than nothing. Spending the time to interview focus groups could help shape a plan for developing a Priority Mail resource that provides both information and support. Not everyone is willing to spend the time I did to learn how to use Priority Mail and not everyone learns in the same way. What would be the best marketing tool? Is it a dedicated web site or a social media site or a collection of how-to videos? Research can, and should, determine that. I do believe that improved marketing strategies would convert potential first time users into loyal customers, and it's my wish that the USPS will soon make their Priority Mail product easier for everyone to use.

References

Audit Field Financial - West team (2010). What do you think of the Priority Mail advertising 

     campaign? [web log post]. In Products & Services. United States Postal Service Office of 

     Inspector General. Retrieved from https://www.uspsoig.gov/blog/what-do-you-think-priority-

     mail-advertising-campaign 

Clow, K. E., & Baack, D. (2014). Integrated advertising, promotion, and marketing communications 

     (6th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc.

Fletcher, B. (2013, April 25). Five reasons why market research matters (and five tips for using it).

     In MarketingProfs. Retrieved from http://www.marketingprofs.com/opinions/2013/23874/five-

     reasons-why-marketing-research-matters-and-five-tips-for-using-it

USPS (2016). USPS web site. Retrieved from http://www.usps.com

Difference Does Make Us

Etsy. Sometimes I live it, breathe it, and sleep it, but still feel everyday I am operating my shops within an ever-evolving larger context that isn't completely known to myself or much of the world. All I knew in the beginning was that "Etsy" was a nonsense word coined from transcribed dialog from Federico Fellini's film 8 1/2. The characters were saying "eh, si" a lot and Etsy evolved from that (Etsy, n.d.). Etsy didn't even have a business plan when the site launched, and the intention was to evolve the site as circumstances dictated (Walker, 2007). Interestingly, the trials and tribulations of building the Etsy brand closely emulate the process of rebranding, because a more universal understanding of Etsy has been revealed, the market is constantly being evaluated, underlying issues are being addressed, and new strategies evolve (Geyer, 2016). As a result, I have struggled with resulting changes in the Etsy algorithm that guide search, considered consumer traits when creating listings, and reassigned product categories. I have sided with Etsy in the controversy surrounding the evolving the definition of the handmade business and welcomed public trading of the company. Having flexible intentions for growing into its destiny spared Etsy the pain of reevaluating and starting fresh. All of the hard work is an ongoing process for Etsy and its loyal sellers. However, Etsy isn't simply just an online global marketplace for handmade and vintage items as well as craft supplies. What Etsy needs most is a clear, concise, and consistent statement to communicate what Etsy is to consumers. The careful crafting of a tagline seems to be the missing part of the Etsy brand.

Etsy recently launched its first global online advertising campaign called "Difference Makes Us" (Klara, 2016).  To me, the operative word in that statement is "Us." The most identifiable element that distinguishes Etsy from all other marketplaces is its strong sense of community. There is little to distinguish buyers from sellers in our internal social network and we participate together as members of special interest teams. The phrase, "Whoever you are, find whatever you're into," currently invites visitors to initiate a search for products. Melding the idea of individuals with diverse interests with belonging to a community would yield an ideal message that perfectly describes Etsy. The current commercials focus on the wide array of merchandise, but a human element drives the content. Ads are constantly edited to include new items posted by sellers. Viewers see different commercials every time they watch (Klara, 2016). Etsy CEO Chad Dickerson is acutely conscious of the human element in the business and emphasizes that each transaction ends with a real product from a real person. He calls it "existential satisfaction" (Etsy, n.d.). "Difference Makes Us" is certainly a step in the right direction toward a tagline and there is certainly more to consider. The biggest challenge seems to be squeezing many positive attributes into few words that perfectly describes Etsy.

References

Etsy (n.d.). In Wikipedia. Retrieved from https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Etsy

Geyer, F. (2009, March 24). Four best-practices for renovating your brand -- before its too late. 

     MarketingProfs. Retrieved from

     https://www.marketingprofs.com/9/best-practices-for-renovating-your-brand-geyer,asp

Klara,R. (2016, September 14). Etsy's first global campaign is an expression of individuality, just like      the stuff it sells: Here's what makes it and its everyday items different. Adweek. Retrieved from

     https://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/etsys-first-global-campaign-expression-

     individuality-just-like-stuff-it-sells-173404

Tiny-fying

An important aspect of living sustainably is being able to do more with less and space definitely is included with that. I am currently living in a tiny house that was originally built semi-detached from a grand house in 1892. The industrialist who built this house put his science lab on the third floor, so the maid's room and her loo as well as an open first floor plan to accommodate parties were part of his controversial home design plan. This space was enclosed sometime during the mid twentieth century and this is my home today.

I do have a large kitchen as well as the 17' by 35' front room and spacious storage in the basement to share, but I'm trying to find that sweet spot of comfortably living and working in my textile studio and running an e-tail business and gardening in my BathroomFarm conducted inside this room. So far so good, but it can be better. So, that means tiny-fying. Constantly. Like. A. Lot.

Small space living with an eye on profit and productivity certainly adds a new dimension to the process. At this point, there is probably nothing wrong with most of the things I have. Most of that unnecessary fluff is long gone. I do have to keep scrutinizing possessions to determine if they are appropriate to my goals and release them if they are not. Lucky for me, my neighborhood has the best neighborhood yard sale ever and it's coming up soon.

Right now my life is an intricate exercise of sorting, sifting, stumbling knee deep over tubs of stuff, separating the Etsy biz wheat from the yard sale chaff, photographing, editing and listing and there's not much fun stuff to talk about. I enjoy this part because I know that I'm going to wake up on the second Monday of June with a more ordered and focused life.

Intrigued? Visit my neighborhood yard sale during the first full weekend of June every year. Shop 80 acres of yard sale paradise at the Woodruff Place Flea Market this year on June 7th and 8th in Indianapolis, IN. We tithe 10% back to our neighborhood to preserve our historical prettiness. I love to participate in this event because I appreciate the luxury of living in an outstanding historic district. Being able to efficiently declutter allows me to enjoy doing that even more.

Can't wait until June? Shop for vintage textile treasures at my Quality Junk shop on Etsy! This is where textile items that are too fragile or difficult to sell at my yard sale come to find new homes. I named this shop after my own sale at the Woodruff Place Flea Market. Of course, there will be plenty of other textile items for sale on my porch in June. I'll see you there.

Handmade and Vintage Clothing and Textiles

My Baisebeige Studios Shop on Etsy has a swell tagline proclaiming "Handmade and Vintage Clothing and Textiles! I carefully chose those words with flow in a circular nature to to express handmaking by using vintage materials and the changing uses of items made from those materials. I have amassed an impressive collection of vintage clothing, salvaged materials and household items during my entire lifetime. Now, it's time to get busy!  I am going to pack up my act and take my show on the road!

On First Friday, Indianapolis local fashion magazine Pattern in conjunction with AIGA, the professional organization for design, opened The Bindery, a Pop-Up co-working space for fashion design at The Harrison Center for the Arts. From First Friday August to First Friday September, there will be a fully functional fashion design studio available free for any Indianapolis creative to use. I moved to Indianapolis in 1982, and this is the most ambitious fashion project this city has ever seen.

It's a call to action for our design community and depending how the community responds to this opportunity, may be the first baby step toward having a local fashion incubator. They didn't have to tell me twice! I cleared the decks and organized the stash. Although, as a fashion artist and upcycler, I exist on the fringes of fashion, the possibility of building a local fashion industry matters very much to me. Local business makes sustainable economies and empowers all of us. In the very least, I will have fun with doing my part in improving local culture and business and make swell new friends in the process.

It may sound like a hassle to pack up my work and commute to a new workspace, but the possibilities are truly unlimited. I visited the space to acclimate myself to the equipment and resources today. One of my projects now is to make vintage clothing and lingerie relevant for these modern times. It seems like this space is perfectly appointed for my needs. This Victorian s-curve torso could be just the thing for draping beautiful bustles. I have been to The Bindery promised land and am pleased.

I am going to savor the opportunity to participate in the community. The finale of the project on First Friday September 6th is a Pop-Up Shop of our products and a prime opportunity to discuss works with the public.

Watch for frequent updates as this opportunity unfolds. We're making business history in Indianapolis and creating a better economic future. This is an exciting story to tell.

Shop Cleaning and Halloween-ing!

Yay! October!

Sometimes I think October is the beginning of my year as opposed to January, which is fine with me. I like riding the wave of the change in the season and the glitz and the glam of Halloween crafting and costume making adds sparkle to my attitude as well as twinkle to the floor of my studio. The renewed energy inspires me to plan and expand my work.

I am very happy for my source of new old stock vintage masks. Being able to sew beads onto the surface of the masks, makes a much more beautiful product and I have added a few new items crafted in this manner to my Etsy shop inventory. But, as I always say, "out with the old and in with the new"! Therefore, I have added some of the plastic masks decorated with glued decorations to my new clearance section.

Also in my shop clearance section are discontinued rag knit items. Most of the fun for me in the creation of rag knits is making the fiber to knit. The direction the rag knits is headed is toward items that include more hand dyed elements to enhance the upcycled fibers or to be made completely from dyed fabric and fiber. I also am changing the style of the cowl to be more like a small capelet with a closure at the neck. My fingers are crossed that buttons made from drilled beach stones will work perfectly for them.

That "out with the old and in with the new" is also in action in my own personal inventory of my lifetime collection of very cool and useful things. I have added new items to my studio destash shop named for my annual sale, Quality Junk. This shop is the end-of-the-road for items that I'm sure I'm never going to use myself. I have a serious weakness for interesting vintage textiles and need to be firm with myself about getting too overloaded with my acquisitions!

Why am I ambitiously cleaning things out? Baisebeige Studios has a plan for expansion! I am going to expand my space in this interesting old house. My work frequently spills out of my room so I am going to make my takeover of that space official in November.

Halloween is calling me back to work now. Stay tuned for more news on this year's merriment and the changes in my studio!

A Few Alterations to Rock and Roll History

Today is Global Beatles Day and I have a tiny tale of my own related to this celebration of modern culture influenced by the Fab Four. Meet my friend Faith Cohen. We go way back to the good old days of punk rock except she was talking more about The Beatles then. Time has passed and she is making bigger noise about The Beatles now. She's the creator of Global Beatles Day! She lives it, breathes it, sleeps it. ... And now she wants to wear it out on Saturday night!

This jacket is a genuine artifact of rock and roll history. It was previously owned by Pattie Boyd who was first married to George Harrison. They met on the set of A Hard Day's Night in which Pattie appeared as an extra in the film. Pattie was a model for Mary Quant and is credited with creating the definitive "London Look" that was perpetuated by Twiggy in later years. After Brian Epstein gave the Beatle his permission to marry her, she accompanied him to the Maharishi's ashram in India. She inspired The Beatles song "Something". And, yes, that is Pattie Boyd in the video at the link. After her subsequent marriage to Eric Clapton, and being the inspiration for his rock classic "Layla", Pattie Boyd became known to be "The Greatest Rock Muse" ever.

The jacket itself has a pop culture connection. It was made by Kings Road designer Nigel Preston for his fashion line branded Maxfield Parrish. He was well known for colorful leather and suede clothing and was popular with rock stars in the mid-1970s going forward. Although Mr. Preston is no longer living, his brand is still in production.

So why doesn't Faith look very happy in the picture above? Maybe it's because she is swimming in the garment and something must be done! Lucky for her she knows me and Baisebeige Studios is the home of the Gonzo Alteration. It was no problem to take the jacket apart, raise the shoulder line, take in the torso, take in the sleeves and shorten the sleeves while preserving the original intention of the maker's design lines. And, it doesn't hurt at all that I completely "get it" and understand the whole story attached to this article of clothing.

The surgery was a complete success and Pattie Boyd's jacket fits exactly like Faith Cohen's jacket should fit. It's so true that the culture of The Beatles is being passed forward through time. This little wearable snippet of history has many more years of fashion fun ahead of it. I think a much happier Faith agrees and is drinking to that!

I Ran Away to Chicago to Seek My Fortune

In 1985, I sold clothing made from upcycled materials at the Merchandise Mart in Chicago with outstanding success, considering it was during the time when recycling garbage was unheard of. The dress on the left was a one-of-a-kind item made from a variety of yarns and strips of fabrics and could not be reproduced exactly. It was included in a show called Wearable Art '85 at the Indianapolis Museum of Art. By the time the show opened, my rag knits were quite popular as unique items, so I decided to create a line of artwear that could be reproduced. The clothes on the right are from that line. I used 100% cotton fabrics and fibers that were dyed, painted and constructed by hand and they attracted a lot of attention and sales!

Transportation is frequently a problem with walking my green talk and not a point I am willing to compro

mise. Until the mid-1990s, I could take the Amtrak train to Chicago and return to Indianapolis on the same day, so doing business in Chicago was not a problem. When A

mtrak discontinued the daily service, business in Chicago became difficult. However, MegaBus service has changed all of that. In less

than two years, I have learned how to use social media effectively and open an Etsy shop, so I am naturally curious about what's going on in the Chicago marketplace. Yesterday, I acted on that curiosity and took Megabus to the city with the goal of browsing the Apparel Center at the Merchandise Mart for a

showroom.

My trip was efficient and comfortable and even greener than expected. The vehicles

are engineered for optimum fuel efficiency. During my next trip, I'll remember to take my netbook and adapter because each seat has an electrical outlet and there is WiFi! The bus schedules between Indianapolis to Chicago are convenient for short visits or a full day of business.

The Merchandise Mart is an impressive structure built by Marshall Field at the peak of the pandemonium of the Great Depression to make it easier for the makers of goods to reach

a wider market. It's two city blocks long and has an annex that was designed to be an apparel market. In the 1980's that was packed full of glam and glitz. Since that time Chicago has gone through many changes and so has the building. Chicago is the greenest city in America and the Merchandise Mart itself is the biggest LEED certified existing building in the whole world. That's good green karma!

So I went to work cooking color and researching the information online about the Merchandise Mart, its shows and its showrooms. It just seemed odd that there was just one floor exclusively apparel showrooms. My original plan was to take samples on the day of my trip but my gut told me to check out the situation first. I noticed when the building became LEED certified there was a Green StyleMax show. I couldn't find any subsequent sustainable fashion shows.

I was really hoping to find showrooms that deal exclusively with sustainable design businesses. However, even being America's greenest city is still small

on the grand scale of everything. I've only been able to find 16 retail stores in Chicago with 40% or more green merchandise. and, to be honest, I'd really rather do what I do in my own green way and express my aesthetic and point of view without being too overtly political about it. So I went with an open mind, making

the trip a fact-finding mission instead.

The architectural facelift of the old building was gorgeous and it's so good to know that green and history can work

well together! Not only can old be new again, it can be even better than it used to be. No doubt that green has moved far past its hippie image into the land of luxury!

There is no doubt either that green is a way of business life in this building. Every trash can in the hallways had a place to recycle paper, aluminum, plastic and glass. The ultimate badge of greenness was displayed prominently throughout the building. Here it is at the end of the bridge to the Apparel Center!

However, there is absolutely nothing that could have prepared me for what I found on the other side of that doorway. The 13th floor, essentially the only floor of the Apparel Center still devoted to apparel is a ghost town. It is at least 75% vacant. Showrooms still in business have red banners protruding from their doorways indicating occupancy.

*SIGH*

I did make some great contacts with the showroom tenants that have survived in this environment without going out of business or moving to less expensive locations. It's too bad that Marshall Field's original concept to make business more efficient didn't work very well in the building using energy more efficiently. There was, however, a real spirit of comradarie and cooperation between these wholesalers of fashion I've never seen before and much more openmindedness about the business of fashion in general.

I do have optimism that I will be able to expand into the Chicago and upper Midwest markets soon. It's going to take a somewhat different approach than what I had anticipated. But, change is good. Not only that. Change is necessary. Guess where the people who couldn't be more flexible and forward-thinking are. Gone.

*SMILE*

.

Little Dog

I sincerely apologize to my readers for not posting for so long. Three days after my last post, a nothing but fur-and-bones homeless Little Dog approached me for help during the peak of the oppressive heat during the summer. I put many things that were important to me on hold while I helped her deal with her needs which was made increasingly confusing by people who made their own wants a priority. Dealing with homeless animals is an important part of urban green living and more complex than you can ever imagine.

My initial goal of getting the dog out of the yard and into a shelter was achieved. In a weird way. The neighbor who insisted the dog have a home when I told her I wanted to take her to a shelter eventually deceitfully lured the dog into her yard, stuffed her into a crate and dumped her at a shelter after I had found her home, which was the new plan, so I thought. Lucky for Little Dog, though, she has the perfect opportunity to become a "poster dog" capable of attracting donations to the shelter. In Little Dog's YouTube video, you can already see she is ready for her close up! I would not even be surprised to see a family in my own neighborhood adopt her!

I had an opportunity to learn a LOT from Little Dog. She was very timid and mistrustful of people so Elizabeth Wilhelm, Indianapolis Certified Dog Trainer, graciously helped me make a plan to capture the dog which would be the least stressful for this already overly stressed animal. Animal behavior has always interested me, particularly canine behavior. When I was in college. I was lucky to have been near to a compound studying the behavior of wolves in Battleground, IN. Learn more about this amazing place at wolfpark.org.

I also had the pleasure of talking with Beth Duman who is an author and Certified Dog Trainer at the end of this experience. Interestingly, Beth had been associated with Wolf Park from it's earliest days! The conversation did help me feel better and more at peace about the situation. It's a little bit of a struggle still, though, for me to let go of feelings of anger, betrayal and helplessness and replace them with bunches of positive warm fuzzies. Her book about dog training, The Evolution of Charlie Darwin: Partner With Your Dog For Positive Training is available for preview and purchase at the link below. Now all I need is the positive training book for humans .... See, I can still smile.

I know I will feel better and more positive about the circumstances as time passes. Our furry friends who have touched our lives even briefly leave all kinds of goodness with us. I know for certain, as evident in the photo at the top, Little Dog liked my home cooking. Being unwilling to eat factory food myself, I discovered online dog recipes for

more healthful feed options. She's topping off a Sunday brunch of chicken-ric

e-carrot food with peanut butter cookies for canines. There is a definite wag in that tail... But if she had to choose, I'm certain the Bacon Biscuit Yummies were her favorite. ... You can find these recipes at dogtreatrecipes.org.

Post Script:

For National Volunteers Week, Indy Humane posted this wonderful picture of a dog similar in appearance to Little Dog interacting with a volunteer. Although this is not my buddy, no doubt many hours of dedicated work helped her regain trust in humans. Little Dog, now named Macy, has been adopted by a wonderful couple who lives in Michigan and is living large in a forever home! I will never regret helping her when I had the opportunity. It was one of the best experiences of my life. She is the best Little Dog ever.

Knitting Vintage Yarns for Fall

I recently acquired a large amount of vintage craft supplies including vintage hand knitting yarns. It was a trip down memory lane for me because I had just reached my stride as a hand knitter when these yarns were news on the market. So many people are purists about crafting materials, but I have become quite practical in my own knitting experience through the years. When synthetic thermoplastic textile fibers were introduced into the hand knitting market, they were warmly received by knitters. The companies which made them were mostly American owned with manufacturing right here in America. I'm not sure if anyone noticed that fact at the time, but we are certainly noticing the rarity of American knitting yarns now.

There was a lot to love about these yarns beginning that they are durable, resistant to insects and biological (mildew, molds, fungus, etc) pests and allergy ( and itchiness -) free. Crafters embraced the easy care of the items knitted from them starting with no blocking required in the finishing steps of the articles as well as the ability to machine wash and dry the items. These yarns will seriously last forever. Which may be a good thing or not. It's a good thing if we reuse the materials that already exist. It's not good if they find their way to the landfill.

I am a believer in 'practical green'. I think that although these vintage yarns are made from petrochemicals, their attributes make them 'greener' than some of the new ecofriendly fibers that are currently flooding the market many of which are already short-lived. it is also interesting to observe that many of these "green" modern yarns are produced in countries which have very poor human rights policies and practices. This makes them not at all "green" in my opinion.

About 15 years ago, I bought a quantity of modern synthetic craft store yarn and have been recycling it through the years into trend items in my wardrobe. One curious property of the "art of dress" is the wearer's desire to occasionally update style with new

items. By raveling and reknitting, I have been able to add new interest to my wardrobe in a 'zero waste' way. This sweater has had previous lives as an ankle length filet crochet vest and a ribbed pencil skirt. After wearing and washing for years the fiber still looked and behaved as if it were new. This is the recycling end-of-the -road for this yarn. I'm pretty sure after six years of wearing this jacket, it will be one of my favorites forever. I'm also pretty sure it will last as long!

The vintage yarns I acquired have remained

in pristine condition after being stored for many years. They also have some notable label quirkiness about them which I appreciate. When the synthetic yarns came on the market, manufacturers competed with each other trying to find the most exotic combinations possible. These yarns are predominately acrylic, but there are also polyester, polypropylene and olefin fibers in some of them. The labeling on the yarns was also interesting to see. In fact, United States textile fiber product labeling got so out-of-control and confusing, laws were updated to help consumers navigate the new world of fibers. Notice this label has Orlon and Dacron which are confusing trade names for forms of acrylic and polyester, which are generic fiber names now required by the law. It's interesting that the quality of "performance" is noted. I'm still wondering what that means! These yarns have lasted much longer than the store where the were purchased. Eventually, Michaels started acquiring Lee Wards in 1992 and had completely swallowed the chain by 1994.

I knitted a set of swatches to use when designing the clothing and accessories I plan to make for my Etsy shop and to determine how well they interchange for combining into single pieces. Swatches are also very portable when shopping for second hand items to upcycle when finishing the pieces. Most owners will probably NOT ravel the articles and reuse the yarn in the future so I'm going to be clever and design many pieces more artfully that will fit a range of sizes and work with a variety of styles. One of the principles of slow fashion is that style gradually evolves and lasts longer.

The physical nature of having no natural insect or biological enemies will naturally extend the life of the garments. They will also appeal to persons who choose now or may choose in the future to shun animal products. Easy care garments are often favorites in a person's wardrobe and NOT dry cleaning keeps harmful chemicals out of the environment. I hope the

new owners of these items will be as pleased with them as I am with my "button front" sweater pictured above. Consuming less during a person's lifetime - by depending on treasured items with long life - is greener in the long run.