What's new? The outgoing mail will tell...

Today's mail run (well, walk) reflected so many things that have been keeping me busy! Here we have Etsy orders, an international order (to Israel! the first House of Moss piece to travel there!), wholesale samples, and applications for shows.

My days have been full and varied lately.

Goal accomplished: 300 listings on Etsy in 2013!

One of my goals at the beginning of 2013 was to get my shop to 300 listings at some point. If I remember correctly, I had somewhere near 200 at my highest point last year, and after the depletion of the holidays, I think I started this year around 175.

I somewhat underestimated the amount of work it is to add that many listings. Not only did I have to come up with new items, variations, and color choices, but I had to keep up with the demands of normal selling! Funny how when you list things for sale, they actually sell and you have to replenish them. ;)

It's exciting to complete a goal so much earlier than I had planned, and thinking up new items was a lot of fun. And I'm not stopping now! You can expect to see new items continuing to flow into my shop throughout the next few months!

Little Pumpkins Featured on a Blog

My white wool pumpkins have been featured on the blog of Rachel of Daisy Chain Vintage in a post about Autumn. Thanks Rachel! You can read the post HERE.

We make Portland awesome: Frankie & Coco PDX

"We make Portland awesome" is a bi-weekly series. I’m interested building our community of artists by helping us all find out more about each other.

This week: Maya and Sarah of Frankie & Coco PDX

Who are you?
We are Maya Mori and Sarah Stephens, the owners/designers/makers of Frankie & Coco PDX. We both live in Portland, Oregon. Maya lives in the Boise-Eliot neighborhood with her husband, four children and three chickens. Sarah lives in the Rose City neighborhood with her three children.

What do you make?
We make clutch purses, toiletry/cosmetic bags, zippered pouches, hand-pieced infinity scarves, hand-painted mustache mugs and infused finishing salts. The merging of our two distinct styles always adds something unexpected to our designs and creates an eclectic selection. All our designs are crafted by hand and one-of-a-kind; functional and beautiful.

Besides making things, what do you do?
We both play tennis, enjoy thrifting and absolutely LOVE eating! Maya is a baker/canner and Sarah is a chef/mixologist. In her spare time, Kitty (Maya’s alter ego) is a driver for the Portland Pedalounge. Sarah spends her free time as a smart mouthed poker shark.

What inspires you?
We are inspired by color, texture, vintage details and organic elements. We enjoy combining our modern style with unique vintage pieces found on our frequent scavenger hunts...zippers, buttons, fabric, etc. Being parents, we love functionality and want our products to reflect a simple, easy life.

Where can your work be found?
Currently all of our work can be found in our Etsy shop. 

What do you love about Portland?
As we mentioned earlier, we LOVE eating and Portland satisfies. Some of our favorite spots are Tasty n Sons, Biwa, Ned Ludd and Maya’s friendly neighborhood joint, Trigger. We don’t want to sound like everyone else, but Pok Pok is pretty rad too. We love to hike in Forest Park, run the stairs on Mt Tabor, browse for a new book at Powell’s or grab a quick bite at one of the many amazing food carts (again, eating!)

Portland has so many creative and interesting people! We feel lucky to live and work in such a beautiful and inspiring city.


Make sure you check out Frankie & Coco PDX's Etsy shop and website. 
Thanks for sharing, Maya and Sarah!  

Quit Your Day Job

Alright, friends... time for the biggest news of all. I finally stepped away from my part-time job at the print shop. After quite a lot of thought, saving, planning, and strategizing, I decided to take the last months of this year to work on my business with total focus.

I'm hesitant to make a big deal of "Quitting My Day Job." It seems like the ultimate goal for a small creative business owner, and it is quite significant to me. But I'm also aware of life's unpredictability. I've quit my day job, but I very well might need –or want!– to get a new one in the future. I'll re-evaluate the situation as often as I want. All I know is that, for now, this is the right choice for me.

And I'm very excited about what this means to my life! Time is such a big deal for me. Owning my own time gives me such peace of mind. I'm naturally self-motivated (thank goodness!) and I often border on workaholism as my own boss :) so I'm sure I'll learn a lot about balancing my time and activities in the next few months.

So here's to cultivating flexibility, listening to our hearts, and taking risks.

Garden Update 9/3/13

Somehow we find ourselves in September already! It's been interesting having a garden this year because it has made me really be present to the season. Each different vegetable has its growing time and its harvest, and charting the changes week-to-week has made me more aware and appreciative of the natural world.

At the moment, now is the time for lemon cucumbers! There exponentially more every day, and luckily they are one of my favorite vegetables. I made this Thai cucumber salad last week to use some of them up. The 2nd & 3rd photos above are of the mutant lemon cucumber vine. It's like 6 vines stuck together, and at the end is a huge ball of flowers/buds/cucumbers, all growing from the same spot!

The purple beans are pretty much done by now, and the zucchini are slowly winding down as well. The pumpkin is slowly growing, and I keep hoping to see more appearing at the ends of the vines. The beautiful speckly pinto beans are beginning to dry, and the marigolds have finally bloomed after growing 3x taller than I've ever seen marigolds grow!

We borrowed my parents' fruit dehydrator and preserved many of the pears and plums from the property.

House of Moss Available for Wholesale

This was a long time in coming. House of Moss is now officially available to retail shops and boutiques for wholesale online!

My wholesale offerings can currently be found on the brand-new Etsy Wholesale, as well as Vianza. Both sites require buyers to register and include proof of tax ID for resale, but if you're interested in large-quantity pricing as an individual, please check out the Wholesale/Large Orders section of my regular Etsy site. No resale tax ID necessary there. :)