Buttons from the Rainforest

In one of the classes I am currently taking at OSU, my professor informed us about a sustainable product called the Tagua nut. She even brought some samples in of the nut, and some jewelry and buttons made from the nut. This nut makes products that feel essentially like plastic, and used to be used in place of plastic before plastic came along.

The business of apparel is not the most sustainable, but companies continue to try and find ways to make it better. The great thing about using these buttons, is that it gives one more reason to not cut down these trees in the rain forest.

Here is what the nuts look like:



Here is some jewelry and buttons from those nuts:








The company mentioned in class that does a lot of other cool things, and uses these buttons is Winter Sun from Ecuador.

I looked around a bit on Joann's website and did not see any Tagua nut buttons. They do however sell coconut buttons and wood buttons. It seems like it's pretty easy to find these buttons on the internet, perhaps they will be included on my future collections for at least one of the many fashion shows this year!

Here are a few websites that have them:
Wood Buttons
Near Sea Naturals
Jimmy Bean's Wool
One World Button Supply (Wholesale Company)
Eco Butterfly

More links!

I know I just updated my list of blogs and links (and will probably continue to do so as I keep learning of new cool things) but I had completely overlooked adding this particular store to my link list!

One of my friends, Heidi, has a new Etsy store up! It's called Heroma's Hands. She has a hobby of knitting, and has decided to put her hobby to work for her! Even though I have a strong policy against modeling (because I am a designer!), I decided to help out my friend and model her scarves and other knits. The photos turned out great, and you should definitely take a look at her store!

Here are a couple of items, with yours truly as the model:

This is the scarf that is reserved for me! It's unique because its knitted lengthwise instead of widthwise! Probably the bad part of modeling...




Go check out her store!!!

Buzzzing mailbox!

Today I checked my mailbox and guess what I found? I got the package with my free disc inside!! So now I can assure you that it was not a hoax!

It's a nice disc, I look forward to throwing it in the future. Looks nice against my curtains doesn't it?


So if you are in the market for relatively cheap discs that are Discraft, DiscWing, Gateway or Lightning... discgolfstation.com is the place for you! They also carry some other disc golf products like bags and things. Take a look around the website, they seem to be doing a lot of promotions to get their name out there!

People, blogs, and links!

It's about time I update my blog a little bit. First, I would like to introduce some awesome people who's blogs I've been reading and I think you should definitely take a peek at. The first blog is Chic Steals, which is written by Carly J. Cais. I had the pleasure of meeting her at Portland Fashion Week back in October. She is full of really great fashion information, and I'm happy to have a different perspective for viewing designers.

The reason I got to meet this lady was all because of my friend Amanda, who writes Grishley's. Both her and Nicole (author of Cut & Sew) are talented young women I get to take classes with. Go take a look at their blogs too!

The main reason I am updating my links and blogs, is because a disc golf store called discgolfstation.com contacted me about posting a link about them in my blog if they gave me a disc. I was first of all, very excited and a bit surprised that they found me through my blog! They are sending me a lightweight Buzzz, and I'll be sure to post again when I actually get it!

The last new link I want to mention is a link to an online store called Yes Asia! It is so amazing! I have had a really difficult time finding some of the Japanese artists I've become addicted to over Youtube on the internet. This website not only has all of these awesome music artists, but they also have DVDs of the Taiwanese drama "Basketball" (or Bullfighting) that I watched over the summer. (Be careful to start watching, it is very addicting and not all of the episodes are available on youtube!) Maybe I can start making a list on here of what I want for Christmas/ Birthday! :D

More Disc Art

Last night I stayed up waaay too late, but I had the opportunity to delve into yet another type of artwork: the art of dyeing discs. Being in the disc golf world I know quite a few people who dye their own discs. Some people are really talented and do some amazing work that they sell, and some people like to just make their discs look different than everyone else's.

Widye.com is a company that custom dyes discs, and has donated some great dyed discs to my disc golf event (Hope Open) for the past two years. This is one of my favorites:



There was also someone who dyed me an amazing disc with the M*A*S*H* cast on it, and a neat red cross in the back. I'll need to take a picture with something other than my phone before I post it.

Here is my first dye-job from last night (You can see how messy my desk really is...):



It was a pretty easy process, especially since my friends had everything and did all the necessary research. First thing we did was take off the hot-press stamp of the logo with acetone, which is really easy if you let your disc set in the acetone for a couple minutes (just not too long, acetone will eat the disc!). The next thing was to decided what color of dye to use, then put it in a pan and heat it up on the stove. It only needs to get as warm so you can still touch it, so definitely not boiling. As the dye was heating up, I came up with my design and cut it out on some contact paper (one side is sticky- you stick it to your disc, my friends got it pretty cheap at Home Depot). After sticking the contact paper on my disc where I did not want the dye to hit, I put the disc face down into the pan so it was floating on top. Then all you do is wait for 10 - 15 minutes, and see how it looks! I think I waited a little longer and added in more dye so it was dark enough. Then I rinsed it off with warm water in the sink, took of the contact paper, and wah la! I have a pretty disc!

I'm excited to try this again in the future, when I can put some more time into thinking of cool designs and play with more than one color. Definitely different than submitting designs to a company to get hot stamped on a disc!

November

I find it so odd that everyone gets into the writing mood in November. November is the month for writing Novels, and apparently for posting a blog everyday. I had no idea. Well, that's not completely true. A couple years ago, I did create an account for NaNoWriMo, but that's about as far as I got.

Today I am in the mood to write, but all of those could-be blogs that are floating around in my head require a little research, or uploading pictures, or other terribly difficult tasks like that. So instead I start reading what my friends are writing about. Everyone has so many interesting things going on in their life, it's great to hear about it.

In my life, I am currently swamped at school with one of the busiest terms of college I have ever had. This was unexpected, and I am hoping that my next couple of terms will be as easy as I am planning on them being. I have also been thinking a lot about the future. One of those things in my immediate future are deciding on what internships to apply for and where I want to spend my Fall 2011 term. I'm kind of thinking about Tokyo, but that will require a little more looking into.

So this has been my random blog post for the month, maybe November will prove to be an inspiring month of writing. It's already included some great reading, here is a link to a great post I read about Construction Worker uniforms in Japan. Very cool.

Happy reading & blogging my friends!

What is Steam Punk?

This blog might very well turn into a fashion blog if I'm not careful, I've been noticing so many new things and attending some very interesting fashion events. Not to mention I'm in a designing mode, so there might as well be some created fashions from me!

Anyways, I had recently been asked by a couple different friends about the subcategory of "steam punk." I just thought of what the style would mean by just applying the word "punk" and didn't try to look into it further. Then, on that wonderful website we just can't resist, facebook, I noticed a steam punk fashion show. Upon looking in the gallery of the past shows, I knew then that I was totally wrong on what this style is.

After viewing these pictures I went to the reliable information source of Wikipedia, and discovered that Steam Punk became popular in the 1980's and was derived from the Victorian era when machine use of steam was invented. This style also incorporates an element of fantasy, with many people's costumes eluding to the works of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells.

In my opinion, steam punk is sort of like Cosplay (people dress up as anime characters), except that you get to make up your own character, and it can be applied to more than just your dress.

Here are some photos of the steam punk style that I like:














If you google images you can get a good feel for the style, people will be more eccentric or more conservative. Now you know!