Next stop...Unique LA Holiday Show

I had a great time at the Green Festival in San Francisco last weekend. 

My products will now be available in northern California at Ricochet in San Mateo.    

I'm travelling home today and will start getting ready for...

The 5th Annual Unique LA Holiday Show in Downtown Los Angeles!

Buy tickets here.

Click here to join Facebook event and SPREAD THE WORD!

Green Festival 2012

I'm thrilled to announce that I will be showing my product line at the San Francisco Green Festival...

Tea With Iris will be showing with...
Ricochet
Booth 265 and 266

Here's a little info on Jill Pillot of Ricochet...
San Francisco Green Festival Features Richochet Vintage – Wearable Art Made from Recycled Materials

Organic Blend scarf

I'm excited about my latest design, the Organic Blend scarf.  

Each scarf is one of a kind, handmade from an organic cotton/hemp jersey blend, organic cotton corduroy, and the finest repurposed sweaters and shirts.  And they are unisex! 

Now available online.

Green Wish - Coachella Valley

 Last weekend I hosted a gathering at my home to introduce Green Wish to the Coachella Valley. Green Wish is a grassroots, non-profit charitable organization that is focused on helping local green organizations fund projects for their communities through small donations at local retailers. I met the founder, Raphael Sbarge, at the Unique L.A. show in Santa Monica this past summer and I really was impressed by the goals of the organization and hoped that I could get more involved. So I partnered with my mom, Gloria Kelly, who has years of experience in community service, to organize a Green Wish introductory meeting in the Coachella Valley.

 Raphael along with his children and fellow Green Wish board member Jenna De Angeles took time out of their weekend to meet with us.  We had a great group at the house and we all are inspired to move forward with a new chapter of Green Wish in the Coachella Valley.

 Future Green Wish board members...

New Studio!

My most challenging upcycling project is finally complete...

converting a 20 foot shipping container into my studio.

Paper Moon dress

the Paper Moon dress...

Creative collaboration with my daughter for her kindergarten school photo.

Upcycled with vintage linens, doilies and buttons.

More to come this month in my online store.

Girls Inc. 2012

This weekend is my show in Santa Fe, New Mexico.  It's called Girls Inc. and I will be sharing a space with Brooke Harper, the talented owner/designer of Brooke & Adelyn and As Small As Me.


I'm making a girls trip out of my Girls Inc. show.  My sister and my daughter are with me.  We got off to a shaky start yesterday on the road with a flat tire...

 but we always manage to keep the good times rolling! Elle practiced her letters under the shade of a creosote bush while we waited for AAA to arrive.

We ended the day with the most amazing thunder and lightning storm driving into Santa Fe last night.

Today we are going to Bandelier National Monument then we will set up for the 40th Annual Girls Inc. show in the plaza of Santa Fe. And did I mention that I turned 40 today.  It's a pretty awesome day!

Green Wish at Unique LA

The Unique LA Summer show is one week away.

I recently met the founder, Raphael Sbarge of Green Wish at the Unique LA meeting.

Green Wish is a non-profit that helps local, green organizations fund projects for their communities through donations at retailers.  90% of all donations received go directly to local environmental organizations including 

• Algalita Marine Research Foundation
• Coalition for Clean Air
• Friends of Los Angeles River
• Los Angeles Conservation Corps
• Northeast Trees 
• Organic Farming Research Foundation
• Santa Monica Baykeeper
• Surfrider Foundation
• Jane Goodall's Roots & Shoots

To help raise money for these important environmental organizations, I am donating 10% of my sales at next weekend's Unique LA summer show to Green Wish.


Please spread the word about the show to all of your friends in the Los Angeles area.


Also, if you purchase your tickets online you also get free tickets to the OC Fair...
http://uniquesummershow2012.eventbrite.com/

Iris is in labor!

My suspicions were true!  Iris has been acting funny lately...not her usual cheerful self.  We had our friend's tortoise Max stay with us while they were on vacation in the spring and my daughter Elle was always the one to catch them mating.  But luckily I don't have to have "the talk" with her yet since she would say that Iris is giving Max piggy back rides.  So this morning labor has begun and we are quietly observing and documenting her progress.

Meanwhile, Elle, our animal saver rescued a date beetle that was stuck in a spider web from a slow and painful death from an army of red ants.  She definitely takes after her father with her reptile, insect, and amphibian catching abilities.  

Here's a little info on the reproductive habits of the desert tortoise...

Tortoises mate in the spring and in the fall. Male desert tortoises will grow two large white glands around the chin area, called Chin Glands, that signify mating season.

Males will circle around females, biting the shells of the females in the process, and then will proceed to climb upon the female and insert his penis (a white organ, usually only seen upon careful inspection during mating, as it is hidden inside the male and can only be coaxed out with sexual implication) into the vagina of a female.(located around the tail) The male may also proceed to make grunting noises once atop a female, and may move front legs up and down in a constant motion.(as if playing a drum. Months later, the female will lay a clutch of from 4 to 8 hard-shelled-eggs (which are the size and shape of ping-pong balls), usually in June or July, and they hatch in August or September. Wild female tortoises can produce 2 or possibly 3 clutches a year. Their eggs incubate from 90 to 135 days. Tortoises reach sexual maturity at the age of 15. With a high mortality rate, their average life expectancy is between 50 to 80 years if they survive past 20 years of age.


Here is a great resource on desert tortoises...


http://www.mojavedata.gov/deserttortoise_gov/index.html


I now have approximately 90 days to figure out the fate of the baby tortoises.  We adopted Iris from the Living Desert, a local zoo that has a tortoise adoption program.  Desert tortoises are often displaced because of habitat loss due to new construction in the area.  It would be great if we could aid in the recovery efforts of the desert tortoise in the wild.

Healthy Appetizers

 I have to figure out what I'm going to make for appetizers for my husband's art opening on Saturday.  I really want to use ingredients from my garden.  I have plenty of basil so I've been making lots of pesto lately.  I think I'll make my niece Maya's signature appetizer, which is the cucumber dish in the photo above.  She made it for my mom's surprise birthday tea party last year and I've been using her recipe for last minute snacks ever since.  It's super easy and consists of sliced cucumbers, pesto, cheese and a mint leaf.  Sometimes I add fresh or sun-dried tomatoes.