Creating a Sustainable Business Part II - The Environment

A sustainable business needs to take into consideration 3 things - people, profits and the planet.

1. People - the people your business touches including yourself and your family, your employees, your customers and the other people your business supports.

2. Profits - if your business is not making money, you will probably not be able to "sustain" it for very long

3. Planet - the future of which is quite literally in our hands

So, we want to create a sustainable business - affecting the environment as little as possible - but we also want to make things for a living and sell them.

How do we balance this?

Well, I think the very fact that more and more makers are asking these questions is a great thing and of course, doing something is always better than doing nothing.

I try not to use components produced in certain countries in my work (although this is not possible with everything) because their environmental practices and labor wages do not sustain people or the planet.

I try not to use toxic chemicals in my work, but brazing is a toxic activity (only to me and those in my immediate vicinity, often my hubby since this is done in his shop) as well as pouring resin. When I can use nontoxic materials though, I always do - again doing something is better than doing nothing.

I try to use recycled and recyclable packaging materials, but a test tube shipped without bubble wrap is a test tube that is probably not going to arrive in one piece, so I buy the biodegradable bubble wrap (even though my own tests with it haven't been totally successful) and use recyclable newspaper.

And, I use a few energy saving techniques in my studio including temperature control, using CFLs and surge strips so I can turn everything off with the flip of a couple switches - all easy, peasy stuff.

This is not to say everyone else has to do these things (and many people are doing alot more) - some of these things may be a good place to start though if you are thinking about the sustainability of what you do.

Note - we are not seeking perfection - we are just seeking to have the smallest impact on the natural environment with our work.

The planet is the one P in the 3 P's of sustainability where making a huge impact is not a good thing.

If it is possible to use a sustainable or locally produced piece in our work - maybe passing the additional costs, along with the story (see Part I of this series) of that component used in our piece on to our customer so they can feel good about the materials and methods that have gone into their purchase. This can also produce some great opportunities to collaborate with other makers.

Also remember that you have your own story and your own need to earn a sustainable living and you are not doing anyone a favor by being your own slave labor department (working on this one).

(customers really don't need or want - for more than 5 minutes- more mass-produced junk and as makers trying to make a living with a sustainable business we certainly don't want it obscuring the importance of craft and durability)

Walk into a store and ask the salesperson about the material and production of the item you are looking at and you will probably get a blank stare. This is a huge advantage to us as designers and makers.

We can know what goes into our products and we can work to make those materials (components, packaging, shipping) as environmentally friendly as possible.

We cannot be perfect in this and just having a global business creates lots of planetary wear and tear, but in making sustainable environmental practices a priority to us I believe we are sending the energy of our long term commitment to our business out into the world.





<--- Thirsty fine art photo print by abcd images
(so beautiful)

Next Week- Part III Creating a Sustainable Business - Aesthetics

Tuesday Trends - Urban Homesteading

Basically urban homesteading is about finding a level of self-sufficiency no matter where we live.

This is alot more than a trend, but lifestyles create trends and this is a lifestyle that is definitely catching on with designers in a big way!

When I had a buyer at Pool ask me to design her an urban homesteading necklace and my sister told me about her many friends and neighbors in Portland beginning to raise chickens I knew this lifestyle was becoming a design trend we might want to start thinking about.

**** a true chicken tale ****

(Once upon a time we had a chicken named Lucy. She appeared in our yard one day and kept trying to get into our house by flying into the windows - unopened windows...ouch, poor Lucy! - my generous hubby would walk around the yard with Lucy at his feet looking under rocks for crickets.

This next part gets a little gross. He would toss the cricket on the ground to stun it and then Lucy would gobble it up - hey the girl had to eat!

She would jump into our laps when we sat on the patio and nibble on our toes when we ignored her. Our dog Hershey would chase her around the yard and she would fly atop the patio umbrella to get away.

When fall came - and the chicken clean up got a little too much- chickens require a lot of clean up, if you know what I mean - we took Lucy to a farmer down the street named Junebug where she lived happily ever after with other chickens and one lucky rooster, laying a gazillion eggs for farmer Junebug)

Anyhoo, think pitchforks and chickens, cows, goats, llamas, canning, think farming with or without the overalls!

How and if you might want to incorporate this trend into your own work is up to you. Here's what some Etsy peeps are doing:

1. Mason jar lamp from Lamp Goods
2. Canning labels by Starbee
3. Vintage garden tools at BrightWallVintage
4. DIY Cheese Kit from UrbanCheeseCraft
5. Organic tomatilla shirt at Goga
6. Cow pendant by LuckyDuct
7. Mrs. Cow tote at StrandRedesign

And my own piece. This is a new style of cork necklace that I introduced at Pool- I think every city needs some chickens!

Play the Name Game and Win YOUR CHOICE of any Polarity Interchangeable Magnetic Locket!


Now that summer is winding down and autumn is almost here I will be starting the giveaways back up. But, since this is a slow holiday week I think we will try something different!

I promised my friend Kelly from the adorable shop Sweetness Jewelry some time back that I would have this name contest and then of course, I promptly forgot to do it, so here it is now :

I have a confession to make.

Catherine is my middle name. My real first name which some of you know but most probably do not was my mother's name. So, it was easier, I guess, to call me by my middle name.

(and I am very glad most people did because my husband has the same name as his father and when he was younger his family called him little George - which is actually kind of cute - but a few of them called him Georgie and they still do and it really creeps me out)

Which leads us to this little giveaway. I will give a few clues to my real first name and whoever makes a correct guess (if you know my name you can enter, too!) will be entered into a drawing for your choice of any locket from my Polarity shop!

Clue #1 - If this was your name Luke Skywalker might have dated your daughter Laurie when she had braces.

Clue #2 - If this was your name you might have been making today's equivalent of $120,000.00 a week during the great depression.

Clue # 3 - This was my mother's name and she graduated high school in the 1950's.



Do not leave a comment here with your entry - convo me cativins@gmail.com or through the link in the right column that says - let's chat. You can enter up to 3 names. Enter by midnight on Thursday 9/9. All the winning entries will go into a drawing on Friday and the winner will be notified. GOOD LUCK!

Happy Labor Day Weekend All


We are expecting a hurricane today (this could have been downgraded to a tropical storm by now) followed by cooling temperatures (YAY) and sunshine for the weekend! I love that they can already predict the "followed by" part - I wish that was true of all of life's storms! Wishing everyone a wonderful weekend!

Creating a Sustainable Business - Part I - The Emotional Connection

I want to kick off this series of posts on creating a sustainable handmade business by focusing on things other than ways of production, production materials, etc.

Now, these are important things and these are the things that are getting alot of attention these days,

(and I am very glad for that)

but there is a bigger picture and a more complex aspect to sustainability that we can capitalize on as makers with a desire to create sustainable work.

When we were kids my sister had a teddy bear who went everywhere with her for years.

(what ever happened to Timmy, sis?)

Parents know that if their children have too many toys and a constant influx of "new stuff" into their lives that they never really get attached to any one special thing for more than a nanosecond.

I think the same is true for all of us.

As a maker trying to create a sustainable business in a disposable world how can I make my work more sustainable by helping my customers develop an emotional attachment to my stuff?

What is the point of using durable materials, recycling, using environmentally friendly production, fair trade, etc if the buyer doesn't connect with the product in a way that creates a long, useful life for our stuff?

Big brands spend big bucks to do this with their advertising campaigns. A clear identity can create an emotional connection for a product and a hefty price tag doesn't hurt (cheap stuff definitely gets tossed easier than the stuff we have saved our pennies to purchase).

The good news for the handmade movement is that we do not need a big bucks advertising campaign to connect with our customer and connect them to our work in a huge and personal way. There are as many ways to do this as there are makers with imagination out there.

1. Create a story for our work that allows the customer to connect to it in a unique way.

Example - BOB - Bunch of Bolts This cool little necklace comes in different colors and different names - nude BOB is pictured here

(it may be time to get the kids out of the room, folks)

BOB comes with an awesome little guide to 'his-story' which includes the following:

"...shortly after cave men discovered them, early man began using BOBs in cave-drawing advertisements for new flint tools and Dino Dung products (for which they were paid very little - since, of course, they didn’t move thus limiting their ability to protest)...."

I think it's genius (plus the maker/designer is my brother). He creates the most amazing connection with his customers who continue to update him on BOB's adventures once they get to their new homes.

2. Tell the story about ourselves, our processes and our materials and include this with our work -

How wonderful would it be to get a beautiful handmade sweater in the mail (like this gorgeous work by ileaiye) with some information about the maker and how this amazing work came to be - maybe even some tracking information on the wool, etc that went into the piece.

A real history of the item (not to support its eco-footprint although that would be great, too) but just to allow the buyer to connect to the work in a stronger, more personal way.

If I bought a sweater made from alpaca and it came with a picture of the actual alpaca, I would be blown away. I would never want to take that sweater off!

3. Use social media to allow your buyers to get to know you and your work in a more personal way

(yes, this means you probably need a blog and you need to update it once in a while and yes, this is work and sometimes alot of work and something that we are all struggling with as our businesses and our lives get busier and busier)


Giving your buyers and potential buyers a peek into your world can definitely create a more emotional attachment to your work.

(of course, it kind of goes without saying- but maybe I should say it anyway, that if our work falls apart right away when used then none of these things will work)

As we seek to create a sustainable business (on so many levels) - giving our customers the tools they need to attach to our products and connect with the maker of our products is a win-win for everyone!

(and yes, this goes against the current business model of creating things with a short life span that get tossed so that the consumer needs and buys more things and it brings us back to the more traditional model of creating work of quality and this is totally a good and necessary thing for our planet and all of us)

Next week - Creating a Sustainable Business Part II - The Environment



nemo the bear by knitting dreams->