Fall 2010

Just a few pictures of what is to come! Media - please contact Lola Red PR @ (612) 333-1723 for pictures and more information. All items are made from organic and eco-friendly materials and will be available at buttersandbeans.com in October of 2010.

Photo by Teryn Glenn Photography

Photo by Teryn Glenn Photography

Photo by Teryn Glenn Photography

Photo by Teryn Glenn Photography

Photo by Teryn Glenn Photography

Photo by Teryn Glenn Photography

Photo by Teryn Glenn Photography

Photo by Teryn Glenn Photography

Photo by Teryn Glenn Photography

Photo by Teryn Glenn Photography

Photo by Teryn Glenn Photography

Photo by Teryn Glenn Photography

Photo by Teryn Glenn Photography

Photo by Teryn Glenn Photography

Photo by Nancy Hauck, Liz J. Design Company

Photo by Nancy Hauck, Liz J. Design Company

Photo by Nancy Hauck, Liz J. Design Company

Photo by Nancy Hauck, Liz J. Design Company

Buzzing Week

A week of buzz - photo shoot in t-3, first pieces of production due tomorrow (dresses and pants finally coming in), PR, screenprinters, website programming going on...
Butters heart appointment today with the pediatric cardiologist - hopefully we'll have some answers about the hole in his baby heart. Feeling a little somber until we get through this appointment...

Break before craziness...

Well, almost a break. When I say a break, I mean my web developer is off today and I do not have any meetings or appointments. I have some media things to work on (media is hearting us already!), and some writing to do and some numbers to crunch, but that would be considered a break.
Tomorrow on the other hand is going to be one of "those" days. My Mother-In-Law gets in from Jersey (actually a wonderful thing - I adore her) at 1:30 so I have to pick her up from the airport, I have a meeting with my merchant account company at 3:00, and then we have the last of our cutting to finish up at 6:30. I also have to approve the final web design - just the basic design aspect of the home and secondary pages - so we can stay on deadline and move into the programming phase of development. This will mean a lot of emailing back and forth with my developer and constant checking of updates she makes to the current design. This may not sound like much to the average person, but you need to factor in all of the in between stuff like, um, kids? And having an extra person in the house. Janie is easy to have here - she is not one that needs to be entertained, but I know I'll want to sit and chat with her after she gets in and I won't really have the time to do that. Chatting will have to wait till Saturday...
Personal note is that my fat cat, Miles, thinks he's a dog. He's a huge Maine Coon, and is an indoor/outdoor cat. He does everything a dog does - meows to get outside and inside when he wants to, follows us around the yard and the house, hops up on the couch on our laps when we are watching TV, sleeps on his "bed" (a blanket on the chaise in the living room), rolls on his back so you can scratch his belly...I wonder if he was raised with dogs? He's the best cat ever and is huge but is so docile. "Beans" comes over and has tried to ride him on several occasions - failed every time unfortunately - and he just saunters away like it's not a big deal, but he's just not having it. Oh - and he chases and meows at the squirrels. And walks around the yard and pees on everything to mark his territory. Hilarious.

A little overwhelmed.

There is a lot going on right now, a lot to keep track of both in my head and in my planner. Bank stuff, budgeting, website stuff, media stuff, writing the bio/organics info, obviously production, the photo shoot, PR...a lot to handle. And then there's the kiddoos (priority) in between all of this. Lots of meetings...my phone rings constantly. I went over my phone plan last month by 2800 minutes - time for that unlimited plan. Luckily AT&T backdated my plan (one of the few things they've done right in the last five years).
Eight days till photo shoot!

Almost done cutting...

We are so close to being done with the cutting phase...which is kind of boring, so that makes me happy. There are two bolts left that haven't been cut and we are taking care of that tomorrow night. Thi and I took care of a lot of cutting last night - we finished up the bibs, travel blankies and large blankies. I am SO loving the fabrics and the way they are going to look finished. The fleece is so soft...there is such a huge difference in the way organics feel as opposed to regular cottons. Every time I roll out the bolts of fleece or herringbone I just want to curl up in them...
I've spent a large amount of time the last couple days writing our mission statement and our "Why Organics?" statement for the website. It amazes me the facts I've found about non-organic cottons. It takes one POUND of chemicals to produce three pounds of cotton? Amazing, and absolutely disgusting.
I finished up the cutest upcycled travel blankie made out of a turtleneck, sweater and pair of cords...darling, I absolutely heart it. I'd love to post a pic, but I know that's a major no-no. Must wait until October! The anticipation is killing me, and I know it's only going to get worse! I've gotten other big news as well that I can't share and it drives me insane - I'm a terrible secret-keeper...you should put the below stamp on my forehead!

More cutting...

I think this is going to be the news for the next week or so. It's quite a process, and there's four bolts of fabric that haven't even been touched yet. Yikeroos. We're going to be in a time crunch soon which is exactly what I didn't want. Photo shoot is in 11 days, and we need a least one of every piece in every size for pictures. I was cutting last night (with one wonderful friend that came over to help me) and got a few pieces done. I'm going to get as much as I can done today, and just keep plugging away at it by myself until we have another cutting night where all my seamstresses are here. We should be able to get the rest done at that point.
On the upside - the weather is MUCH nicer, the humidity broke and it cooled down. Only in Minnesota can you have a 40 degree temperature swing in a matter of 24 hours...feels like fall and is absolutely beautiful outside.

BIG news...

Butters has slept through the night for the last three nights. That tops anything I can think of... :)

Cutting, cutting and more cutting...

SO much cutting last night. All of us were on the floor cutting. My body is sore today from being squished into a corner to make room to spread the bolts of fabric out and cut at the same time. We were able to get 45 dresses, 36 pants and 12 bibs cut. Some has to wait as we haven't gotten the organic sherpa or the organic fleece in yet. The sherpa should be here today or tomorrow, the fleece next week (I'm hoping, they are behind on production). Now, it's finally time to start putting everything together. Thi had a few upcycled items done and LOVE them...super cute dresses. One she did out of an old flannel shirt, one out of an old pique polo mixed with a cotton t. A-dorable.

Shipments!

Got our tags and LOVE them! Perfect. Also got our fabric stamp - we are using our scrap fabric for our outer tags and stamping it with our logo to be as waste conscious as possible. I had to try it out right away and ADORE it. I also got our industrial snap press, which is exciting for me, but probably not as exciting to read about... :) I'll forgo the details and pics of that.

Where to even start...

On a personal note or a professional note? The professional side is fairly fun and light-hearted, so we'll start there.

Everyone will be here at 3:00 (T-minus 2 and a half hours) to start cutting the organics. We've already started the upcycled items, which I am SO looking forward to, but the organics are the big dog of our business. Elizabeth should have some sample herringbone dresses put together for me today, so I am absolutely STOKED to see them. I'm going to try to get a model over to the house so we can take some pictures and post them on FB and Twitter. It'll probably be a long night...we have over 200 pieces to cut.

Personal side is a bit harder to discuss. Butters' echo didn't come back positively. He has a small hole in one of the valves in his heart. It's called ASD, and is apparently fairly common and often heals itself over time, however it is obviously scary from my standpoint. We moved him back into our room last night - just more comfortable for me. Shed some tears yesterday, but try to think about the aspect that it is normally not a huge deal, and normally something that corrects itself. It also sounds though, like often they DO patch the hole through open heart surgery to prevent later problems. We see the Cardiologist on the 23rd and will find out more then.

http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/Conditions/CongenitalHeartDefects/AboutCongenitalHeartDefects/Atrial-Septal-Defect-ASD_UCM_307021_Article.jsp

And another cute logo...

Hearts. Thank you Liz J. Designs. :)

Not so bad.

Today wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. It never is as bad as you imagine it to be right? Your mind builds things up to be terrible, but they always seem to work out okay.
Butters's appointment went great. He slept in a bit, which pushed his 1st naptime back a bit. Worked out golden. He waited so patiently during the echo, spending most of it sucking away at a bottle. We should find out the results tomorrow. I just keep telling myself that everything HAS to be fine.
Meetings went well. The web meeting was amazing - I actually got to look at a bunch of options for the home page that were based on my initial ideas. I feel like she took my ideas to another level and put a great spin on them...the artwork was beautiful and I loved the layout. It will be both visually stimulating yet simplistic at the same time - very boutique-y, which is exactly what I wanted and expected. I adore it when people meet my expectations as it doesn't happen all too often (the higher my expectations, the lower my serenity). We discussed the elements that I wanted to keep, and we'll look at a few more options next week. I'm loving the direction we're going in.
Outside of writing this, no working tonight. Eating za, watching The Office and going to bed early. I haven't done that in weeks. More meetings tomorrow, and Thursday production and cutting starts on the organics....that'll be a HUGE day!

Can I just sleep through tomorrow, please?

Normally I'm good with being busy, but I've been dreading tomorrow for about a week. I think it's the heat...it's just TOO hot for anything besides lying on the couch watching Law & Order reruns. I normally love heat; but this is that icky, swimming, muggy, sweaty heat. It's just gross and seems to put everyone, not just me, in at least a little of a foul mood.
Butters has a doctor's appointment at Children's at 10:30 - which, of course, lands smack dab in what would normally be the middle of his nap. In addition to that, they are checking his heart as it seemed to be a little enlarged on an earlier x-ray taken during an issue we had a few months back. So stressful it will be, both emotionally and physically. Probably not the best day for me to have piled on more stuff.
Then I have some IRS paperwork to sign, and then off to a PR meeting, and then rush back to a web meeting. All of that before 7. And, I have a stack of business insurance paperwork calling my name that I keep starting but easily get sidetracked from because it just isn't fun or interesting in any way.
So I should be in bed, right? Right.

Love this blog!

I'm a huge Coco fanatic, and obviously a huge organic clothing advocate - check out this blog!
http://simplegreenorganichappy.com/

ANTSY.

I am SO antsy to cut these fabrics it is driving me NUTS. I want to get started! I have to wait until Tuesday to get four more fabrics, and I'm waiting for two more fabrics from Canada. I'm hoping everything is in by Thursday when we will be really getting into the cutting and starting production, but I'm not sure the Canadian fabrics will clear customs fast enough. I'm sure we'll have to cut those later.
Jax ended up in his swing at 4am in our room...still not sleeping. It's been almost eight months of him being up at least twice a night, if not four or more times. Yesterday he was totally into checking out the flowers on the deck...

Great moments...

So I'm trying to occupy myself as I have this ginormous pile of beautiful organic fabrics sitting in the corner of my kitchen in boxes that I can't play with...
And I started thinking about the better moments of my life. The picture below was certainly one of them. Seeing my name in WWD was another. My children. Starting this venture. My husband. I've really been pretty blessed. I've also been blessed to know who I am, what I want, and not be the type to be wishy-washy about either of the two. For lucky me, eh? For sure.

Cutest package ever!

Boxed up an order in the cutest hatbox with tulle and flower detail! Pink and ivory tulle, pink flower center, pink and ivory crinkles inside holding the CUTEST pink and ivory blankies, burpies, dress and bib! Hope it's the belle of the baby shower! I'm hoping to be able to post a good reaction picture later... :)

Again, fabrics...

So, a couple of my fabrics are off. My own fault for not having time to wait for swatches for most of them (I DID see this coming). They are all beautiful and of great quality, so they are all workable - just have to re-work the collection a bit. I'm not a fan of having to do this at the last minute - literally the last minute as my seamstresses will be here Sunday. The problem is mostly with two of the velours. The color descriptions were not so accurate and I guess my mind pictured them a little different than they actually are. Today will be spent with Elizabeth re-working, re-working, re-working...
I came up with a few great ideas last night, or rather this morning - it was 1am - but how great ideas can be at 1am is questionable...
We'll do some cutting today, some preliminary sewing and see what we come up with. I love the squares with the red sateen - from the original ideas and still one of my favs...

And so it begins...

Fall 2010 organic herringbone...soooooooo soft...

Where the name butters&beans came from...

Soooo many people have asked me this. I kind of enjoy that it's my own little secret, but I will share.
Butters is my nickname for my baby boy. He was a month early and just over 5lbs when he was born, so I started calling him peanut. Over time, "peanut" led to "peanut butter" which led to "butters". That is the butters part of the story.
Beans is my nephew. He's almost three and is absolutely hilarious. His name is Cowan, and my sister calls him "Cocoa Bean", hence, "beans".
There. You have my secret. :)

My office.

Just so anyone paying attention knows, this is the butters&beans home office, day and night. It's pretty comical, my neighbors probably think I'm crazy. My computer, baby monitor, candles are permanent fixtures out here...I love being outside in the summer!

Every night before bed...

I look at this cross pictured below. I love the quote on it.

It reminds me that no matter what, I need to follow my heart and do what I am best at. :)

"Coming in October 2010"

Finally our logo is up on the web! I got a little too excited and a little bit of an adrenaline rush at 6am when I saw this - love it! It makes me feel like things are really moving. Today my projects are to solve the vendor issue from yesterday - one out of several orders having an issue isn't bad - and to do a little more research on some other pieces of the business. Tomorrow is a kids day as both of the kids have appointments - so I know I won't get much done tomorrow. I think I'm the only person on earth that works from 6am until 2am.

Finality...or something like that.

The collection is finally DONE. Finite. Fabrics are ordered, sketches are sketched and my seamstresses will be here on Sunday to work out the details. I named my mini-collections after cities...just randomly came up with cities that the fabrics made me think of. Kind of where you play the game where someone says a word, and you have to say the first word that pops into your mind? Like that, but more fun, because it's fabric and fashion. :)
Now, for the first time in several weeks, I can sleep. Goodnight, moon.