Tuesday, January 8, 2008

Feel Good Dolls


The fact that I was born with one goofy heart and two crafty hands. Today is my first day to start writing about my Hands & Heart.


My heart is all about Arts. I love all kinds of art. I paint, draw, photograph, sketch and design.
My Hands are good at making stuffs. I can now say that I am a good cook since I've been so far away from my mom who is an excellent cook. I am now really into crafting. To be able to make my own stuffs with my two hands is a bless and to having other people like them is a Cha Cha Cha to me.


In 2005, I got a small gift package from my friends, living in Canada, packed with all kinds of organic stuffs they grow and make themselves from their backyard. There were two small bags of dried lavender buds, among other dried camomile, medium bags of bee wax candles, sending out their soothing scent to me. I love lavender scent. I once saw pictures of a huge field of lavender from the interview of the owner of L' Occitane products, I can just wish that I owned those field.


Every time I want to smell lavender I have to open the plastic bag and smell it. That is not CUTE.......So, I decided to do something with these lavender buds, so that, I can enjoy the soothing scent more sophisticated. And, with my goofy heart, I open my chest dig up my vintage cotton fabric and made a doll out of it and stuffed with these dried organic lavender buds for myself.....Aha.....My husband think it is a new generation of lavender sachet.....I agree.



From one doll, they grew to five to ten. "Why don't you make them for sale, they are funny and smell good, people would love them" my husband said to me one day. Growing up in a Thai government employee family, we don't really have a sense of doing business in our blood. I love to make things just for fun and give them away. To sell things to others is a big thing for me because I believe that if I take money from others, I have to make sure that they get a good thing from me.


"Let's try" my husband keep encouraging. I emptied two small bags of lavender, cut up all my vintage cotton fabrics. If I want to make it for sale I need a lot of dried lavender buds. I called up my friends to see if they have enough dried lavender for sale I wanted to buy it from them......."Hey!....we grow them just enough to make a cup of tea, not enough to stuff a doll."
Alright then. The next day my husband ordered dried organic lavender from a farm in california for me and I started trips to find nice and soft, vintage like cotton fabrics, since I used all mind.



The Feel Good Dolls are born.....from a lousy sketch in a piece of paper to one goofy, funny, smell good dolls. My husband, a graphic designer, helped me design tags and bags, without charge :).......Isn't it good to marry a graphic designer? It was the first time my sewing machine working this hard.


The day before Christmas eve My husband and I grabbed two smalls bags full of Feel Good Dolls to a street of New York. We set up a small table on a sidewalk on Green Street in Soho. A lot of people were out shopping for christmas gifts. We didn't expect much of anything....." Just try for fun and see what happens"......I remembered saying Yeah, only three or four sold is good enough, at least, we know if my goofy heart interests others as well.





That night we walked home with unexpected feeling. We got much more than what we expected, not only money but inspiration that is growing silently inside me. We sent out our Feel Good Dolls to go back with our new friends we met on the street who came from different places around the world - Span, Korea, Hong kong, Japan, Mexico, some places in Europe and also those who lives in the neighborhood, two block away from where we were, some of them just stepped out from Kidrobot, yet grabbed some Feel Good Dolls back with them......


We love meeting our new friends out there. It was so much fun. We chatted, took photos and laughed right there together. Some of them just stopped by and said hi and walked way with a big smile.....and that makes us Feel So Good.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

pui

thanks for visiting my blog and you write so beautifully.

happy chinese new year