Vegans in New Orleans?! Why yes, it's true!

Today I'm back in New Orleans, for the first time since early January - far too long, in other words. As you faithful readers may recall, in May New Orleans hosted its First Annual Veggie Fest. I was livid at not being able to attend, but me and several other Vegan Etsy team members were at least able to send some contributions down and show some love.

Well, I've been negligent in letting you all know how it went! But your wait is over. Here's a great little video put together by the event's organizers. As you'll see there was a fabulous turnout, and despite a good old fashioned New Orleans Springtime Rainstorm, enthusiasm for the veg way of life was rampant throughout the day. In New Orleans! Land of roast beef po boys and fried oysters! Behold:



Amazing, right? So... we're all going to make it to the Second Annual, right?

And, will I be giving you a full report of the vegan miracles happening at Bamboo Cafe any day now? Oh, you'd better believe it. (I just have to eat there four or five times first.)

Until next Monday,

hearts,
Melissa Bastian

Member Interview-Melt Briana

Todays interview is with Brianna of MeltBrianna

How did you choose the name of your shop and how long have you been a member of
Etsy?

The name of my shop was inspired by an amazing band named Melt Banana. I had my Flickr account under the name of Melt Brianna, and I always liked the sound of it; plus the reference always made me smile. :) I've been on Etsy for a couple of years. I had another shop before this one, but I started new with Melt Brianna. It has been a complete pleasure since!

What kinds of items do you sell in your shop and what inspired you to start
creating them?

I mostly sell reconstructed and one of a kind clothing and accessories from all recycled materials. Sometimes I'll have some original illustrations and prints, and I also sell a bit of screen printed shirts and vintage finds. All in all it's a bit of an eclectic mix, but I like it because it keeps the store unexpected and interesting for me (and hopefully visitors!)

I've been making things with my hands for as long as I can remember. There has always been a stubborn and curious side to me that motivated me to learn how to do things myself. Also, being very frugal helped because I'd turn to d.i.y. to save a buck or two. Honestly though, so many things constantly inspired me and still do inspire me to create the things I do. From promoting sustainability to having a slight thrift store obsession, creating things has always been an outlet that made me equally as happy as riding my bike- and that's REALLY happy! Anytime that I can escape into my mind and come back with a fun creation as a souvenir is my favorite time!

Being able to rely on my own skills and those of community members is such an inspiration in itself. The day where we all make our own things and grow our own food is the best day one can ask for. Being able to be self sustainable and loving in one's community is the ultimate motivation and inspiration to me.

Do you donate to any charities or do any volunteer work?

I work in my community to promote more radical ideas and lifestyles. Every Sunday I volunteer with Food Not Bombs, and we make delicious vegan meals for anyone that is hungry. The best part is, for anyone who is not familiar with FNB, all the food we get is the groceries that would otherwise be thrown away. FNB to the rescue! I totally encourage anyone to look for a Food Not Bombs chapter in their area and get involved in some way.

What are some of your favorite things about etsy?

Oh man, where to begin. I think my favorite thing about Etsy is the opportunity to find other artists and connect with them. There are so many talented hands on Etsy, and everyday that I visit the site I am blown away by all the creativity. I've made some really good friends off of this site, and it has opened up many doors in terms of things going on in my community that I didn't know where there before. I also really love the clean and simple design of the site; it's so appealing to the eye.. almost calming. I remember the first time I came upon Etsy, I was thinking, "No way! This is too good to be true! Handmade all the time? YES!" It's so cool to just be a part of it on the Etsy site. :)

Do you sell your items outside of etsy, either online or in retail shops?

Aside from Etsy, I've sold my items at different festivals and events in my community. Last weekend I was vending at Clit Fest, a traveling celebration of womyn in the hardcore scene. I've also vended at events organized by the new and awesome crafting group in Orange County called the Handmade Brigade. They are planning a Speakeasy event in September that I'll be participating in.

Have you been featured anywhere?

My Pot Holder Patty top has been featured in the Storque once, and I've been on the front page once. Also, some awesome blogs have been ever so kind to feature me.

Do you have any future plans for your shop?

Yeah, I have a lot of plans! First off, I'm working on making more designs in bigger sizes. I constantly have new ideas for designs, and I can't wait until they are executed and put into the shop so I can see how it is welcomed.

What kinds of hobbies and interests do you have?

I love riding my bike with a strong passion. I'll hop on and be gone for the day! I also love organizing in my community and going to events that promote equality and justice. I love cooking! I'm pretty good and baking vegan treats, and I plan to get better at cooking yummy meals for my family, friends, and I. I'm always down for a new recipe. Also, a huge interest of mine is the fine arts. That is what I'm studying and it has been my passion for some time now. Once in a while I post a painting or drawing in my Etsy shop. If you ever want to see my work, I'd love to show it to anyone. I'm shooting for a website in the near future.


Do you have any animal companions?

Yes, my family and I have one lovely cat. I hate to bring this up, but we had another beautiful friend named shadow, but he was hit by a car about a year ago. It was a moment I'd like to forget, but our love for him is still persistent in our memories.

Do you have any websites besides your shop that you would like to tell us
about?

I have a myspace (myspace.com/meltbrianna) that I use to introduce myself to other interested people. I also have a blog that I should update more, but I'm getting better at it, haha. (meltbrianna.wordpress.com)
Also, my flickr is always there to be friends with anyones eyes (http://www.flickr.com/photos/melt-brianna/)
How long have you been vegan and what made you go vegan?

Do you have any favorite vegan things, like books, websites, stores, etc.?

Hmm, I'd say my favorite vegan things are zines that I'v found at events in my community. People put together really awesome zines about the vegan lifestyle; I love it. I'm planning on getting those up on my blog so everyone has access to the wonderfulness. I've also been a big fan of the post punk kitchen, (theppk.com.) My favorite vegan stores are always on Etsy. The Vegan Etsy team is so awesome and so varied, that I can get so many different things of greatness from team members. Also, there is this wonderful restaurant that I've recently fallen for in Southern California Orange County area. It's called That's Amore, and it's an all vegan friendly italian restaurant. Growing up in a Sicilian family, that kind of place to eat was out of this world for me. If you're in the area, I strongly encourage you to go!

I also think VeganThis.Org is a great site. The information and opportunities to help out animal activist are very important and valuable to have access to.

What are your favorite foods?

Oh dear, lets see. I've recently been drooling over a good vietnamese hot pot. An extra spicy one loaded with rice noodles and veggies galore. mmmm. Really though, I can honestly eat beans and rice everyday. Every rice and bean plant fit to eat and growing from the ground is a friend of mine. I also have a bog sweet tooth, so vegan cupcakes get my every time! On a healthier note, I love the crunchy love I get from a crazy salad adorned with many good and raw plants. Basically, if it's vegan and made with love, I will most definitely have a tough time NOT loving it. Oh food, how I love you.

Is there anything else you would like to add or share?

I love the Vegan Etsy Team!! Vegans have super powers; it's true!

It's All In The Bag- on sale now!

The day has finally come, August 16th, and our latest indie handmade sample bags go on sale! So exciting, these bags are awesome!

makeup, lotion, scrubs, lip balms, papercrafts, jewelry, keychains, face creams, cat toys, recipe cards

Each order comes in a handmade reusable bag and includes 17-20 crafty samples!

Get yours while you can, the last bag sold out in a matter of a few days!
100% profits from each bag go to Peaceful Prairie Sanctuary

Want to promote your handmade goodies in our HOLIDAY bag? Check out our website and sign up!


Interested in buying a bag? You can go to our website, or purchase a bag in our blog!

Support indie handmade and help animals!

Keep My Place

Bookmarks. You wouldn't think they'd be too easy to lose, but I'm always misplacing my cute ones and end up using an old receipt or other scrap of paper. Maybe I'd have better luck with some of these cuties from the Vegan Etsy team:

Cupcakes and Polka Dots Bookmark from Art You Dream About:




if you love books letterpress bookmark from Bright Design:





Pounce into the Pond Bookmark by pink bubble:





Gothic Silver Bat Lily Bookmark by Starrlight Jewelry:






-Kala (Vegancraftastic)

So much to do, so little time! It's All In The Bag is ready for release!

Things around my neck of the woods have been CRAZY! From hiking, biking, swimming, and playing with the dogs to sewing to preparing for the release of our August It's All In The Bag!

What is
"It's All In The Bag"?

We take vegan handmade samples from people around the world, put them into handmade market totes and sell them on our website. This is a great way to promote your shop and help animals!

Wait, how does this help animals?

100% of profits from each bag are donated to Peaceful Prairie Animal Sanctuary, which is awesome because not only are you promoting your shop and exposing people around the world to your items, you are helping animals!

Our upcoming bag goes on sale August 16th, and its proving to be AMAZING! I was in awe with every package that I opened this round, every sample I pulled out of the packages I wanted one for myself!

How can I see who is in this round of bags?

Swing on over to our Current Contributors section of our website, and you can get a sneak preview of all the fabulous shops involved!

We have already started looking for people to be in our Holiday 2009 sample bag, which is going to be the biggest ever! We are aiming for 200 bags and have an anonymous donor willing to match whatever we raise for the animals! Pretty awesome, if you ask me!

How do I sign up to be in the Holiday bag?

Easy peasey, just go on over to our sign up page, right on our website!

When you sign up to be in the bags you will have your ad on our blog and website, along with a nice photo of your samples on our site to entice folks to check out your shop!

Not sure what to send? Not sure if you have any items small enough to use as samples?

Some people who have bigger items in their shops, that cant really scale them down send in business cards, with magnets or pins, and a coupon code. Everyone gets super creative with their packaging and draws attention without having to send a full sized quilt or something!

Get in the bag! Help your shop and help animals!

Posted by:

Holistically Heather

Pendants? ... We got them!

I love pendants. I like to have a good assortment, of colour, design, style. So that whenever I feel like wearing one, there's always one to suit. Veganetsy Team are a talented lot, and looking through some Veganetsy Team members shops, I was delighted to find a wonderful mix of pendants that would look good for many occasions. here are some of my favourites:
From the TheAwesomestPossum, this sophisticated black and silver necklace with scroll pendant.

This pretty Collage Pendant Necklace is made by FashionSplatter.
An interesting and unique message pendant from artbysusmitha.

A very cute Owl bottle cap pendant from JennyStench.
And this kitsch, cute oinion on a chopping board pendant by one of my favourite shops Pinkkis.

Of course this is just a tiny selection, and there are many many more wonderful pendants by very talented VeganEtsy members. For a fuller look at some fab pendants, click here.

Finding the big V in D.C.

As you may or may not know, a few weeks ago I traveled a wee bit south to Washington D.C., both to visit with one of my good friends who still lives there and to engage in the first try-on session of my Vegan Wedding Dress Mission. I had scheduled a session with Aria, a great little company which offers all of its dresses in satin, and I couldn't have been more pleased with the results.

But poppets, was I going to travel to a major metropolitan area and then *not* search for fabulous vegan vittles? Doesn't seem very likely, does it.

As luck would have it, Aria's private boutique in Dupont Circle just so happens to share a building with an upscale pizza joint called Pizzeria Paradiso. According to the internets, this place would put vegan cheese on any pizza. This fact is one not substantiated by their website or menu, which I find rather silly. However, our waitress was more than happy to confirm.

So after the dress-trying-on extravaganza, Kimmy and I went on downstairs and stuffed our faces with crispy thin crust pizza piled high with veggies, and mine smothered in vegan cheese as well. (Once I realized that I actually can get into Aria's size 12 dresses - and heck, even their size 10s, without busting any zippers, I was able to eat with abandon.) I got the Siciliana - it's like they chopped up a whole backyard garden on there. Totally awesome. All in all it was a satisfying afternoon to be sure. It seems that vegan cheese on pizza is no rarity in D.C., and VegDC has been kind enough to list all proprietors of this delight for us, by neighborhood. Thanks guys!

After the pizza gorge, we went on the second mission of the day - and honestly, one that was much more my kind of mission than trying on fancy dresses. For a couple of years now I've been dying to try out D.C.'s own all-vegan bakery, Sticky Fingers. My chance had finally arrived! It was a harrowing ride on the Metro: they're doing some crazy maintenance on the signals after the accident that happened a couple of months ago, and as a result they're single tracking all of the trains on the Red Line. If you don't live in a subway town, let me translate: this means trains come about a fifth as frequently and creep along at about half a mile an hour. But eventually we made it to Gallery Place and transferred to the Green Line, and all was well.

So then. Sticky Fingers. First of all, that place is enormous! Maybe I've just gotten too used to the sizes of things in NYC, where every store is the size of a shoebox because even a shoebox costs about a million dollars a month to rent. But can D.C. be very cheap? I think not. Anyway, for a bakery this place is LARGE. The joint was also hoppin' - I mean srsly ppl, it was pretty packed. When I did finally decide what I wanted, I had to wait for about six people to put in their orders before I could get a word in edgewise. To which I say awesome! I love to see vegan businesses doing a bustling trade.

Upon entering, you're faced with two full sized glass cases full of baked delights - cupcakes, cookies, brownies and bars, sticky buns, cakes... the list goes on. To your right you'll find a nice big case full of sandwiches and other to-go meal type items, and of course bottled beverages. And also on offer behind the counter are hot dogs, chilli, espresso-type coffee beverages, and more. And of course it's all vegan all the time! In other words, it's kind of like heaven.

But that's just the first half. To your left, you'll see a sizable seating area with a nice big window facing the street for people-watching. The booths are upholstered in a deep sparkly pink plastic, and the tabletops are wacky boomerang patterned Formica. It's the perfect spot to enjoy your cupcake and/or cappuccino. The walls of the whole place are painted in a sort of dripping-chocolate motif, and there's a dash of kitch in the collections of old kitchen gadgets and knick knacks which makes it very homey. But they also have free wi-fi, which gives it a very modern (and useful) edge.

But I know what you really want to know. What did I eat? Well I'll tell you. Man, was it a tough decision! Kim is "not a sweets person" - so much help in so many places, but no help at all in a bake shop. I was traveling by train, and traveling light. I also wasn't going home until the following day. So it's not as if I could bring a dozen cupcakes home with me - but oh, how I would have loved to! So after thinking long and hard, I approached one of the very friendly counter staff, who had already endured about fifteen minutes of me taking copious pics of the shop. I stated my choice: the strawberry creme vanilla cupcake. Fruit flavors are not usually my thing, but this one just had something special. I mean, look at it! I also asked the girl helping me what she suggested - her favorite thing, and she said the sweet and salty cookie. So one cookie it was.

Naturally I sat right down to dig into my cupcake. And it was freaking amazing. Vanilla cake moist and perfect, topped with what can only be described as strawberry mousse. But not that fake sort of pink tasting "strawberry" that for some reason we feed to kids all the time. Real live strawberry. I mean, there were actual strawberries in there - you could see the seeds! Sure it was plenty sweet, but it also had that natural tartness that accompanies real fruit and makes such a nice balance in this kind of delicacy. It was so rich and fabulous that I think it took me a full fifteen minutes to eat. I'd say I got my money's worth.

Did I love Sticky Fingers enough to seriously consider buying a t-shirt? Yes, yes I did. If they'd been selling coffee mugs I would totally own one right now. And how much does it break my heart that they make wedding cakes? Really terrifically beautiful wedding cakes!? Somehow I don't think the thousand mile journey to New Orleans would suit a wedding cake... humph. But listen: if you're planning a vegan wedding in the D.C. Metro area, check this place out for sure! (They also cater!)

Oh, and that sweet and salty cookie? It was the perfect snack about halfway through my train ride home the next day. Still wonderfully chewy and soft. Thanks counter girl for that super awesome suggestion!

It being a short trip (36 hours!), that was the extent of my real vegan adventures. Sure I ate other things, but more of the "what can I find here that's vegan" variety. And that's not nearly as exciting. But honestly, if I'd had any more truly exciting vegan adventures I may have passed out - I'm easily overwrought.

And so, my loves, I bid you adieu.

Until next Monday,

hearts,
Melissa Bastian

Interview-KM Stitchery

Todays Interview is with Lindsay of KMStichery

How did you choose the name of your shop and how long have you been a member of
Etsy?

I've been a member of etsy since late 2006. I choose KM Stitchery because my last name is Keating-Moore and at the time, I was selling bags made out of recycled materials. I started selling feminist shirts but didn't want to change the name because people already were identifying me as KM Stitchery and it just kinda stuck.

What kinds of items do you sell in your shop and what inspired you to start
creating them?

KM Stitchery is hand cut stencils of feminist printed on recycled clothing! I was inspired by a desire to sell products that had meaning to them. Making stuff is cool, but I wanted to make more of a political statement with my shop.

Do you donate to any charities or do any volunteer work?

I donate to Farm Animal Sanctuary when I can. I donate shirts to different vegan and feminist groups (ex: CAA Compassionate Action for Animals).

What are some of your favorite things about etsy?

I love etsy! I love all of the creative artists on here. It's so great to be able to find handmade, creative and ethical goods online! It's very user friendly. I like the conversations feature, that is crucial for me as a seller.

Do you sell your items outside of etsy, either online or in retail shops?

Yes, I sell at a bunch of stores across the country and in canada (feminist bookstores, and shops selling handmade items). Some places were I sell are Needles and Pens, in San Francisco, In Our Words Women's bookstore in Portland, OR, ColorWheel Gallery in Minneapolis, Toronto women's Bookstore etc etc!

Have you been featured anywhere?

Womanist Musings: http://www.womanist-musings.com/2009/07/new-stencil-by-km-stitchery-this-is.html

Bitch Magazine Blog: http://bitchmagazine.org/post/wearing-your-feminism-on-your-sleeve

Feministing: http://www.feministing.com/archives/009904.html

VenusZine: http://www.venuszine.com/articles/you/4891/Reader_of_the_Week_Lindsay_Keating_Moore

Shameless Magazine: http://www.shamelessmag.com/blog/2008/08/i-base-most-of-my-fashion-taste-on-what-doesnt-it/

After Ellen: http://www.afterellen.com/blog/trishbendix/feminist-fashion-wear-gloria-steinem-on-your-sleeve

The Sister Project: http://thesisterproject.com/sisterhood-looks-good-on-you/

Angry Asian Man: http://www.angryasianman.com/2009/06/t-shirt-love-yuri-kochiyama.html

What kinds of hobbies and interests do you have?
I play clarinet, i love reading, mostly fiction, classic literature and feminist fic and non fiction, I love bicycling everywhere, frequently co-ops, dumpster diving, baking, black and white photography

Do you have any animal companions?

yes, my housemates dogs, a german short haired pointer named Henry and a collie/retriever mix named Evie. Both rescues, I love them - hopefully my housemates never move out.

Do you have any websites besides your shop that you would like to tell us
about?


facebook fan page http://www.facebook.com/pages/KM-Stitchery/108575778065

blog kmstitchery.blogspot.com

How long have you been vegan and what made you go vegan?

The dvd Peaceable Kingdom made me go vegan. I was vegetarian and I realized that the dairy industry was the same as the meat industry and there's no way I could continue to eat dairy and feel ethical after watching that dvd. I've been vegan for 3+ years now.

Do you have any favorite vegan things, like books, websites, stores, etc.?

My favorite vegan store is called "Fast n' Furless Vegan Emporium" right here in Minneapolis! :)

What are your favorite foods?

I LOVE BAKED GOODS. I have a HUGE sweet tooth :) Anything by Vegan Treats. Larry & Luna's coconut bliss ice cream. sandwiches with mock meats. Pad Thai. Sweet and sour mock chicken.

Is there anything else you would like to add or share?

I love being vegan! wooo!