I have been cutting up LOTS of jeans, I am over 200 mica blues cloths. I have been working at figuring out what is the most efficient method for cutting these jeans up. It is time consuming right now and makes my hands sore for a bit, but it is getting better as I find better methods.

Well, I started production today

I disassembled 1 pair of jeans and made 55 of my product from it. WOW! I had no idea that I could get that many from one pair of jeans! I am so proud of myself. I also figured out that the only thing I need to throw away when I am done is a couple rivets and the zipper. I can actually compost all of my remnants so I am golden! If I could get the rivets out of the cloth without it taking FOREVER and being really hard, I could probably recycle them too!

10 pair of jeans = 550 products in inventory! I can even do this while sitting in front of the TV (not that I will) but I could. :) My goal is 182 pair of jeans! I've finished 1, 181 more to go!

Remember to save those old damaged jeans that you can not use any more. I'm collecting now so feel free to bring them next time I see you!

Carol O.

Packaging Insert Info

Here is part of the insert from my packaging. It sounds pretty good, if I do say so myself! :>

"Mica Blues, made from recycled blue jeans, is the ultimate in an eco-friendly craft accessory. There is no impact on the environment in the production of the cloth. In fact, we are keeping jeans out of landfills and giving them a whole new life."

I like it.

Carol O .

Welcome to Mica Blues

Mica Blues is a new small business owned and operated by me, Carol O. I am the sole proprietor and employee of Mica Blues. I am hoping to grow my business from 1 employee to 3 in a short amount of time, meaning that I would LOVE to be able to afford to employ 2 more people besides myself. This would be a 200% increase in the number of people I employ in my business so maybe I will qualify for some of President Obama's stimulus money. :)

Anyways, I will be manufacturing a new product, which shall remain unnamed for now, and then selling it online and to retail establishments. My goal is to produce a stock of 10,000 units before I can make sales to larger retailers. I can only produce so many of these items by hand so there will naturally be a limited supply, as the whole point of my product is to hand make them.

I am focusing on limiting the business's impact on the environment. I will be utilizing post-consumer waste product as my raw material so not only I will not be producing new material, I will be eliminating the need for this stuff to enter the landfill. I will also be composting some of my waste after my manufacturing process so that will benefit the ecology even more! I am limiting the transportation footprint of my raw materials by collecting them at places I already go anyways. There will be no additional use of fuel or other resources to procure my raw materials. I also will be using current delivery systems in place that provide mass transportation of product at lowest impact to the environment.

I would love to be able to purchase a fuel-efficient vehicle in the future for my business to further limit my impact on the environment. I am happy to drive an electric car, especially a solor powered one since re-charging a battery from the grid is still causing the same amount of damage to the environment. Also, we already have trouble providing adequate electricty during high volume usage, imagine if everyone plugged in an electric car?!?! Whew! So I am on the look out for a solor powered car to help in this venture. Maybe my husband can handle designing one for me. :)

Thanks for reading along, I will keep you updated on my progress as it happens.