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Join In The Eco Living Lifestyle

As spring is in the air, so is eco living lifestyle. All the media attention focused on the planet seems to have tripled lately, and for a good reason. Our natural resources are depleting at a alarming rate, and people are getting scared. Why is it we need to be scared before we act?

The images of the plastic in our oceans is alarming to say the least. Seeing images of turtles with plastic wound around their necks, as they are slowly dying is heart wrenching. The floating islands of pollution in the middle of the ocean is insane! How did we let this happen? How did it end up there? Is this where our recycle companies dump excess plastics? China is no longer taking Canada’s recyclables, who is?

Did you know the fashion industry was one of the largest polluters on the planet? Yup they sure are. Not to mention the dirty little secret of slave and or child labor use to make those big time labels. The conditions they have to work in is appalling and unsafe. Many of the third world countries that produce these “Fast Fashion” lines dumping their dyes used to dye the fabric directly into the rivers. It is very toxic and its leaching into the underground springs and contaminating all the surrounding water sheds.

These are just a few serious examples of why we all need to make some changes in our own homes. Changes can be big or small it’s up to you, the point is that your making a change at all. Some examples of changes we all can jump in on are using cloth shopping bags, bringing your own mug next time you order coffee, buying more upcycled and or thrift-ed goods. Stop buying clothing that uses slave labors. Their clothing is designed to last for only a few washes so you have to buy more, do you really think you saved any money $, not even. Plant some vegetables, ride your bike more often. Help your friends fix and or repair things they might otherwise have tossed out.

We are all in this together. It’s time everyone wakes up and starts to implement change for the good of our beautiful little planet!

Encourage and educate each other it makes the process that much easier.

Now that we know better, we must now start to do better!

Cheers D

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The new year is upon U.S.

 

We are rested up and now busy updating this neglected web site. Dusting off the cob webs, soon we will be listing all current stock every day until it’s all up and posted. Close to 100 items in stock that need to be loaded up for your viewing pleasure, eek could take a bit to get it all done but it’s one of my goals for 2019 so I will trudge on. Please check back every few days to see what’s newly listed in our lil shop of love.

Our local out door Farmers Market is back in April of 2019 and we plan on applying to be regular vendors this season.

U.S. is also planning on attending more festivals in the new year. We will post on our Facebook page, as well as this blog all events and festivals so you will know where to find us live. Woohoo we love meeting our Swaggers in the flesh.

If you don’t live in our area no worries as we happily ship worldwide. Just message us any time for more information or photos on any items, it’s all good sista we got you covered.

We would like to thank all of our customers and followers for your incredible support over the last 7 years. It’s been quite a journey sewing together one frock at a time. Our Eco clothing line is made not only with a love for fashion, but our brand is also passionate about lessening the foot print required to create each piece.

Purchasing from U.S. you are casting  your vote showing where you want to spend your hard earned money, for this we say THANK YOU!

Green is the new black!

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Canada Day is almost here!

Sorry our U.S. website is not current and up to date.

Please find U.S. on our Facebook page for current and new designs in stock. Please “Like” our Facebook page and then you will receive notifications when we add new clothing and also locations of our next events.

Our website will be back in full swing in September when the busy market circuit is over for the season.

If  you find something you like on our Facebook page just send U.S. a message and we can give you more information, photos etc. We ship worldwide!

HAPPY CANADA DAY!

 

 

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U.S will be at a new Artisan Market in Kelowna every Sunday Until December

EAST KELOWNA SUNDAY ARTISAN
COMMUNITY MARKET
PLEASE JOIN US!

East Kelowna Hall Sunday Market Dates:
September 24, October 1, 8, 22, 29, November 5, 19, 26
Christmas Country Community Market
December 3, 2017
Restarting April 1, 2018

Hours of market 9-2

MARKET VENUE:
EAST KELOWNA HALL
2704 East Kelowna Road,
Kelowna, B.C.

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We will be at the down town Kelowna Farmers Market on Bernard on last time

Hello Swaggers!

We will be back at the down town Kelowna Farmers Market Aug 5th, on Bernard Ave. I will have lots of new swag  to add to my racks. Come find my little blue tent, look for my banner.

I still have 2- $10 bins come check them out. One bin is all my kids swag, sweater butts, children’s skirts etc. I am sell off all my children’s clothing, come score some amazing deals.

Fine me on Face Book for the latest updates, come “like” my page!

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All the boots in the Gallery are on SALE!! Go check it out!

SALE!!! 20% OFF ALL BOOTS IN OUR GALLERY!
Getting ready to load up the Gallery with tons of spring SWAG!
The Gallery is new and gently used high end non up cycled items. I created this section as I come across many to good to pass up treasures on my travels and want to share them with you!
The link below is to the Gallery section of our web site, upcycledswag.com

Direct link to the sale                http://www.upcycledswag.com/product-category/swag-gallery/footwear/

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Amazing ideas for alternative housing the GREEN way of living

Repurposing

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Plastic bottles (with LED lights) repurposed as a chandelier during Ramadan in the Muslim Quarter, Jerusalem

Repurposing is the process by which an object with one use value is transformed or redeployed as an object with an alternative use value.

Description

Repurposing is as old as human civilization, with many contemporary scholars investigating that way that different societies re-appropriate the artifacts of older cultures in new and creative ways. [1] More recently, repurposing has been celebrated by 21st century hobbyists and arts-and-crafts organizations such as Instructables and other Maker culture communities as a means of creatively responding to the ecological and economic crises of the 21st century. Recent scholarship has attempted to relate these activities to American left- and right-libertarianism. [2][3]

Repurposing is the use of a tool being re-channeled into being another tool, usually for a purpose unintended by the original tool-maker. Typically, repurposing is done using items usually considered to be junk, garbage, or obsolete. A good example of this would be the Earthship style of house, that uses tires as insulating walls and bottles as glass walls. Reuse is not limited to repeated uses for the same purpose. Examples of repurposing include using tires as boat fenders and steel drums or plastic drums as feeding troughs and/or composting bins. Incinerator and power plant exhaust stack fly-ash is used extensively as an additive to concrete, providing increased strength. This type of reuse can sometimes make use of items which are no longer usable for their original purposes, for example using worn-out clothes as rags.[4] 

Not all repurposing is necessarily environmentally friendly, take for instance the idea of repurposing older work trucks for businesses in their infancy, in which their poor fuel economy can negate long term benefits since greater spending of money for fuel, and more fumes output to the sky can prove environmentally unfriendly, in which repurposing vehicles for electric car conversionto be environmentally unfriendly, in which repurposing vehicles for electric car conversion can be the recommended alternative to that, though its cost can be negligible upfront.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repurposing

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Flash SALE!!! Ends Sunday evening March 19th

Go have a look in the shop.
All items with long or 3/4 sleeves are 25% off. We need to move them out to make room for new spring pretties..
Message me for a coupon code to receive your discount before check out.
Go to upcycledswag.com to shop.
Message me on our Face Book page https://www.facebook.com/upcycledswag to get your code.
Hurry you don’t want to miss out!

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STILL PLAYING BARBIE

I’ve never really given much thought as to when my propensity for fashion began, until now, at this very moment
A few days ago my friend asked me if I would like to sell my hoarded trove of clothing and accessories on her website. I have been collecting for years and If the truth be known I have had trouble parting with most of my beloved finds. I have been selling, sporadically, holding back the good stuff confident that an opportunity would present itself one day.

This last week has been a fly by the seat of my pants kind of a week as I prepared to provide some of my best
pieces for the website re launch which required me to hunt, dig, sort, research, take pictures of, edit and write descriptions for each item.

This morning I pocket dialed my friend and after much chit chat and exchanging of ideas she asked me out of the blue if I would be interested in writing a blog. The idea had NEVER crossed my mind and my first thought was what am I going to blog about! How does that even work! Would I be any good at it!?
That’s what got me thinking about what the topic could be and I wondered where my passion for fashion may have begun. As just about every little girl, playing Barbie was my favorite activity and when my friends came over I used to tell them what the Barbies would be doing and what their Barbies should wear for the occasion. I’m quite certain that there must have been plenty of eye rolling (or was it pouting in those days) going on but I was too busy organizing everybody’s outfits to have even noticed. Besides I was in my element. I was about 4 or 5. By age 9 I was sewing my own Barbie clothes to get my fix so to speak. I used to ask my neighbors for fabric from their scrap bags. Everyone sewed in those days and if we wanted things over and above what the 50 cents a week could buy, we had to scrounge, it was the only way. When I was ten I was on the bus with my mom I remember thinking I will never dress like that! (Koret Fortrel pastel elastic waist pants). I pined to be 13 so I could babysit 3 houses up the lane. They paid better than anyone 75 cents an hour. I needed to buy clothes clothes and more clothes. Soon my friends began to ask me for fashion advise and every time we’d go out they’d come over and raid my closet.

Today I spent 3 hours with my birth mom Vivian going through her closets while she tried on every single article of clothing as I was putting outfits together while trying to explain to her that YES you can wear a polka dot with a chevron, a stripe with a flower, a paisley with a check.

I’ve dabbled a bit over the last few years, had a couple of clothing parties, accessorized for a fashion shoot and helped my friends to dress. I’ve bought a beautiful Hindsgaul mannequin and as weird as it may seem, she resides at my place and she gets to wear some pretty great things.

I don’t know where this new venture or blogging thing will take me or even if there will be a second blog but one thing I do know for sure, that after all these years I’m sill playing Barbie.
Visit us at www.upcycledswag .com
Please remember to
REUSE, REDUCE and RECYCLE