Today’s Daily Dose of Seth once again just nails it. This is one of many reasons I don’t send my designs free to celebrities and don’t want to sell my brand to Macy’s or Urban Outfitters. I keep BB small and manageable so I don’t lose control and can keep surfing, but most of all, so it can remain win-win for my artisans, my staff, my self and my customers. In manageable scale.

Once, in 2007, my brand was on display at the National Retail Federation’s annual “Big Show” at Javitz Center in NYC, in the “Store of the Future” installation of a Pop-up Store.

I felt like such a prostitute when I saw who was coming. The C-Class of all the big box retailers marched through and I had to stand there and explain to them why they needed to make environmental and social responsibility a priority. A major shoes and accessories chain asked me to create a cheap line of jewelry for them which I felt would have necessitated exploitation of the people making them to get the price as  low as they needed it so I simply said NO.

Thank you, Seth, once again, for confirming what I already knew in my heart.

Ready for the doors to open.

Some of the 17 hand-painted styles we created for Hobie Girl. You cant even buy this collectors item! The only way to get one is to buy a Hobie Bikini at a partipating Dillards or other Hobie retailer.

I’ve spent the past two months working on a really cool project with Hobie, one of the oldest iconic surf brands, today a multifaceted conglomerate of fun things us ocean lovers do in the water, sailing, kayaking, surfing and much more. Together we created a Betty Belts private label product, a hand painted bangle to be used as a gift-with-purchase promotion for retailers who sell Hobie Girl Bikinis. Buy a bikini, get a free bangle.

On various levels I’ve worked with Hobie for years. We share two brand ambassadors, a.k.a. “team riders”, the lovely surfing twins Sierra and Hailey Partridge. Sierra and Hailey have been with Team Betty since 2005, when Betty Belts became their first surfing sponsor. Photographer David Pu’u, who around then became my own partner in life, started shooting them surfing and modeling BB and soon got them cast as models for a Hobie photo shoot in Hawai’i. One thing led to another, with the girls proving their water skills to be numerous, and they became the first female athletes since Joyce Hoffman (1962) to get signed on by the brand.

Hailey and Sierra Partridge modeling one of the 2011 Hobie Bikinis. Hailey is also wearing my new "surfboard resin" earrings, made from excess surfboard resin collected by local shapers. Upcycle with style!

Every year since, Hobie has hired David to shoot most of their product lines, including the bikini line for their ad and retailer display campaigns. And Betty B. accessories make a frequent appearance on Hailey and Sierra.  I myself am the one who styles and accessorizes the bikini shoots every year. We all work really well together and the results are always gorgeous.

When they started thinking about their annual gift-with-purchase for 2011, Carrie Seifert, PR Director for the brand, contacted me about Betty Belts possibly creating the giveaway for them for 2011. Together we came up with the hand-painted bangle idea, using the patterns from the 2011 Hobie bikini collection to make them extra special and collectible.

Nyoman's beautiful hands add a layer of design to one of the Hobie Bohemian Bangles. Each one is painted by hand by the Balinese Artisans of Betty B. for the Hobie Project.

My  artisans in Bali have been very excited about the project and diligently hand painted 9000 bangles in 17 different patterns to become a gift with a Hobie Bikini purchase at Dillard’s Stores and other select Hobie retailers this Spring. For a retailer near you, check with Hobie Girl.

Please see the photos below and their captions to get to know the people behind this project and enjoy the  interesting back stories. I am very proud of my artisans for pulling his off in a relatively short amount of time and especially to my Bali production manager Ketut, for coordinating everything over there so seamlessly and capturing the process in these photos.

My staff in Bali and I are looking forward to doing more private label jobs like this for other companies who want to have something more authentic and unique to represent their brand.

For more info please visit www.BettyBelts.com

Betty Belts artisan Komang Oka, age 25, carefully paints the Hobie floral pattern onto one of the Hobie Bohemian Bangles.

Here you can easily see the first two steps painting this Hobie Design on the bangles. They need to dry between each coat. They can have as many as 12 layers of colors in the patterns we made.

Wayan Karmini, age 22, is meticulously painting pink dots on the bangles. She is wearing her old stained clothes for painting, but still matched it up. Notice the way she holds her pinky finger, which is an aspect of traditional Balinese dance.

A close up view of Wayan's talented hands at work.

These Hobie Bohemian Bangles have a few more layers to go before they are finished, but they already look really cool!

Betty Belts Artisan Made Nguwer, age 17, paints pink dots on one of the flower Bohemian Bangles. She practices Traditional Balinese Dance, as you can see by the way she holds her fingers here.

Kadek Kenti, age 21, takes a break from painting to spend a moment with her daughter. Children are cherished in Bali. Interesting Fact: Balinese Babies feet are not allowed to touch the ground for the first six months of their lives to protect them from evil spirits.

Ketut and Ayu who work at Betty Belts HQ in Bali carefully pack the bangles for shipping to California. Interesting fact: Everything we make and process in Bali gets blessed every day in their Hindu rituals. It is an important part of the culture that is an important part of the making of BB products. You can always feel the love when you own a piece made by Betty Belts.

Ketut Lestari, age 23, sits behind a wall of bangles in the Betty Belts HQ in Bali, doing quality control of each and every one before they get stacked and packed for shipping. We had the same situation here in California when they arrived.

The Hobie logo is painted onto the inside of every bangle.

That's me, Donna, surrounded by boxes of Hobie bangles at our house. The shipment was too large to process at the tiny Betty B. shop in Ventura, so we did it over several days in the living room of our home. Our cats enjoyed their temporary perches on makeshift box towers in their terrain.

Sierra Partridge of Team Betty and Team Hobie was over at the house to shoot some surfing with David and helped quality control the shipment from Bali one evening. Thank you, Sierra!

Just a quick announcement here:

Today, on Thanksgiving, our new designs are ready to see and shop for and wish list at www.Bettybelts.com

Tip: use the code FRIEND at checkout for 10% off your entire order when you are directed to our shipping partner Essential Surf.

I am thankful on this day of thanks to have YOU to share this with!

Wherever you are today, enjoy the love that surrounds you.

Smiles from Ventura,
Donna

SOL Necklace $48

Bliss Necklace $48

Bliss Earrings $42

Ashley Stretch Belt $46

Zuri Wave Stretch Belt $46

Winter Morning Love in California by David Pu'u

Gratitude is something I feel more than ever now. Just an example:

Last night my production manager (who is like family) in Bali and I had a “meeting” across oceans. We chatted and shared pictures via online messenger and email with our respective smartphones. It allowed us to be so close, as if we were sitting together in her family compound where she houses the Betty Belts Bali headquarters.

We discussed numbers, financials and timelines, but we also laughed a lot and even shared cat pictures…  and  I am grateful for the connections like this, for the connectedness… I haven’t been back to Bali in over a year, but I am grateful that my business can still work due to  new technology wedded to a faith in my people there…

Connectedness is easier than ever now… with family, friends, business…

I couldn’t have said it any better than Seth Godin did today  here:

“… celebrate two things:

The people in our lives who give us the support and love we need to make a difference, and…

The opportunity to build something bigger than ourselves, something worth contributing. The ability to make connections, to lend a hand, to invent and create.

There are more of both now than there have ever been before…” (read rest of Seth’s blog here)

And this slideshow I created a while back says it all too.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. Thank you for being here and being authentic and being you.

May you find connectedness in all aspects of your life and enjoy the bounty it offers you.

But for now I’ll have to settle for the Wall Street Journal Magazine. Full page. Me. Surfing. With a big smile on my face.

Life is good.
Life needs a LIKE button.

Photo Copyright David Pu’u

As a local yoga teacher always says: Come see!

Excerpt from David’s Blog:

My girlfriend, Donna Von Hoesslin, who heads up yet another globally connected small business that is based here (Betty B) told me that she was in desperate need of images for a new line of jewelry which is designed by members of Team Betty.

So we dropped in on the party at J’s, sat in the window booth and shot the girl’s designs there as Bobby and crew rocked. Typically we would do this away in some distant land, or somewhere on the coast. Definitely not associated with any particular business. (I actually have developed a penchant for Ventura night, street shoots) But deciding to both take care of Betty B’s business needs, and provide bodies, texture and a few extra dollars to the day’s till at J’s, allowed for an exponential increase of benefit for everyone involved.

Here is a video that explains in 4 minutes, the gist of Donna’s remarkable company. We did the piece for the Intuit Small Business United program. It helped Donna win a 5000 dollar grant from Intuit, which she used to help fund her Bali expedition.

On Bali last season, Hailey and Sierra Partridge, Jeanette Ortiz, Mary Osborne, and Donna, did a Betty B design trip. Each one of the girls worked with the local artisans who comprise a portion of Donna’s creative team, to produce collection pieces that exemplified themselves as ocean connected women. Each young woman then selected a cause or charity, whereby Betty B would donate a portion of the income from sales of each piece.

Donna’s company is a very active member of yet another organization, which was the brainchild of Ventura’s Chouinard family (Patagonia), which is called One Percent for the Planet. Through One Percent, Donna and other companies support David Booth’s fantastic Organization, the East Bali Poverty Project, which literally is changing the face of Bali, by educating the youth on their connection to the environment via the Arts and cultural action.

So with our country on the ropes, it all starts here. With me. With you. In our own back yard.

The answer is right there in your community: your dollars are a part of your voice. Now do something. Do it for yourself. Do it for your town. But more importantly: do it. By acting locally you affect Globally, as well as Nationally. Do it.

Visit David’s Blog to read more and, of course, see all the PICTURES!

Model Models

by David Pu’u

Recently, NYC based production company Silent Crow was in Ventura. Two writers with the company happened to have connected with Donna Von Hoesslin of Betty B and learning a little bit about her female inspired Eco Fashion line. They came up with an idea.

Producer Matt Bennett showed up to do a little bit of discovery work, and honed a reality show concept that deviated from the norm, in that it endeavors to look at the personalities and lives of the women in both my and Donna’s lives. Silent Crow named the show Bonafide.

Donna and I have long exchanged working relationships with people who we see as unique, and able to be involved in both the editorial market, and branding process, both for the model as a product, and for Betty B’s unique, ethics based, fashion accessories line.

What Matt discovered is that each one of these women is a story unto themselves. Tricky thing to formulate a show upon. I just saw the teaser reel that Silent Crow Produced, and that I contributed footage and stills to. I think they get it. Not an easy thing to do, getting something that is a world unto itself… (continue reading and see more gorgeous shots)

I’m a “Cover Girl” today!

Check out this inspiring article below from this week’s VC Reporter…

Betty Belts Owner/Designer Donna von Hoesslin graces the cover of the VC Reporter with one of her all time favorite quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Commerce, Compassion and Community

by Claudia Pardo McFayden

Continue reading here:

http://www.vcreporter.com/cms/story/detail/commerce_compassion_and_community/7661/

P.S.

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So I’d like to offer up a post about Appreciation in the New Year because I know it will enrich our lives to practice more of it. There is so much to appreciate. Always look for it.

Tell people you appreciate them.
Tell God you appreciate him and what he has given/created.
Look around you and appreciate what you have, because there is always someone out there who has less to appreciate than you do.
It might not be an easy habit to develop, but it will benefit so many that the benefits will be innumerable.

I appreciate you.

Thank you for reading. Thank you for enjoying.
Thank you for keeping the Betty Brand pulsing in these unsteady times.

I’m wishing you a new year (a lifetime!) of love, sweetness, joy and most of all, appreciation!

Smiles from Ventura,

Donna von Hoesslin

Owner/Designer at Betty Belts/Betty B., Member Team Betty

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