Who are we?

My name is Emma and I am a junior in high school. My mom, Susan, is an interior decorator here in Chicago who designed a product a couple of years ago.  But we will get to all of that later.  So I am writing this blog for two reasons.  Reason number one: I love to write, and am probably going to be an English major in college.  Reason number two: my mom is technologically…challenged.  Although coming from her family she is a computer genius. Let me tell you, I went to stay with my grandparents a few months ago and they asked me if I could help them check their email.  On the computer that had been sitting in their house for months.  So that’s my story.  Now let me tell you my mom’s story.

A few years ago my mom came up with a product idea: table accessories, placemats, runners, napkin rings, accessories, all made out of vinyl.  Fun colors.  Unexpected combinations.  Cool zig zag stitching. You get the idea.  So she started selling the products out of the trunk of her car, the land cruiser, which will be referred to as the beast in all future references.  So my mom drove around in the beast and sold the goods to 22 different stores in the Chicago area.  She designed a line for Crate and Barrel, as well as another company that manufactures many of their products.  So to make a long story short, the tote bags have been sitting in the warehouse.  And that is where our story together begins.

During the past year and a half my mom’s friend Susan (no, my mom is not friends with herself, it’s a different Susan) went back to design school.  Susan the friend was constantly complimented on her bag, which was, of course, one of my Mom’s.  The admirers then continued to interrogate Susan, demanding to know where they could find them.  Susan would respond with the long tale that I have already recounted for you.  This little instance actually happened so often that when Susan started working any new person that she met would compliment her on the bag.  It became a bit of a joke among Susan’s coworkers because they had heard the story so many times that they could recite it backwards, and so sometimes they took over for Susan and told the story
themselves. The Susans discussed their options, and my mom decided that she needed to buy back the inventory of bags to get them out onto the market herself.

But how to sell the bags? Smart woman that she is, my mom came to none other than her future English major daughter, yours truly.  And we decided to call what followed, “The Tote Bag Chronicles”.  My dad wanted to call the company “The Vinyl Solution,” but we all agreed that it wasn’t exactly politically correct, so we settled on the first name.  Anyways, my mom and I both religiously read Lucky Magazine, and my mom was inspired by the blogger section.  So she came to me and said that we should create a blog. But it sounded more like, “We should create a blahg!” So here I am, writing the “blahg”.

My mom loved the idea of having illustrated images of the two of us, modeling the bags, which explains our cute little logo.  After she suggested it I said, “Well that’s easy. I could do that!”  Mind you, I have absolutely NO artistic talent.  I made a quick little sketch of my mom, which I thought was pretty darn good, but she thought otherwise. She took one look and said, “Why did you give me monkey arms?”  She grabbed the pen, the silver one that nobody is allowed to touch, and sketched a little picture of me right next to my masterpiece.  I looked at the picture for a second and said, “Well at least you made me skinny, but why did you stick two blocks of cheese under my boots?”  She said that they were the heels.  Yeah…ok.  So we decided that we needed to hire a professional.

My mom asked me if I knew any artists at school.  Any friends who are artists? Friends of friends? People in my classes?  I said that I knew a few people, and that I could ask them.  My mom told me not to tell them what exactly we were doing, just because nothing was official.  I told her that I couldn’t ask them to draw us if they couldn’t know what it was for. “Just tell them we need a picture of us,” my mom responded.  Let’s take a second to imagine this conversation.

“Hey, would you mind drawing a picture of my mom and me?”

“Yeah…sure…for what?”

“Oh I can’t tell you, but don’t worry we would definitely pay you.”

Am I the only person who thinks that would be weird?  My mom told me that it was completely normal, not awkward at all.  But I still felt weird about it.

So we decided that we needed to hire a professional.  Who was NOT in high school.  In steps Karen Greenberg. She is a fabulous illustrator in New York City, and after we enthusiastically perused her website my mom called her up and there we were, in the kitchen, taking pictures of ourselves. I was not wearing my contacts that day, like most days, and my mom asked me if I wanted to wear my glasses in the picture. I looked at her and said,
“Of course not! Because then they will be in the logo and I will have to wear them when we get invited to fashion week!”

My mom loaded up the beast with bags from the warehouse, and now our basement has bags piled floor-to-ceiling.  Which means that my weekend hangout looks like it was hit by an avalanche of rainbow-colored vinyl. Please give these bags a home.  Whether they be for school, everyday, overnight, travel, work, beach, shopping, working out, sports, or just gazing at lovingly, these bags are perfect for everything.  Trust me, I am someone who loves bags, and I use the three that I have for all of the above.  Except for sports. We don’t need to talk about that.  But that’s because of me, not the bags.  Regardless, they are amazing, durable, easy to maintain, and not to mention UNBELIEVABLY CUTE.  Really.