Rain Lily

Sorry I’ve been out of touch.  Busy selling and working on getting some amazing new accessories — specifically a line of scarves, jewelry and home decor that has never been sold in the U.S. before!  Not only are their crafts smashingly beautiful, they are also, as stated above, fair trade, eco friendly, hand made and carbon neutral (they only use sea freight to bring their products to the U.S.).

Long, floaty linen scarves in soft gray and off white, bangles and earrings, cotton bags and more. I’ll have them this Saturday, 7/25, at the Brooklyn Flea in Fort Greene.  Take a sneak peek below!

CLICK HERE: http://rainlilyshop.bigcartel.com/

We’ve added some of our bestselling items to the online store, including Cotton Gauze Stoles from Thailand in lots of delicious colors, and our wire cuff bracelets.  Take a peek, click above.

Wow, take a look at this lineup of good-looking customers!  These folks have all visited us in the last 3 weeks at the Brooklyn Flea in Ft. Greene and purchased some very cool fair trade items.  From left, our palm sheath hat from Columbia, a Karen Hill Tribe silver crochet pendant, and recycled plastic prayer mat bracelets from Burkina Faso.

What could be better than giving your mom a fair trade gift?  You’re giving her something beautiful and unique but you are also giving the artisans who made the gift something — a real chance at a better life.  Buying fair trade really does make a difference in their lives.

This weekend Rain Lily will be at the Brooklyn Flea in Ft. Greene on Saturday and at the Hester Street Fair on Sunday.  We’ll have the amazingly soft, gauzy cotton scarf/shawls (they’re so generously sized they can be used as a shawl) in lots of delicious colors.  They’re made in villages around Chiang Mai, Thailand.  We also have our beautiful, handwoven Cambodian silk scarves.

In addition, we have a new line of jewelry and bags, tres chic and so well priced, made in India by members of a women’s fair trade collective.  I’m going to try and post some photos so you can have a sneak peek!

CLICK HERE: http://rainlilyshop.bigcartel.com/

I came across the quote below a couple of years ago and it struck me as a powerful two-sentence way to communicate to consumers why they should care about fair trade.  I don’t remember where I read it, but I hope that the person who wrote it will forgive me for that and feel good about the impact behind the words.

“A moment’s attention at the counter can make a lifetime of difference for artisans and farmers elsewhere in the world.

The fair trade movement encourages consumers — especially Westerners who are going to spend the money anyway — to pay attention to such matters as the working conditions and the environmental impact that underlie their purchases.”

Yes, we in the West have the power to make a difference every time we go to the store.  And as fair trade products become more available, it becomes even easier to make a difference.

Boys in Prey Village where silk is woven for Rain Lily's Cambodian scarves

We now have our online shop up, so you can visit to see some of our products and if you find one or two that you simply can’t live without, you can order them!  At the moment, we only have a few carefully chosen items, but I’ll be adding more every day!  As of today, April 6th, we still have a few bugs to work out around the shopping cart, but we should have things all smoothed out by tomorrow, the 7th of April.  So do come and visit – just click on the link below!!

http://rainlilyshop.bigcartel.com/

Well, we made it.  There are beautiful green shoots poking through the ground in my yard, and things are changing every day in the garden.  That’s the excitement of spring.

I’m excited about new things coming to Rain Lily.  We have a new logo and I hope to have the online store up in a couple of weeks.  I’m also excited about new, handmade items that we’ll have for you soon.  Things like bird houses made in Haiti out of vetiver.  Vetiver is a wonderful plant used for soil conservation around the world.  So these bird houses are not only bringing much needed employment to earthquake ravaged Haiti, they are made from an incredibly sustainable, eco-friendly material.

We’ll also have  silk and cotton scarves,  jewelry, home decor items and lots more — all carefully chosen for their uniqueness, beauty and quality, and all made under fair trade conditions.

And we were delighted to take part this past weekend in the Brooklyn Flea’s weekly scavenger hunt by donating two of our dhokra (lost wax) animal figures — the piggy and the horsey.  They were found by a nice couple from Manhattan who had read about the Flea in The New Yorker and were making their maiden voyage to the Flea!  Read about it, with a lovely write-up about Rain Lily on the Flea’s Blog, here:  Brooklyn Flea.

And soon, on Saturday, April 10th to be exact, the Flea will be back outside at Bishop Loughlin High School in Ft. Greene, Brooklyn.  That will be every Saturday, while Sundays we’re staying at the Williamsburg Savings Bank (One Hanson Place).

Ciao for now!  Hope to see you this weekend in Brooklyn!

Brooklyn Flea Scavenger Hunt - Katie with winner Charles

You wouldn’t know it from the weather forecast here on the East Coast, but Spring is less than a month away!  Every day, there’s a little more light, and the average daily temperature is going up.

In the “new life” vein, I’m working on some new things for Rain Lily — an online store that will be hosted on BigCartel,  wonderful new products, and some other surprises.

For now though, I have some wonderful, new, fair trade jewelry that I’m bringing to the Brooklyn Flea this weekend.  Colorful, stylish, happy pieces made by women in India.  After the storm of the next two days, you’ll want to get out, see people, eat good food, and peruse cool merchandise — new, vintage, you name it.  Great new food vendors too.  So come to the Williamsburg Savings Bank (One Hanson Place in Brooklyn) this Saturday or Sunday.