September 26, 2010

Coloring Time


Even though we still haven't officially launched yet - we have been fulfilling orders here and there. As we fulfill orders for friends and family Brian and I got really excited thinking about our CooCubes in all these different locations around the US.  So far, you can find CooCubes in KY, MA, MD, NC, NY, and PA - 6 states down, only 44 to go!  We'll keep this map going and see how long it takes to fill it up -  I can't wait to launch our online store and get coloring!  Coming Soon to a state near you :) 

September 20, 2010

Something Old, Something New

Showing off some of our iconic imagery. Lions and Bunnies and Seals, O My!

  

And trying out a new idea...a "birth plate" -  allowing you to put keepsake information on the cube. There will be room enough for baby's birthdate, weight and height (birthdate shown here). What do you think?




July 16, 2010

Captivated

We are thanking God for our new little GIRL, Logan! Born on July 3rd at 10:41pm, weighing 7lbs 5oz and measuring 19 1/4 inches. I am captivated by the beauty inside this little girl and o so in love already.




























































(This song by shawn mcdonald comes to mind when I look at her - check it out)



June 6, 2010

Right Around the Corner

So Fall turned into Winter, then Winter into Spring and now it's just about Summer...and we still haven't launched?! But we are closer then ever! It sure has been a long road - a little over 3 years now - since the idea was born and I've been working towards this end goal. So it is only natural that I can hardly contain my excitement when I think about our official launch being right around the corner. Of course, I can't forget that I've been a wife, a mom, working and throw a newborn, 2 more pregnancies and some unpredictable life experiences in the mix and then I guess 3 years doesn't sound so shabby!

Here is a look at the 4 different themes that will be available when we launch! Circus Time, Forest Friends, Tiny Blooms and Handyman. These images are a piece of a mini informational PDF I just finished in anticipation of our launch. If you are interested in learning more about the CooCube product you can download it right here. Enjoy!!






June 1, 2010

Tiny Blooms

For an adorable little girl and her upcoming first birthday!  Isn't she so stinkin cute?!!!!




















May 20, 2010

More Love to Go Around





All packaged and ready to go...






















May 10, 2010

O Happy Day

Happy mothers day! I have some exciting news to share...I soon will be mother to a new little one.  Here is the new bebe due mid July.























Here are the reasons I can celebrate the miracle of motherhood today.
























And here is my beautiful Mom.  I'm blessed with the best mom who has shown me strength, sacrifice, and most importantly unconditional love.

May 2, 2010

Love is in the Air

Some new orders were shipped out this week just in time for some baby showers.

March 28, 2010

photo shoot

The sun finally came out and we had an incredible weekend of warm weather! It makes me so excited for the Spring! We took advantage of the sunny afternoon to take a few photos for the site. Here is a behind-the-scenes shot of my photo stylist. Cute, huh?!

March 21, 2010

Shhhhhh. going once. going twice.










We donated a basket of CooCubes for a silent auction at a local preschool yesterday! This put some needed pressure on us to message a launch date and finally put some CooCubes out there in the real world. It was the first time that we’ve shared our product outside of our close friends and family...hoping it got some good bids. And get this, since we included a gift certificate in the basket, we identified a launch date in April. AHHHH, that's right around the corner! Starting to get the word out.

UPDATE: Since the site has not yet launched we have not been able to fulfill on this gift certificate.  We did not know who received this so we could not make contact.  Please accept our apology and if you contact us directly we will be able to fulfill your order and add a special gift to to thank you for your patience. There are 2 outstanding gift certificates that we are aware of. 

February 2, 2010

What Motivates You?

So you have to be a little crazy and or really motivated to start a business from scratch. We are leaning towards the crazy end of the scale but our motivation is rooted in a deep passion for creative expression and for nature. I am excited to have my husband tell you a bit more as a guest writer today!!

Brian writes...
As a producer and manufacturer of a product, whether we want to or not, we help perpetuate many issues such as fossil fuel and natural resource usage, and the overwhelming issue of consumption and disposal. We as an American society love to buy and then throw away. CooCube would like to be something different. We didn’t want to follow the same old model of creativity and production. We new it was possible to take an old idea and make it new with a totally different spin on how it is made, what it is made from, and how the customer interacts in the whole process. We want to be efficient. We currently run our business locally and all of our manufacturing needs are within a 20 minute drive of our office. We help support our local economy and help reduce our carbon footprint in the process.

Next we wanted the materials that each CooCube are made from to be either organic, sustainable, or recycled. After two years of research and countless prototypes we found some great materials that met our needs. The stuffing material inside each CooCube is made of recycled plastic bottles. Crazy right? The amount of plastic drinking bottles that Americans use each day is staggering and the amount that find its way into our landfills is even more astounding.

According to the Container Recycling Institute, 90 percent of PET bottles end up in landfills, where they take between 450 and 1000 years to break down! That ends up being around 4 billion PET bottles that enter the U.S. waste stream each year, costing cities some $70 million in cleanup and landfill costs. Check out the website for "The Story Of Stuff". They have a great new animated movie on the bottled water industry and its impact on our earth and it people.
That’s why we use a product called Refill as our cube stuffing. The plastic bottles are recycled into a fiber that creates a soft cushion like a material that works perfectly in our CooCubes. So every time someone orders a CooCube, they help re-purpose something that would otherwise end up in a landfill.

When it came time to find a fabric, we knew that the fabric needed to be organic. To some, organic fabric is just an expensive alternative. It is true that it can be expensive, however the often-overlooked advantage of organic fabrics is that it fosters an emerging industry that respects the earth from witch the natural resource is harvested from. It respects the people that help harvest it and as a result makes us healthier as a people and healthier as a planet. The fabric is certified by the Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS).

Simply using recycled and organic materials to create new products doesn’t quite take it far enough and certainly doesn’t allow us to wave any “green” flags around. More significantly, to create a product that has staying power in our homes; by making something that is a keepsake and won't be disposed of in a month or year - this, we hope makes a difference and that’s our goal. The staying power of CooCubes is achieved by having the customer customize their cubes with letters, numbers, and most importantly, the customer’s own personal pictures. It is simple but powerful.

We feel lucky that we had the example of a lot of great businesses out there that are trying to make a difference in the way business impacts the earth and people. We hope to learn from these examples and follow in their footsteps. CooCube is proud to be apart of this movement and we hope that you will join us in our journey to rethink our role in interacting with our planet and it's most important natural resource…our children.

January 21, 2010

3 years old!































Happy Birthday Ava. God has blessed me with such a sweet, joyful, playful little girl. I am so in love. Here's to another full year of dancing and tumbling, drawing and singing, climbing and running!


Hugs and kisses to my beautiful baby.