Problem Solved

So, in the previous post Jessie mentioned that we would be having our yard sale in the black box theatre and at Emblazon. That...didn't work out very well. We were actually all ready to go with Emblazon, (Black Box Theatre was occupied for the middle school play) however the Emblazon organizers decided to cancel the event a day before because of the rainy weather.

We were extremely disappointed because we put up fliers all around red hill about our sale and around the school too. So, we had to come up with a solution fast since time was running out.

We thought about audience we wanted to target. Who would actually buy second hand clothing? We knew that if we had the sale at school, no one would really be interested. Hong Kong is really different from the States, and yard sales don't usually work out. Therefore, we knew that helpers in Hong Kong would definitely want to buy our clothes. We decided to target them for our sale.

Every year my church holds a bazaar at the St. Joseph's Cathedral in Mid-Levels. We sell second hand clothing, shoes, bags...basically everything. I thought it would be a really good idea if we could sell our things at the church. However, when I called the cathedral, they said that I had to be part of a women's association in order to be able to hold events at the cathedral.

We desperately searched for ALL possible churches and cathedrals in Hong Kong and called each one of them up. Unfortunately, the answers were either a no, or they didn't understand what we were talking about.

I asked a friend of mine for some help and he told me that his helper went to a church in Sheung Wan and she was close to the reverend. I got the number of the reverend and called her and told her about our project. She was very willing to do it and knew that the Filipinos would definitely appreciate the sale. Unfortunately, she did not have an available date for us apart from June.

Jessie and I went through some stressful talks and meetings but we were able to solve our problem in the end. We decided to have our sale at the function room in the clubhouse at my apartment complex. We printed out fliers and posters and slipped them in everyones mailbox. We knew that some helpers would definitely come and check the sale out, and since its so close by to their homes, it would be very convenient.

The sale is going to be this Friday! We're holding the sale late from 5-10pm so people would have plenty of time to come and check things out.

We're both very excited!!

Hope you are too.

- Ji

CLEAN OUT YOUR CLOSET!

Ji and I have decided to transform my original idea of having a clothes-swap to having a "yard sale" so to speak. We want to keep with our original plan of having our project fashion-related and also use the designs we spent a lot of time over into something thus we have planned our very own yard sale. We will use the T-shirt designs to make posters and advertise our event. Our event will be held on May 13th-14th in the Black Box Theatre and on the field in conjunction with Emblazon Art Event. (Although we have not discussed this yet but earlier in the year Danielle said we could do t-shirt sales).

Pass the message along - we're looking for all kinds of donations! Clothing, jewelry, home accessories, candles, etc.

Now What?

So Jessie and I have been avoiding the topic for a long long loooong time.

Because, we're both scared and we don't know what to do. The T-Shirt project seems impossible right now. We still haven't figured out how we're going to graphically draw our designs again since China Trade can't do it for us. We also lost so much time because of the interim and Chinese New Year...we're both in panic state right now because we don't know what to do!

But I was thinking... we have four designs and they are all quality art work. I thought it would be a whole waste of time and effort if we didn't do anything with these. So, what can we do with these designs? Something else, maybe something easier than printing t-shirts with them? I want to do something creative, and I'm sure Jessie wants to do the same because this was the whole purpose of our project. Even if we may not be able to make t-shirts, we can still do something with our designs...but what?

Jessie we need to have a meeting soon!

-ji

March 21st Update

I'm scared :( :(

It's already March and we still don't have anything done so I know that it's time to start thinking about changing our project.

Even if we find ways to print our shirts now we have almost NO time to sell them.

I have some ideas of a "new" project:
1. Spoke to Ms. Nolasco about maybe LEARNING how to print t-shirts. The problem is that we wouldn't make a profit and not having a profit means nothing for HK AIDS.
2. Sell OTHER things to make a profit. Bake sales, jewelry, etc.
3. Still have that "clothes swap" event.

What do you think Ji?

I'm Panicking Too...

Uh oh...

As Jessie mentioned below, it's already February! What happened to 'let's have our tshirts by December?'. EEK! obviously that didn't happen.

I'm just SO SO SO frustrated about the drawing pad, because I HAD one working perfectly, and just when I wanted to draw all the designs again, it stopped working! Then I tried borrowing another one from a friend of mine and his didn't work very well on a MAC OR a PC. It's really really frustrating. If we can just get these designs transferred digitally soon enough, everything else will be easy. All we would need to do is wait for the T-shirts to arrive.

So, I'm thinking...if Eric can't get a graphic designer to make the designs again for us, then we're either going to have to buy a new drawing pad that DOESN'T lag and actually works or we're going to have to just submit the hand drawn designs. The latter is...impossible.

What do we dooooo???

Jessie and I both really don't wan to change our project. We came so far and I really don't want to give up right now. Pleaseeee someone help!!

-ji

Oops...

I am really starting to worry now. I'm scared that I might have to change my project because even though Ms. Nolasco said not to panic, I'm SCARED. My project needs t-shirts and we need a lot of time to sell these t-shirts and we don't have much time right now. It's already February and it's almost May!

The good news is that we got the funding from the Jim Handrich Service fund. We get $6,000 for our t-shirts, which is great news. That pretty much covers the majority of the costs for the t-shirts but the problem is actually GETTING THE T-SHIRTS DONE!!
Our problem is that the files that we send to the company has to be in Adobe Illustrator format. We have no idea how to put our designs onto Adobe Illustrator because our designs are complex and not easy to do. Our solution was to use a drawing pad but we can't seem to find a drawing pad that is compatible with our computers. On both my Mac and PC computer, there is a lag with the drawing pad and it's difficult to control the pad to draw our designs onto the t-shirts.

This is a major problem and we are both concerned.

I tried to email the company again asking if we can just draw on paper, scan and send but he said no.
I'm so scared and I don't know what to do :( I don't want to change this project because I love the idea of it and how much we can accomplish but there are just so many complications. I'm really starting to panic and I need to know how we can resolve this.


As you can see his English is not that good. I emailed him again but he is on CNY break so let's hope he'll get back to me ASAP. If not it's time to panic!

Ji and I are still very busy with school (we are still both not done with apps) and so this is becoming a problem for us. We hoped that second semester would mean more time but it clearly has not freed up any time for us.

What I hope to accomplish is to find a solution to this illustrator problem. How are we going to send this to the company? I hope Eric replies to my email soon with some solutions.

Jessie

Jessie's Update

Oops it's 10pm and I was meant to do this earlier today.

OK Ji has pretty much summarized our progress below.

I just wanted to add that I came up with a pretty genius idea the other day. This would happen sometime next semester after we get our t-shirts made.

My idea is to hold an event (i.e. school cafeteria function room, gym, MS black box theater or even a function room in my clubhouse) and invite as many people as possible meaning students, teachers and parents, friends, etc.

We would sell tickets for this event. Let's say the ticket costs $150. Each ticket will come with a free t-shirt from our StyleAIDS project.

At the event, they would come and bring a maximum of five items of clothing that they no longer want or need, or they have grown out of (but nothing with broken zips, torn fabric, sweat stains - ew, etc.) and give it to us. We would then divide it up into three sections: designer (i.e. Gucci, Chanel, Calvin Klein, etc.), high street/street (Zara, H&M, CWB street shops) and vintage. With every item of clothing they bring in, we will give them a piece of paper.

i.e. 1 designer, 3 high street and 1 vintage I would get a total of 1 pink paper (designer), 3 yellow papers (high street) and 1 blue paper (vintage). With these papers I can then go to each designated station and get a new item of clothing! I would just trade the slip of paper with a new (or rather, second hand) item of clothing!

So this would be an eco-friendly way of getting new clothes and not throwing away any old clothes! Every woman/girl I know has clothes that they've grown out of but never got around to throwing it out - so why not bring it to this clothes swap? It's economical, environmental and you know what they say - one woman's trash is another woman's treasure! At the end of the event, whatever clothing is still left and not traded we would bring to a Salvation Army. Perfect end!

The only problem is - would people actually come to this? Do you think people would actually want to come? I'm scared that it won't be popular. So that's why I came up with the idea of giving a free t-shirt with every ticket sold. But I'm scared that's still not a big enough incentive for people to come! What do you think Ms. Nolasco? Would you come to this?

Jessie