Red Carpet Ohio: 5/9/10

Friday, May 14

Made With Love Project

These bracelets are made of recycled rubber by women in Djenne, Mali. The sales of these bracelets provides these women with viable means of support and are sold to raise funds for L'Empire des Enfants, a school for homeless children in Dakar, Senegal.

There are many Made Wiith Love products available. I however, chose these bracelets to highlight because of a wonderful girl, originally from Senegal, that I am lucky enough to call family. Check out this site and see what you can do to help change one life. MADE WITH LOVE

The Made With Love project is a non-profit organization raising money and awareness to the non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that are helping women and children in need with the production and sale of fair trade indigenous products. Made With Love supports A.S.A.O and the L'Empire des Enfants program which is helping homeless children from Dakar, Senegal by renting and restoring an abandoned local facility in Dakar to create a center providing these children with shelter, meals, education, and training programs.

For more information on Made With Love check out their site: www.madewithloveproject.com

Behind The Blog

Surprise, I am not originally from Ohio. Four years ago I left the always sunny, palm tree-lined coast of San Diego, California to attend Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. Why? This is the question I am immediately asked as soon as I tell people my story. My answer is: why not?

The first time I spoke to my assigned freshman roommate she asked me where I was going to keep my surf board, and I asked her if her father was a farmer (he was)! Needless to say, we both had stereotypical images of each other before we ever met. I was shocked when she told me that her family GREW their own "POPCORN", and that her father hand build her childhood dollhouse with his own two hands. She was shocked when I showed up to our dorm room with pink carpet, a case full of MAC make up, and bedding from Anthropologie! That day our two worlds collided.

She broke me into Ohio. Showing me that the people here are down to earth, open minded, and make the best friends. I gave her a secondhand look at the city life. She taught me about antiques, and I introduced her to flatirons and department store makeup. Today she is the queen of MAC makeup, and you have to drag me kicking and screaming out of antique stores.

I hope that this blog will be an eye opener for those who have never experienced anything different. My goal is to give the fashionistas the extra push to take a risk, introduce the style gurus to something new, share a little bit of my life as a Cali girl turned Ohioan, and most of all to show the world that Ohio is more than just cornfields and farmers!

xoxo

Tasha Rose