Archive for the Lift the World Category

Reveal Your Colors!

Some of you know my story…for those who don’t, I worked in the corporate world for 16 years before deciding to follow my heart.  So many amazing things have happened along the way because of that crazy, but necessary move in my life.  I have traveled to places I never thought possible, and most recently got back from a trip to Italy where I was sourcing the finest leathers available for our next launch in the Spring of 2014.

When I dreamed of the company Consuela, there were many things that went into it.  In particular, Consuela is two things to me. First, it’s my nickname, and alter ego, so all of the things I wanted to do but never dared, Consuela could do! And second, it is based on the word in Spanish consolar, which means to give comfort or make feel better, and it is a personal mission for me through our company to give hope and comfort to others.  By stepping outside of myself I have been able to begin to see these things I dream of happen.

On this trip, I not only got to check out the most amazing sources, I was also able to vacation in Italy where I have never been, with my best friend of 25 years.  Such a gift!  The food, the wine, the landscape, all breath taking.  I can not stop thinking about it and being energized by it.

I hope that you all take a chance and chase a dream that you hold dear, if you see it and put the energy around it in motion, you can make it happen!  Reveal your Colors!!

Here’s some pics of our trip:

In Florence I ate donuts like little clouds (I love sweets! )

Florence

donut

We visited the Tuscan wine country in the Chianti region and we opened, decanted, and drank a bottle from my birth year, 1968!! Amazing.

GroupatWinery

1968bottle

Then we finished the trip with a visit to Ravello on the Amalfi Coast, like nothing I have ever seen! I relaxed, designed, and gazed with awe and appreciation. The attention to detail, in the service, food, even cocktail garnishes reminded me why I love to put detail in Consuela products.  These are things that make people feel special.

RavelloMtnView

TerraceView

PearCucumberMartini

creating

With love and gratitude,

Conni

Happy Earth Day Peeps

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Appreciating the world we live in is so important but we often take it for granted. Toan Lam of Go Inspire Go has the right idea. Today  this  link was circulated around the office. The message just happens to be so timely for Earth Day. Take a minute to check it out. You might just start to notice and appreciate the world around you a little bit more.

Be The Change

This beautiful Friday we take a moment to celebrate an astounding quote by Gandhi.  This quote is celebrated by many; we hope you embody the phrase “be the change” as if it is unobtainable. We have the opportunity to change this world everyday!

Changing the world is possible for all of us—it means you follow your bliss by giving your greatest strengths to the world moment by moment. Maybe that means being present for your family, rockin’ a project at work, exercising to make yourself feel great…endless possibilities for doing what you are doing and being with joy and presence.  When you do this, others do everything in their power to help you succeed because they are magnetically drawn to you. This means that you inspire everyone you know to do the same, as they want the same feeling for themselves. Then these folks embrace their own paths and draw people to them. All of this equates to affecting countless people in one tremendous ripple and together we change the world.

We hope you can take something personal away from this quote and practice it daily.  It’s truly astonishing what one person can accomplish with the right mind set and confidence that they are great and good.  Here’s to making the world around you a better place one day at a time.  Viva Consuela!

Happy Mother’s Day!

Happy Friday all!  We want to wish a very blessed Mother’s Day weekend to all of you special women. Mothering is the ultimate selfless act, and we celebrate you for cultivating so much love.

To honor you all, we wanted to share with you an uplifting video from DiscoverHope, one of the philanthropic organizations we support.  DiscoverHope provides an opportunity for women in poverty to create their own prosperity through microcredit, entrepreneurship, and training.  By gaining access to capital and education, women who are historically denied credit and education build support to create their own businesses, lift their families out of poverty, and shape their own destinies.

We’ll keep you posted about our proud sponsorship of DiscoverHope’s upcoming Band Together for Hope concert featuring Del Castillo on June 15 in Austin. Enjoy the footage of over 200 mothers rejoicing; we hope you do the same!

Be Weird.

When was the last time you celebrated yourself? Inside of you is abundance just longing to be accessed and there is no better time than now to tap into that power.  So give yourself credit and rejoice in your purpose by answering these questions about how you lift the world!

  • What do people like about spending time with me?
  • How do I help people (family, friends, clients or co-workers)?
  • What do people say when they recommend me to a friend?
  • What are my talents and passions?
Happy Monday, everyone!

Roadmap to Consuela culture

The Consuela blog highlights our core and directing mission and as such, we look forward to groovin’ with you through four unique sections that depict our foundational values:

Let us start by saying that we aren’t going to be the folks who try to contain or define beauty.  We don’t want beauty to feel exclusionary.  On the contrary,

Consuela rejoices in the inclusion of vast,
wonderful, and unique people.

Being fashionable to us is about having the chance to express your inside on the outer layers of your life.  Perhaps one day that is embracing yourself with the remarkable warmth and comfort of an oversized soft knit sweater, or the vulnerability and clean feeling of a face with no makeup. On another day you could find yourself accentuated with liquid eyeliner and multi-colored wedges, or colored skinny jeans, or a flowing floral skirt, or an extra large vintage leather bag and mega-accessories. The variations of expression are endlessly inspired!  The fun of this all is that we are real people who don’t live in a “beauty bubble” and we won’t pretend to.  We’ll certainly show you how we like to rock style, color, texture and lifestyle in how we show up in the world.  And…we hope it goes without saying that we’ll have a blast giving you ways to color your experiences with Consuela products to give serious glow to your lives.

One covenant we have in our Consuela culture is celebration.

You know when you get a deep breath of peace and realize it’s all going to be OK…if even just for a brief moment?

We are committed to creating this for one another.  Let’s face it; we all need this as often as possible!

We are accessible and kind and adore a good ol’ sense of humor…and we want you to know us this way.  We’ll give you glimpses into our own Consuela Universe—highlighting what we dig about music, art, dining, travel and what the “happs” are around the office (like unpacking 500+ boxes of totes, coffee talk in our living room, etc.).  Of course, we’ll highlight how we jazz our own lives up with our slight addiction to Consuela products and all the good stuff (and road bumps) of developing a company culture that covets laughter framing an insatiable love for “Be-ing Consuela.”

We hope you’ll want to participate in growing the Consuela Culture Club with us…our very own “goodness revolution.”  What is that, you ask? Pure bliss —an egoless social network for women where you can celebrate the art of YOU. What’s required of you? Participate as you are with a sense of humor. We look forward to providing the framework of many occasions to create spaces and places for mutual lift-off. The opportunities will be both big and small for diverse women to engage in all sorts of activities from small group topic discussions to larger than life parties. Your ticket into the club? Be YOU. We are sure about one thing: when we celebrate life, we lift the world.


Another value that tops our company list:

practice and participate in giving and getting love
that inspires, lifts and heals the world. 

Truly, what else matters?  We want this for the collective “Us,”… and in our very best form on our best day, we all want this.  In this part of our blogosphere, we are committed to giving you our golden nuggets of delight to remember the remarkable person you are.  Maybe these musings will catch you on top of your own wave and give you a rad ride throughout your day—or our reflections may lift you from the valley where you are feeling alone.  In short, we want you to know that we are all moving through this together—and the fabric of support is both present and large for each of us.


There’s a reason the bag tag on our newest totes declares the following:

We are a spectrum of amazement. We love the Walt Whitman quote: Do I contradict myself?  Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.  We celebrate our prerogative to change and reinvent all throughout our lives.

We can’t wait to highlight the reflections of our very own Founder and favy designer, Conni Reed.  She is our “Consuela,” the comforter, the visionary, the woman who encourages us all to dwell in possibility and support each other in these actions.  She too is as multi-talented as we all are: business woman, friend, sister, aunt, fashionista, creative artist, wine lover, life seeker…you’ll get to see it and feel it and we know you’ll find yourself in there.

To our journey together—

Viva Consuela!


Multitudes.

We adore this Walt Whitman quote– and there’s a reason the bag tag on our Couture tote declares the following:  Celebrate you. Multi-faceted. Festive. Saturated. Fun. Curious. Feminine. Confident. Vivid. Textured. Hued. Unique. Inspired.  The Consuela woman is every woman, everywhere, dynamic and vibrant in her heart and her life.  We are a spectrum of amazement and celebrate our prerogative to change and reinvent all throughout our lives.  So shine on in all your multitudes!

Be Consuela!

Consuela was fashioned in that magical moment of possibility.  Reflecting on the beaches of a Cozumel vacation, potentiality splashed in sun reflected waves lapping through toes warming in the soft sand. A deep sigh of relief exhaling dreams of living with freedom and peace—released back into the great body of water—and the idea for Consuela was born.

We all know and get these miraculous moments that unfold in our lives. Frequent or not, they sweep us off of our feet to deliver us reprieve and to remind us that we are interconnected and alive to birth an amazing story.  What do your moments look like? Maybe noticing the first electric lime green bud barely peeking out from a bare winter tree branch…or a song that carries the exact right words or notes to bring alive what you are feeling…a meal that bursts with flavorful intonations that make your heart savor happiness…a baby’s flawless skin and smile…laying in your pajamas on a Saturday morning with no agenda…whatever your magical moments look like—we honor them.

Consuela thrives on these magical moments.  In fact, we even coined our active phrase…

…to remember that this life is indeed a verb, not a static noun.  We are in the action of unfolding what is possible in our lives.  More or less, we want Consuela to be more than just our “company”—for us it is the larger “Us”—a movement, a vibe, a synergy of living and loving connected by care and inspiration.  Through it, we’ll experience the highs and lows and in betweens together…with the goal of living a positive and joyful life.  Authenticity is what you can expect from our blogosphere.

Our greatest desire is to create a space where you can be embraced EXACTLY where you are—knowing that you deserve to dream for yourself new possibilities.

We’re hoping you decide to voyage along with us. Next week we will be giving you the goods on how we want to unfurl this fun, with the caveat that this dream is unfolding with “Us” in a dynamic conversation, so we know it will take on a life of its own as we move through the living layers together.

As we say, Viva Consuela! (Live in Possibility)