Category Archives: Blog

And the winner is…

I have been so excited for today — you would have thought that I had entered and had a chance at winning. I guess I was just excited to see which of you would win — I had so much fun reading all your comments and I really wished all of you could win!

I wasn’t sure how we were going to choose a winner, so I asked my 11-year old son Noah to choose a number between one and 100 (to coorospond with each comment) He chose a number and the winner is….

Sarah Miller! 

I “like” (but really LOVE!) Mimi Green on Facebook!

Posted by: Sarah | January 02, 2012 at 10:21 PM

Congrats Sarah, you win a laminated cotton collar & leash of your choice! (we will email you with all the details!)

and… she’s not the only lucky winner today.

Our runner up, who wins for being the most creative (I mean, he made a sign people!) is…

Louiesign
Louie the Frenchie and his momma Jess!  

Louie wins a laminated cotton collar of his choice.

 

Thanks for entering! That was really fun, we’ll be sure to do it more often!!

 

Things we love: The New Year & Our New Camera!

Happy (almost) New Year! I don’t know about you, but I’m planning on this coming year being one of the best yet. I turned 30 last month, Mimi Green is doing great & life is very good. There are a few things that I decided I am going to do differently this year, one is that I am finally going to make time for things that make me want to sing from the rooftop — you know, things that really make my heart glow. One of my most favorite things in the world is blogging and this past year I really put that on the back burner. In 2012 you are going to see lots more from me on this blog!

Secondly, I am bought myself a newer, fancier camera and I am making a vow to use it everyday. I also bought a bag that allows me to carry all my purse stuff and my camera (in the same awesome bag! Review of that later) so I have no excuses for not having my camera with me. Photography is one of my great loves in life (Dan’s too, we met while I was an undergrad and he was a grad student in photography, but that is a whole ‘nother story!)

And that brings me to my post. It takes a lot of gear to keep Mimi Green running smoothly and new Mimi Green gear is VERY exciting to me. We get lots of questions about who shoots our products (I do!), what camera we use to shoot them, what sewing machines we use, etc.  All of these items we use have been Chupa approved (two paws up) and I’d love to tell you about some of them — starting with my newer, fancier camera….

canon 60d review

I had a wonderful SLR the past 4 years — the Canon Rebel XTi. I was always a Nikon gal until my D100 failed me during Auggie’s birth. I felt traumatized and Dan loves Canon so I switched teams and I’m glad I did. Nothing against Nikon (except for the birth photos fail!) but something about my Canon just feels like home to me, it feels right. I know, not a very quantitative review, but I am a super passionate person who leads with her heart, what can I say!

canon 60d review and canon rebel xti

(I took this photo with my iphone, it’s not great but you get the picture 😉

I loved the XTi, took every product photo you see on our website with it. And its been great, 4 years without one problem and I have been rough on it. And I would have been totally happy with it for quite awhile longer except that I saw and held a Canon 60d one day last month. I was wowed by the 60d’s substantial body, its BIG flip out screen, the fact that it also shoots video! I felt a bit guilty that my loyalty to my XTi faded so fast & I almost ignored my desire to stray until I read about the 60d’s specs on-line.

Although the Rebel has always been fantastic for products that don’t move, it wasn’t always great for shooting my son on the soccer field or our hyper doggy models. The 60d promised to be much faster than my little XTi and based on that I took the bait.

Dan tried to get me to look at the even faster models, but they were all so BIG and heavy. I’m not a tripod kind of person so I really didn’t want the extra weight. And for what I need it for, the 60d is still a lot of camera.

canon 60d review and rebel xti

I’ve had the 60d now for about a week and am falling further in love with it everyday. There are so many featrures to explore and learn about — I’ve done somthing new with it everyday since I got it & I still haven’t learned about all its possibilities.

Today I shot our new laminated cotton collars and it was like a dream — I can’t wait to show you all the finished product.

And there’s no need to worry about the fate of the Rebel XTi. Our office manager Paula is going to give it a new home & since the beautiful Chupa lives with Paula, I’m sure it will be very happy shooting for many years to come at its new home.

Mimi Green, Jonathan Papelbon, MSPCA and Gucci?? Say what?!

This month we had the honor of dressing a dog for the fashion show at the MSPCA-Angell Animal Tales Gala.  The Gala raised a whopping $481,000 for Boston’s MSPCA!

 Not only did we get to dress sweet Lucille in the fashion show, but Red Sox pitcher Jonathan Papelbon and his wife Ashley waked her down the runway!

Jonathan Papelbon & Mimi Green dog

 

Boston’s WCVB’s news reporter and anchor, Randy Price announced,

First we welcome Red Sox pitcher Jonathan Papelbon and his wife Ashley walking the beautiful Lucille, whose accessories tonight are by Mimi Green and Gucci.

Excuse me, were the words “Mimi Green” and “Gucci” used in the same sentence?!?! Heck yes they were! And to top it off “Jonathan Papelbon” too!!??

Jonathan Papelbon Red Sox & Mimi Green Leash / harness

Here’s Lucille with the shelter staff. The MSPCA does great work for animals in their community and we felt so happy and honored to be able to help in the small way we did.

MSPCA, Mimi Green, Jonathan Papelbon

(photos by Bill Brett and Topher Cox and beautiful Lucielle is wearing the Fidora Harness and Leash )

 

 

 

Can’t wait for the dog days of summer!

Its been a long and interesting Winter/Spring here at Mimi Green. Professor Chicken fell in love, and I mean IN LOVE, with one of our employees, Hilary. Everyone was super sad in March when Hilary moved to France to take care of her grandpa, Chicken was especially hurt.  Although we admired what she was doing, we have all taken her move really hard.   We’ve all joked about mailing ourselves to France to see Hilary, but Chicken seems to be taking it seriously.

mimi green cat professor chicken blue russian

Mimi Green had some exciting news this Spring too. We were honored by being featured by In the Company of Dogs catalogue! They took some awesome photos of our embroidered personalized webbing collars, and the collars have had great reception. It is so exciting to see our work in print, especially with a company as cool as In the Company of Dogs!

embroidered webbing dog collars Other than that, we have just been super busy filling orders — so busy I have again been neglecting my blog! But hopefully that will change this month because on May 21 I am going to be lucky enough to get to stay home half days with Augustine.

mimi green dog collar flowers

He is getting gigantic (and really scary!) and I am feeling a bit nostalgic about when he was a baby and I got to hang with him all day.

IMG_7261

He will be 4 this year — I can’t believe it since I started Mimi Green when he couldn’t even sit up on his own yet! I figure I don’t have much time left till Kindergarten and I have my whole life to work 😉 Good thing I have such an awesome, supportive husband that is willing to work twice as hard to cover for me!

Anyway, Auggie and I are planning super fun stuff to do with each other (and the doggies) so I will have lots to blog about.

I better run for now, goodnight from everyone here at MG, especially sleepy Chupa!

chupa the mimi green pug

Introducing Professor Chicken!

So we got a new worker here at Mimi Green and he's really smart, a professor in fact. russian blue cat Dan and I looked and looked for a kitty, we must have met 20 cats.  This little (well, he's kind of big for a cat, 12 lbs or so) Russian Blue we met on the first day of looking just stole our hearts and no other cat compared.

His name at the shelter was Emmitt, but Auggie was insistent that the cat's name was Professor Chicken.

The Professor loves being at the office, mostly he supervises and helps Hilary on her machine.

russian blue cat And Chicken helps me take product photos, which Lord knows I need! russian blue chicken cat
I never thought that I liked cats, I am a BIG dog person, but this cat has totally changed my mind. His purring is so soothing, it is hard to have a bad day with his sweetness around.  I read that cat's purring helps relieve stress and aids in general healing. I don't know if I would have believed all that before Chicken, but just look at him, how can it be denied!

russian blue kitty, chicken

 

(Yes, I did put pink claw clovers on his nails. FYI, real men wear pink;)

Wanna Borrow My Rubit Images?

So my good friend over at the wonderful website http://www.BarkSlope.com just had some of his original images ripped off by a kind of lousy website that was too lazy to photograph the products themselves. Needless to say, my friend is pretty upset since they didn’t even bother to ask him to use the images.

I, on the other hand, have the opposite problem.  In Chicago, at the Backer trade show, our neighbors were the very cool guys from Rubit! — the clip on dog tag holder company. Now these guys have it made. They have brought to market the best idea since the dog tag itself. This little gadget allows owners to easly switch their dog tags from collar to collar – which is great for our customers that have more than one of our collar designs. We knew that we HAD to carry these on our site.

Since they are such a new company, I had problems finding stock images to use, so I took my own. This wasn’t a problem at all since now our customers can see how cool Rubits look on our collars and I love any excuse to pull out my trusty Canon SLR camera!

large rubit clip on dog tag holder
But I also had a secret hope. I was hoping that some sites WOULD rip off my image. Mimi Green is also a fairly new company and I take great joy in spreading the word about our collars. Plus I figured since Rubit hasn’t released a ton of images yet that ours would stand out.

small red rubit dog tag clip
Today I was almost as sad as my friend at Bark Slope was when a simple google image search told me that NO ONE had borrowed my super cool Rubit images! What the heck, right!?!

So here is my public offering — should you be reading this and you would like to use my Rubit images, feel free, very free.

However, we should all remember that the internet is a tricky beast. I want folks to use these particular images, but its all for shamless promotion.  We must respect each other enough to ask other sites should we want to use their images. Stealing to avoid extra work is not cool.

But don’t think of using my Rubit images as “stealing”, lets just call it “borrowing”. And when your customers ask what crazy awesome collars those Rubits are attached to, don’t forget to tell them they are MIMI GREEN!! rubit dog tag clips

PS: Second public decloration of the day — I WILL take better care of this blog. I love it, I do, but Mimi Green has been busy beyond words lately. Will post more about that soon too. Growing is great, but boy has it be exhausting!

Double PS: Rubits rock. I have them on all my doggies since I can NEVER get their tags on and off easily. These make switching collars a sinch. Rubits are on my must buy list for all dog and cat owners!

xo– amanda

Say Goodbye to Doggie Skin Problems!

I should have mentioned in my Easter post what products helped Chupa’s skin so much. Her skin had turned elephant-like in many areas so hair wouldn’t grow there. Paula started using Canine Earth Aweseome Apple Paw Balm on her and it softened her skin right up! Nothing else seemed to work — not the prescribed shampoo, not antibiotics.  But after a few weeks of using the Paw Balm, Chup’s skin not only softened but the hair started to grow back!

natural dog paw balm

The natural balm also works really good on Piggie’s dry nose and its natural antiseptic properties totally healed an infection Chup got in between her toes and between her puggie wrinkles.

A little shout out to Canine Earth, “Canine Earth products are formulated with 95-100% USDA Certified Organic ingredients and have a pH to complement canine skin and coats. The same way human skin can be negatively affected by soaps with high pH and chemical ingredients, the same problems can affect your pet.”

organic dog paw balm and dog shampoo

So far all of the Canine Earth products have totally impressed me. They also make natural, organic dog shampoo and conditioners.

The Mango is my fav, it smells like heaven but isn’t too perfumy.

Chup is my fav too. How can you not love that puggie face!

natural dog shampoo and paw balm

(**Disclaimer: I promise to never push products on you I haven’t tried and don’t adore. We love what we sell and we sell what we love — Mimi Green is truly a labor of love. xoxo **)

Natural Dog Treat Recipe: Banana PB Bones

Our good friend Tico wasn’t feeling too good today.

Tico pit bull, dog treat recipe

He tore off his nail and had to wear his cone of shame (which was probably worse than the torn nail) so we decided to bake him up some doggie bones.

Today, we made Banana Peanut Butter Bones: 

1 organic banana mashed

1/4 c. natural peanut butter

3/4 c. water

2 c. organic whole wheat flour

1 egg This recipe is so easy. Just mix up all the ingredients, and then kneed the dough until it is stiff. Then roll out with a rolling pin to 1/2 inch thickness and use cookie cutters to cut whatever shape suits your fancy 😉 Auggie and I are on a bone kick, so we made all bones.

natural dog bone recipe

Bake for 45 minutes on 350 and let dry for about an hour and tada! Beautiful Banana Peanut Butter Bones.

banana dog treat recipe

Then we made a little care package for Tico.

Kinda looks like the packaging from our Lazy Dog Treats — but really it is a recycled black berry container and stickers from Auggie’s scrap booking kit ; )

peanut butter dog treat recipe

Of course my Piggie was waiting and watching the whole time to make sure I wasn’t giving them ALL to Tico.

black girl pug

and that’s why we call her Piggie 😉

Happy Dog Treat Baking!

 

 

Here Comes Puggie Cotton Tail! An Easter Story.

Easter was super fun for the humans around here, but I think that Paula's pug Chupa had the most fun of all! black pug chupa

She loved the ears and all the attention she was getting because of them 😉 Chup ran around with the kids and hunted eggs. See my uncle's dog Maya in the back? She was sure Chupa was an alien.

IMG_1784

The coolest part about watching her have so much fun is that it was all a first for her. Chupa grew up in a puppy mill in AK and lived in a cage for 6 years. She was a baby maker and nothing else. They fed her such bad food that she lost every single one of her teeth, she was never allowed to walk around so she literally could't walk, her fur was falling off her body due to a skin infection, and the bad food also caused her to go blind and develop a thyroid problem.

New Mexico Pug Rescue  drove to AK in October and brought home Chupa and 20 some of other pugs from the puppy mill.  The man who was going to foster Chup was overwhelmed at her needs and returned her to the rescue less than 24 hours after he picked her up. Somehow I convinced my sister, who didn't even like pugs, to let Chup stay with her.

Not to say Paula wasn't overwhelmed too. The first night she called us crying because she didn't know what to do. The dog smelled so badly, it was like a clump of skin and bones — no muscle tone, couldn't walk on her own, and clearly couldn't see. She looked like the Chupacabra, hence her name, Chupa ;)  I have to say that this was the worst case of animal abuse I have ever seen. I already didn't like puppy mills, but this made me hate them.

Within a month Chup was walking, it was so cool, like watching a baby learn to walk. Her fur started to grow back soon after that. Fast forward  6 months and you can hardly what bad shape she was in.  I mean, she will never have teeth again and she is on 3 different meds for the rest of her life, but she has a spark to her now, her life finally has a meaning. My mom says Chupa is in love with Paula, I think she sees Paula as her savior. And Paula finally admits to liking pugs now.

black pug bunny
See how happy she is with her momma now! Paula adopted her last month which made me so happy because I have become super attached to Chup. She comes with Paula to work everyday at Mimi Green, its like she is out little pug mascot 😉

So that's my story of resurrection, pug style, for this fine Easter day. I hope your day was as special as ours was.

xoxo, Amanda