While our esteemed founder has been reluctantly resting (per doctor’s orders) and besides working my usual husbandly care and duties, I’ve also been tweaking the website as it is evolving over time. So I want to take this moment to illustrate what I’ve been doing under the hood and what our awesome supporters and friends can expect in the coming months as we sneak into Fall and Winter and the close of a nice 2010 season.

First off, I’ve been reorganizing our online store. If you haven’t noticed, there is now a product filter at the top of all shop pages to help you better navigate our extensive catalogue. I will be moving the checkout and policies text to the store as well and out of our primary navigation in the next week. Also, a big change that is coming this holiday season: we will be offering bundled sets of notecards that you can create yourself in place of the individual card sales. An exciting and neat feature we’re hoping to roll out after a little bit of testing and QA making sure I don’t mess up the coding of the cart. These tweaks will certainly keep me busy this fall as we get closer and closer to holiday season. I’m also happy to annouce that we’ve placed some strategic advertising on crafty sites to keep spreading the word and raising awareness about endangered animals. In all – busy busy.

I’d also like to open up the floor to take any suggestions or requests that you’d like to see on our website to help us improve the entire experience. What would you like to see added? Changed? Send us a note as we’d love to hear your ideas!

If you frequent this site or read our updates you may have noticed a shift in product direction. We get many questions from customers and friends about it and I think its a good time to be more public about our intentions. When I started this business over two years ago, my intent was to raise awareness for endangered animal conservation through my art. Somewhere along the way, it became pretty evident that I was being categorized as a t-shirt artist. No issues with that, however, I definitely didn’t want the art to take a back-seat to this. Fast forward to today and coupled with the rising costs of cotton and restrictions on selling shirts in popular artist vending venues has urged the shift in focus to the artwork.This does not mean the t-shirts are done. We still have quite a few in stock – but they will only be available in our online store (unless we note otherwise). All it means is that the focus of our product releases will be on the artwork. We will produce more shirts in the future, but in a more special and limited capacity.

Of course that also means that there must be some type of reorganization to our website in order. With that said, I am happy to annouce some exciting changes going forward. On July 1st, we will be showing off a re-organized shopping catalogue in our online store as well as rearranging our growing library of endangered animal facts and information. My hubby has been hard at work on all of this and I am sure it will be fantastic as we continue through the summer and beyond. In the meantime, feel free to drop by my Etsy shop for most of my latest pieces. Thank you all for your support and love.

Quick – when I say dhole, what do you think of? Most people have no idea what a dhole even is. It is probably because there are so little of them left in the world. Growing up in Thailand, I was somewhat aware of their existence but after doing some research, I was saddened to hear about their plight. This inspired me to raise awareness about the dhole with my newest painting – “Daydreaming.” This dreamy pair will be available soon in note cards, art prints and mounted art prints. Look for them soon

They are known for their extraordinary vocals – mostly for alerting pack-mates on dangerous conditions. Dholes are South Asiatic Wild Dogs that live in organized, extended family packs with a strict social hierarchy. Not the typical canine breed, as their range is severely fragmented and is falling under critical concerns. It is estimated that only 2500 Dholes are left in the wild worldwide. In the Wildlife Act of 1972, these little reddish-brown pups were officially declared as endangered due to rampant habitat destruction.

Sometime over the past few days the gray, rainy skies conceded to the ushering in of Spring, daylight savings and the SUN. Yes, New York City is officially in paradise mode this week as people are shedding their winter gear and grumpy scowls. But do you know what that means for us? No, not just baseball season (but don’t tell my husband that) – but also outdoor market season! It has been almost eighteen weeks since we’ve last hit the pavement displaying our art and apparel. And now we’d like to formally announce that we will be making our jubilant return to the Union Square Market this coming Saturday!

Come join us at the Union Square Artists Market and have first dibs on our exciting full lineup of notecards and prints! We will have a bunch of shirts on hand as well as we know you guys want something new and hip to wear for the Spring season. Definitely sign up to my twitter account or facebook fan page for daily updates on market days as we know how unpredictable those clouds can be. We’ll see you guys, downtown.

Last November, my husband and I were visiting family in Bangkok. During our stay there, we spent most of our early morning breakfast time watching one of the most talked about channels in Thailand – the Lin Ping Panda Live Cam. Best reality TV show ever! It’s basically a live feed of a baby giant panda’s day-to-day life in a Chiang Mai Zoo with her mother. My husband and I were absolutely drawn to this adorable, playful baby based on our love for pandas. Hey I have a bunch of baby stuffed pandas at home.

Anyhow, the little panda inspired me to redesign and reimagine the panda pattern I posted last year to include a second little panda as they play and frolic about their young, uncomplicated lives. As we all know, these beautiful creatures are endangered, and I feel it is our duty (as panda lovers) to spread the word and hope of the animal that is the symbol of preservation, as well as WWF’s logo mascot.

That being said, we’d love to debut our newest addition to our lineup, the Playful Pandas available in art prints and note cards. Let me know what you think.

We are wrapping up yet another fierce week for Ecopatterns as we have expanded our lineup of Note Cards as we close out January and look ahead to the rest of the year’s plans.

We have been getting a lot of questions on our plan for 2010 and whether we’ll be setting up in the Union Square Market and we figured we’d address it here. 2009 was a banner year for us in the Artist’s Market in Union Square (NYC) and we achieved our fundamental purpose of establishing brand recognition and raising awareness of our endangered animal concerns. That is not to say that we are done with Union Square but our presence there in 2010 will be less noticeable for the foreseeable future. No way! We love being there. Our plan is to select certain weekends throughout the Spring, Summer and Fall to once again set up our display and meet all our new patrons and friends as well as some of our awesome group of repeat customers. We’ve also pegged the Columbus Avenue Green Flea on the Upper West Side as another venue that we will certainly explore. In all, we look to expand our reach as we cultivate our growth with our business.

For more information and alerts about when and where EcoPatterns will be making appearances in 2010 and beyond, sign up to our Facebook Fan Page or follow @Malathip on Twitter!