Happy Monday everyone! Have you all recovered from your post-Thanksgiving food comas yet? I’m still a little on the sluggish side, and taking advantage of all the amazing deals from the past few days, including the Cyber Monday 35% off sale from American Adorn (that goes until the end of the day Monday November 30th)! Jacqueline and I have been in talks for a little while about a collaboration, because she has a store that embodies so many of my beliefs when it comes to shopping and supporting businesses. I am so happy to introduce you to both Jacqueline and American Adorn this week, and also offer you all an opportunity to win a $50 store credit (open internationally)!
Jacqueline Taylor is a first generation American who runs American Adorn – an online American made children’s clothing store. Her parents immigrated here from Azores, Portugal and she was born and raised in Watsonville, California. Jacqueline went to San Diego State University as a Biology major, where she met her husband. She originally wanted to become a Wildlife Veterinarian but in her plan to save the world she happily settled for becoming a Wildlife Biologist instead. She and her husband run on a plant based diet and try to be as green and as kind as possible. They now live in Livermore, CA with our four year old daughter and their rescued Rottweiler, Charlie!
Jacqueline started American Adorn after having her daughter in 2011. Our country was in the midst of a huge recession and when Jacqueline started taking a closer look at where our money was going she saw that it was mostly going overseas – not the way to strengthen and stimulate our local economies! She is also not a big fan of the lax labor and environmental regulations present in so many manufacturing operations overseas, so Jacqueline decided to, at the very least, buy only American made products for her daughter in order to contribute to the struggling economy. She had such a hard time finding anything, in store or online, that fit the US made parameters, that she started joking that she was going to open my own store.
Two years later Jacqueline had been at her job for four years and wasn’t loving it, a huge reason being that she wasn’t changing the world the way she had hoped. Her spirits were lifted, however, when her dream job became available at another company, but after she got to the exam portion of the application process she found out that she did not get the job. After finding out, she called her husband, crying that she didn’t get the job, and telling him that she was going to start the business she had been joking about for years, and rather than laughing her off, Jacqueline’s husband supported that decision, and now here she and American Adorn are today!
After deciding to follower her dreams, coming up with a name was her next step! A huge factor in choosing a name for an online business is having an available domain, and with that in mind Jacqueline wanted to use the word American, since the theme was “American Made”. Friends and family suggested “American Made Children’s Clothing”, but she felt that it was so boring – her domain needed to be more creative. Jacqueline spent a lot of quiet moments with a thesaurus, and found several other fun words for clothing, including Adorn. Thus, American Adorn made its way to her list of potential names. Jacqueline was at work when she asked a co-worker to make the final decision, and she told Jacqueline that American Adorn sounded really cool. Since ‘cool’ was what she was going for, she stuck with it!
Another reason Jacqueline was driven to start her own business was her daughter. After she was born, Jacqueline was so stressed about the long hours she had to spend at work that she never wanted to do anything or go anywhere, because she had to be up early and was too tired. This was not the way she wanted to live, she wanted to be able to set her own schedule so that she could spend more time with her daughter and family! While owning her own business is still very stressful, it is in a far more rewarding and ‘horribly fun’ way!
Funny enough, Jacqueline was the girl everyone made fun of because she had no fashion sense. She has always been creative and loved art, but it just took her a while to translate that love into fashion (andplusalso, she was “busy being a nerd”!). She always felt that she had an obligation as an environmentalist and animal lover to work in science, but after seven years, she desperately needed a creative outlet and now feels much more grounded with American Adorn.
Balance is always something that I struggle with personally, so I love hearing how other entrepreneurial women ‘figure it all out’. Jacqueline just quit her day job (but is still working on an ‘as needed’ basis), but was previously having a really really rough time with work. She was working 70 hours a week, in addition to American Adorn, and spending any kind of time with her family was a struggle. The lack of family time pushed her over the edge and made her quit her job. Money is tight but to Jacqueline it’s worth having more time, in addition to having her sanity back. “Life has been great the last couple weeks” and she hopes it continues in this direction!
Choosing one (or even three) favorite(s) from American Adorn is basically impossible. After several days and hours I decided to get H he adorable Fox and Hedgehog Hoodie from Winter Water Factory, VW Camper Tee Shirt from Orangefactory and Midnight Corduroy Pants from Hoonana and they are on heavy rotation around these parts. Of course, seconds before pictures, H decided to be the toddler he is an spill all over his cords, and thus they are sadly missing from this post, so you’ll just have to trust me on their amazingness.
My parents recently bought an old school VW camper, and although it’s not quite as cool as the one pictured on Oragefactory’s tee from American Adorn, H loves that he has a ‘wwaahn’ on his belly! The VW tee is perfectly vintage and is my parent’s current favorite piece of clothing that H owns. I love that it’s 100% cotton and soft agains H’s skin, and I feel like it totally belongs in the next reprise of Dazed and Confused. As soon as I saw Winter Water Factory’s hoodie with foxes and hedgehogs, I knew I had to have it for H. Not only is it organic cotton, but it is crazy adorable and is perfect for this time of year! We have a fox mask from Opposite of Far that somehow increases the cute factor of this organic hoodie and the 3T fits both H’s 30ish pound body and his adult-sized noggin, which makes it perfect for layering under jackets or wearing alone over a tee for lots of Fall adventurous fun. The Corduroy pants are the only non-legging pants that H has that actually let his little chunky toddler legs move and bend, and they fit super easily around his cloth diaper’d bum as well. The dark blue goes with everything and I love that the waistband is elastic with a faux button up so that diaper changes are quick and painless for everyone involved!
Jacqueline’s favorite are Winter Water Factory’s Wild Horses Footed Romper, the Green Paigelauren Sweatshirt and matching Track Pants, and Cavelle Kids Pink Sweater Dress, and I can’t blame her! They are all ridiculously scrumptious!
When she’s not busy running American Adorn, Jacqueline loves to make food from scratch, draw, workout, watch football (go Colts!) and Disney movies (Go Ariel!), and of course, spending as much time as possible with her family. She also enjoys a little Alicia Keys from time to time and would probably belt out Miss Keys’ If I Aint Got You if she were to ever try out for the Voice.
American Adorn’s items are all cruelty-free and vegan, and Jacqueline strives to keep it running as ‘green’ as possible. They carry a lot of organic options, run on solar power, and all of American Adorn’s packaging/shipping materials are 100% recycled, recyclable and reusable. Jacqueline also prides herself on keeping her business as transparent and honest as possible – some of the materials used in some of their lines are imported, so you’ll see an approximate percentage in each product description on her site.
While she is super happy with how things are going now, Jacqueline has BIG dreams for the future! She would love to open up a brick and mortar in Livermore sometime in the near future, and she hopes to one day start a non-profit children’s clothing line where all the proceeds would go to wildlife conservation. If you ever have any questions, comments or suggestions, just send Jacqueline an email!
Make sure to follow American Adorn on their Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest to keep track of sales and specials and all the new releases available on their website!
By entering this giveaway, entrants are confirming they are at least 18 years of age. Giveaway is open to anywhere American Adorn ships (international). This giveaway is in no way sponsored by Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or Pinterest.
What a great giveaway! Hands down, I would get the fox and hedgehog hoodie if I won! It's pretty much the cutest thing I've ever seen! Plus I'm obsessed with foxes, therefore my little guy is too 🙂
Isn't it though?! I bet your little guy would look adorable in it! Good luck Ashley!