We Made It! Now Pretty, Pretty Please Vote for Us!

Well dear readers, we've got some news for you, oh yes we do...

Recently, we entered a small business grant competition, where we told the story of Mountains of the Moon, and discussed owner/designer Melissa Baswell's (that's me!) challenges in starting an eco-friendly fashion company. 1,900 businesses entered, and our lo and behold, our lil' old story was chosen as one of the 50 finalists! We were then given about a week to make a short (less then 4 minute) movie telling the story. As we do with our company and clothing, we put a lot of time and passion into creating the video. (And stayed up until 3 AM way too many nights in a row for there to be no organic wine involved).

We hope that you love us as much as we love you, and that you will take a few minutes to watch our video and learn more about how we overcame struggles in an industry that wasn't always open to eco-friendly fashion. And then we hope you'll vote for us! Vote, vote vote! For a small environmentally and socially conscious clothing label, fighting to move forward and grow is a major challenge, especially in an economic crisis. This grant would help us to continue our mission.

Details on how to vote and a link to the story are below. If you like our video, we hope that you will also spread the word! Pass this on to your friends, your family, your cute little doggy, post it on your facebook pages or message boards or groups you are part of, write about it on your blog, paint it across your chest and run free through the forest - anything you can do is of course fabulous and appreciated. 60% of our score is up to the judges, but 40% is based on the votes that we get from all of you - our blog readers, customers, colleagues, shops/boutiques, and friends. The voting ends on May 31st.

Here is the link to our video: Passion, Perseverance, & Pigeon Poop: the Story of Mountains of the Moon Eco.Fashion

DIRECTIONS ON HOW TO VOTE:
(NOTE: Please use Firefox as your browser if you can. The voting doesn't seem to work in Internet Explorer).
1. Go to the link above and watch the video.
2. To the right of the video there will be three links (in blue) that say Inspiring, Useful, and Funny (hopefully you will choose all three!). Click on one of the links.
3. You will be prompted to either sign in (if you voted on our story in the last round, you can use the same user ID and password; if you forgot your password, click on the forgot password link and they will e-mail it to you), or create an account. Creating an account takes less than 10 seconds, and you never have to use it again (and Intuit will not send you spam or e-mailers).
4. After that, click on the other two as well (if you clicked on "Inspiring" before signing in or creating an account, now click on "Useful" and "Funny.") There is also a place to post a comment which is optional.
5. Now pass it on! :)

Finally, I'd like to thank my amazing boyfriend Robbie for his help with this. This man is on the road as Stage Manager Extraordinare for weeks at a time, and he spent the few days he is home and able to rest learning video editing and being my movie-making partner in crime. I'd also like to thank our wonderful friend and incredibly talented musician Jake Cinninger for the original music he donated to the story. Bost most of all, thank YOU. Mountains of the Moon exists because of you, period.

I hope you enjoy watching the story of our beginnings, and that you'll vote for us and help us continue our mission to design conscious, chic clothing that helps, not hurts, the earth.

Love, love, love,
Melissa (& Kari, Rachel, Morgan & Corinne too)