Blog – Rustic Motifs

Are you a responsible consumer?

October 31, 2015March 15, 2017
by Merl

Would you believe me if I tell you, even in the 21st century, slavery exists!

Not only exists but is at its peak and thriving, despite being banned in every country across the World?

You might let it pass thinking, all kinds of people make the World and such unfortunate things do happen, after all there are a lot of mean people out there.

What if I tell you, you and me are also helping slavery thrive not just in other parts of the World, but in our own country. We are equally responsible for ensuring it continues to exist and flourish!

Men, women and children are bought and sold, made to work in inhuman conditions, not paid a penny for their labour and subjected to violence everyday. Defiance most often results in death.

Yes all these are not tales from the medieval times but facts as they exist now in 2015

I recently happened to watch a documentary on Slavery by Brian Woods and Kate Blewett. It is a documentary, which takes us around the World to places where slavery exists and slaves are traded. An industry which depends on misleading people, in stealing innocent children from their homes and taking them to places from where they rarely have a chance to return. From the Ivory coast to the villages of Varanasi where small children are smuggled from other states to farm cocoa or to weave carpets; are made to work for 18-20 hours a day for free. The stories of their misery are soul breaking especially when you realise that they are being treated bad to feed a consumerist society and its ever increasing demand for something better, cheaper.

The chocolate we relish with such joy is paid for with the blood and sweat of innumerable child slaves.’It’s 2015 and there are now more child slaves than there were in 2001. 51% more, in fact. There are now 1.4 million children carrying back-breaking sacks of cocoa, having their bodies whipped and beaten and crushing themselves from dawn to dusk for no pay.’

The carpets we use to adorn our floors and walls are soaked in tears of child slaves, languishing in the hundreds of nondescript looms dotting the length and breadth of Northern India.

Come Diwali and the crackers you burn to express your joy, mostly come from Sivakasi, a place known for abusing children and promoting child labour.

This afternoon, I showed, the documentary to my seven year old son, just to see how he would react, to it. Like any kid his age, he loves his chocolates. He was horrified to see the plight of other kids his age and made a promise that he will avoid eating chocolate and cocoa products. Was I happy to hear that? At some level yes, I am glad he was sensitive towards the plight of another, human being.

But is banning the solution? Will the decision to not buy chocolates or other cocoa products or not buy carpets from such places rid us of our responsibility and part in encouraging such inhuman trade practices?

Not really, a fall in demand is going to result in other problems, a slow demand is going to affect production and the need for cheaper labor to sustain, will only increase the need for more slaves than paid workers.

Instead, we need to act like responsible consumers. We have to be conscious of the choices we make, we have to teach ourselves to know the source of our products, whether the brands we consume act responsibly. We have to push our governments to introduce fair trade certifications for all industries, so that we can choose to buy from companies who ensure fair trade practices. And those who don’t follow, are forced to follow, else they perish.

Retailers, should stop stocking brands that do not have such certifications, the advantage of having a capitalist economy is that the consumer drives the demand, he gets to choose, to decide, to make or break a company.

Change won’t happen overnight, but if each one of us decides to act as a responsible consumer, change is inevitable. It is imperative, we come together and tackle this menace as a community. It is criminal to celebrate and feast when another human has to pay for our treats with his flesh and blood.

We cannot shirk our responsibility and stay indifferent to the plight of millions of unfortunate people, who have been forced to give up on their fundamental right to freedom.

Give it a thought, an unjust World leaves little hope for us and our children…

Post By Merlin Francis

Rustic Motifs Blog

Breaking Ice…

September 15, 2015March 15, 2017
by Merl

We often interact with you through our different social media channels. We share some stories and the things we create, with you. As we engage day after day as a brand and its patrons, it becomes mechanical, more a ritual, than a meaningful act.

Today in this post, I will make an attempt to break that act, to give you an insight about us, the people, who share these updates every now and then and hope that we will no more be just strangers exchanging words through electronic mails/comments and updates, but turn actors, viewers and contributors in this wonderful story we are writing.

The Learning

If I were ever to divide the reactions our status as entrepreneurs earns us from people around us, both known to us and strangers we come across.

I would safely put it into three lots, the ones who are excited by the fact, that we dared to take the plunge and never leave without an encouraging word; then there are those who are in awe and more often envious, but won’t admit it and then there are the kinds, who think we are absolutely crazy to give up our careers at the prime of our lives and get into something that does not promise to make us millionaires or billionaires in the near future 🙂

For us Rustic Motifs is not just a business, in fact it has been our graduation school in the lessons of life. We both have grown as people as individuals in these 3 years. From finding our feet to holding our ground, it is a growth graph we are proud of.

Our confidence is not a product of our personal ambitions and capabilities, but a by product of knowing that we have created a brand with a heart. In our line of business, we do not think how much money we can make, but by, how many lives can we touch. Money is important, it helps us keep the ball rolling but our personal achievements are never measured in currency, maybe that is why despite the odds and challenges, we are able keep the passion alive.

Sharing our secret our 5 point formula, at Rustic Motifs we live by these…

The crazier you are the more creative you get
Success is not a destination, it’s the journey and the moments, live each one of them
You can’t fake passion, it shows in everything you create, so bring it to work everyday
Every failure takes you one step closer to success, you just have to keep trying
Have fun and some more fun in what you do and everything will fall in place.

That’s us. Now we want to hear from you, what drives you, motivates you and gives you sleepless nights. Inspire us! Let us break some ice, let us be more than just a brand and its patrons.

Post By Merlin Francis

Rustic Motifs Blog

Banana Fibre – The Eco Friendly Fibre

August 10, 2015March 15, 2017
by Merl

Natural fibres sourced locally from plants are slowly making inroads into the interior decor arena. Preferred by environmentally conscious people these are safe, eco friendly and durable. One such fibre we work with at Rustic Motifs is source from of Banana stem.

An excellent substitute for plastic and paper, banana fibre products are made with no electricity as it is either handmade / hand loomed by skilled women artisans in rural India. After the fruits and the leaves are harvested, the fibres are extracted from the bark of the banana tree by highly experienced women artisans, thereby utilising renewable farm resources.
No chemicals are used in the manufacture of these products.

Banana Fibre is

Very strong
Light weight
It absorbs as well as releases moisture very fast.
It is bio- degradable and has no negative effect on environment.
It can be spun through almost all the methods of spinning

Handcrafting banana fibre products is the source of livelihood for many women in the interiors of southern India. The women are trained by NGOs working in this area, ensuring they develop skills and earn a healthy income for their efforts. Some are trained to work on the hand loom and others are trained to make hand woven products.

Post By Merlin Francis

Rustic Motifs Blog

Tell Tale Designs – A Dying Art!

May 28, 2015March 15, 2017
by Merl

If you ask me what is that I love most about Rustic Motifs , I will say, the bit where we get to travel, to meet and interact with all kinds of people.

Sometimes as part of our handpicked section, we visit old godowns and warehouses in nondescript towns, most unlikeliest of places to find beautiful handmade creations, treasures hidden under years of dust, mostly forgotten, in the race to provide sleek and shiny more prefect machine made versions. Each of these pieces we hunt down, help us travel back in time, a time when art was yet to be invaded by the need to prove itself by the money it could fetch. A time when the passion to create something unique, something that would last for centuries and treasured was more important.

Each rare, each a manifestation of our belief, that if we don’t save our handmade industry from the eventual doom in the name of progress and modernisation, the generations ahead will never know what it is to create something that is soulful and made with passion.
Today, we have places we can travel to dig out such products and people crazy enough make the journey, tomorrow if we don’t reach out to them and show them we care, who knows they may cease to exist…

Some unique products we found on few such travels 🙂 Watch out this space and we will share our latest finds, very soon!

Post By Merlin Francis

Rustic Motifs Blog

Jaago grahak! Jaago!

May 24, 2015March 15, 2017
by Merl

Environment friendly, sustainable livelihood, handmade, social responsibility, healthy, organic, etc. have become the buzz words for the current generation of marketers and the corporates and companies they represent. With many conscious individuals realising the damage, we humans have been causing the enviroment and ourselves and opting for a lifestyle that is in sync with the environment and their natural state of being, these words work like the ultimate bait to project ones wares as life changing and inspiring.

Shallow as we are, we rarely go beyond the packaging, the charming facade that covers the same crap in a fancier way. If you have ever attended a marketing brainstorm meeting, you will know, sometimes it is quite simple to convert an existing inorganically made product into an organic one. A new description, a new label, a new packaging design and Voila! You have an organic and eco friendly variant, demanding a higher price tag for being natural.

If such practices exist and we are fooled, it is because we as customers are not yet ready to take responsibility for our choices. We are happy, indulging ourselves with the thought that by buying products, that come with eco friendly, organic tags we have done our bit. We would rather spend thousands buying genetically modified, steroid ingested food items in a mall, than from the local vendors or markets where sellers directly grow their produce or source it from small time farmers. And if we do, we do not shy away from bargaining profusely, something we would never do at an air conditioned supermarket as it would be inappropriate. This rule applies to everything, if its not fancily packaged it deserves to be cheap, even if its more genuine than any of the other stuff you will see around.

According to a report in the India Today earlier this year

“The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) was issued a legal notice by the Crop Care Federation of India (CCFI) for issuing the ‘organic’ certificate and logo to companies caught cheating consumers.

The federation, in its notice, blamed the food authority for letting “fake, wrongly labelled and misbranded organic products” deceive millions of consumers in India.

The CCFI had collected and shared 25-30 samples from across the country where organic brands were clearly found flouting and misusing the certificate and logo issued by the FSSAI. The federation has also alleged that these companies were spreading deliberate misinformation about conventional food consumed by a large number of people.

To top it, it was found that the FSSAI had not booked a single violator for mislabeling products sold as organic in the past eight years.

Some of the samples collected by the federation were manufactured by the biggest brands in the organic industry in the country.”

At a convention in March this year, Assistant Food Safety Commissioner, A.K. Mini was heard saying.

“Much of the organic foods available in the markets are fake, Marketers of most organic products are cheating customers by charging more through false claims and this sector is now growing into one of the biggest ways through which people are cheated”.

You just have to spend a few minutes searching the Internet, the truth is out there.

Do we know, how opting for organic products really helps the environment? Before joining the blind rush for organic food or products, did we try to find out, why orgnic is a better choice, that is if its real?

Organic food contains fewer harmful hormones and pesticides than conventional food.
Organic production helps conserve and protect water
Organic agriculture reduces carbon dioxide and helps slow climate change.
Organic farming helps combat serious soil problems, such as erosion.
Soil erosion doesn’t sound like a consumer issue, but it truly affects the planet, causing problems for the land, food supply and humans.

Unless we as individuals realise that caring for our environment and for ourselves is not a passing fad, but a way of life, we are never really going to appreciate the truly good things in life. We have to take time and educate ourselves to differentiate, to tell real from fake, unless we do that, we will continue to be duped by smart brands and smarter marketers driving them, and unknowingly contribute towards the ongoing damage to our environment.

Next time you visit a store and pick that organic food packet, remember to read its source, to find out how far it has travelled to reach you, the further it travels, the longer the shelf life, the less real it is going to be.

Jaago grahak! Jaago!

Post By Merlin Francis

Decor Tips

5 Easy Tips To Deck Up Your Kitchen

February 11, 2015March 15, 2017
by Merl

A kitchen can easily be termed the soul of a house. It is the nurturer’s domain and the central to the well being of all residents.

We give you 5 Simple tips to perk up your Kitchen space.

Bright Walls

Paint the walls of your Kitchen in a bright colour, yellows, greens, oranges and reds will lift the place from drab to fab.

Add Accessories

Get creative and cover your kitchen walls with interesting frames. Old recipe pamphlets, food pics, cook book covers anything that catches your fancy or reminds you of delectable food.

Deck Up Your windows

Pretty printed curtains or blinds can add cheer to your Kitchen. Experiment with summery flower prints or colourful countryside checks.

Deck Up The Display

Invest in quirky or interesting containers for storing your food items, they will add a distinct charm to your kitchen shelves. Don’t forget to display your colourful crockery too.

Add Seating

If you can manage to fit in, keep a small table with two chairs in your kitchen, for those quiet coffee mornings or quick snacks. Or for sitting and chopping your vegetables etc. A small seating space within the kitchen works like a cosy nook and adds an old world charm to your cooking haven.

Post By Merlin Francis

Decor Tips

7 Tips for winter decor

December 8, 2014March 15, 2017
by Merl

Winters are here and the gloomy and cold weather can often dampen the spirits.

If you are someone who hates the cold and the chills and the fact that you cannot be outdoors as much as you would like to, we have some simple indoor decor tricks and living room ideas to ensure, the next 3 to 4 months are cheery and cosy for you.

Rearrange your Furniture

Yes, move it away from the walls, pull it to the centre of the room, bring it closer. Make the setting intimate for conversations and get togethers. At times the warmth of an interesting conversation is enough to charge up a gloomy mind.

Layer up

Well, winters is all about layering up, just like you add those layers of clothing on yourself to keep yourself warm, add layers to your floors, to your furniture. Go in for woolen rugs if the temperatures dip too low. Or add a rug over your existing carpet on the floor. Place a rug next to your bed, your sofa, so that you don’t have to touch the cold floor. Add a colourful throw on your sofa, add covers to your dining chairs, table covers and runners to your dining table. Cover your bed with duvets and woollen throws. See how the place turns warm and inviting.

Add colour

Reds, yellows and oranges are considered warm colours and can brighten up any home on cold winter days. Brighten up your seating area by throwing in bright coloured cushions, many we say. Winters allow you to experiment with bold bright prints, go for it, for once the cluttered, busy look will lend a cosy feel to the entire decor.

Dress up those windows

While the summers are all about letting the air in and keeping the windows covered light, winters give you a chance to dress up those windows with heavy or dark coloured curtains. Blocking the cold winds from streaming in and also adding that cosy look to your entire setting. Go in for brighter colours and and you can try going in for thicker fabrics, again bolder prints if the rest of the decor is plain and simple.

Warm lighting

Yellow lighting is the best for winters. It adds a warm glow to the surroundings and makes the space look lively. You can also use candles on special evenings, when you want to add a bit of romance to an otherwise cold and boring evening.

Clutter your walls

Yes you heard me right, bring out those paintings and murals, that you tucked away, or those photo prints and posters. Decorate your walls with these. Filling up those empty walls will add warmth to your decor. Of course ensure, what you put out is in sync with the rest of your decor.

Add Fragrance

Decor and accessories can go a long way in creating a cosy and warm home, that is ready to beat the gloom and chills of the season, but since the air is heavy, a bit of alluring fragrances to make those cold evenings inviting will work wonders.

I personally love the smell of a cake getting baked in the oven, the melting butter, nothing can beat the way it fills up and warms up your senses 🙂

But since that is not sustainable without you slogging in the kitchen, we would suggest you put together bowls of potpourri in wintry cents, such and cinnamon and pine needle and place it strategically around the house.

And if none of these suggestions are doable, we suggest you snuggle in with a book and a cup of your favourite beverage and let the world go by.

Pics courtesy – http://desibynature86.blogspot.in/

Post By Merlin Francis

Rustic Motifs Blog

Just A Me And You Are Enough To Change…

December 8, 2014March 15, 2017
by Merl

The new year is round the corner. Time for many of us to punch the restart button. To evaluate the past and come up with plans to make the coming year a better one.

New resolutions, new practices, new goals to conquer.

At Rustic Motifs, this has been a happening year, we launched our new fully e-commerce enabled website. We opened our little store in Bangalore, we made new friends, who appreciated what our brand created. In short we had a lot to be happy and feel blessed about.

Looking back, we wondered if it was enough? It never is!

Did we touch as many lives, we wanted to? Did we fare well in our commitment towards making a difference to the lives of people, who need it?

Did we manage to give back even a miniscule percentage of the happiness we were blessed with?

It was while seeking answers to these questions, that our latest initiative was born.

We decided to tie up with NGOs who are into training the underprivileged, differently abled, financially backward people with vocational skills. Keeping in line with our ideology we partnered with NGOs which are into making a variety of handmade and environment friendly products.

The understanding, we act as their marketing and sales partner, helping their products reach wider more discerning and socially conscious audience.

We are happy to announce, our recent tie ups with NGOs like Kai Krafts, Diya Foundation and The Belaku Trust. You can see and buy many of the products created by them on our website.

We are in talks with more, so 2015 for us is going to be about reaching out to as many people as possible on both sides of the spectrum and use our expertise in promoting not just our own products but also the beautiful creations of these immensely talented people.

Winston Churchill once said, “We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give.”

We believe, it takes very few people to change the World, sometimes, just a me and you are enough.

We request our readers, patrons, family and friends to make this festive season and the coming year more meaningful by opting for handmade and eco friendly products, for your homes and for gifting others. Pick something that is made with a lot of love and passion.

Products that carry the soul of its creators. Products, that not just bring joy to the one who receives them but also promise its less fortunate creator a reason to celebrate.

Let this season be different, a start, a journey towards a more conscious self.

Let this be truly a new year, both in meaning and spirit.

Post By Merlin Francis

Rustic Motifs Blog

Mirror Mirror On The Wall…..Who Is The Most Genuine…

August 20, 2012March 15, 2017
by Merl

John Lennon, once said, “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”

Seven months into Rustic Motifs and I can tell you, there is no other more accurate observation as this on life.

Every time Avantika and I step out for work, plan our travels, we have a set agenda in place, but then life takes over! We start interacting with our artisans, have our brainstorming sessions and by the time we finish our project with them, we would have changed, grown and humbled as individuals.

It never ceases to surprise us…

One such trip was to the picturesque village of Aranmula in Kerala. Situated on the banks of the holy river Pampa, Aranmula is known for the famous Parthasarathi temple dedicated to Lord Krishna and its unique art form of making mirrors out of a metal which is an alloy of Copper and Tin popularly known as Aranmula Kannadi (Malyalam for mirror).

It is here that I met Girish and Girija, a very sweet and unassuming couple who are into making Aranmula metal mirrors. Their undying dedication towards their art form and their humility touched me deep somewhere. I could sense their pride when showing me their work and their despair when talking about the future of their art form. It always is an emotional roller coaster that leaves you moved, no matter how guarded you are.

Coming back to the famous mirrors…..Aranmula is the only place in the World, where unlike the silvered glass mirrors we usually see, the mirrors are handmade using an alloy of Copper and Tin. The process of making these metal mirrors is a secret that has stayed with a few families of Aranmula.

Aranmula mirror’s popularity is attributed to the place it enjoys in the Ashta Mangalyam platter or the platter of 8 auspicious objects which is an important part of the wedding and festival rituals of Hindus in Kerala. It is believed, that the presence of a Vaal Kannadi or hand mirror on the Ashta Mangalyam platter brings abundant wealth for the owner and his family.

Legend has it that some bronze casters who moved to the village in the 18th century were asked by the local ruler to create a resplendent crown for the local deity using bell metal. But the artisans failed to create an alloy that would, after polishing, befit the grandeur.

The deity is then believed to have appeared in the dream of a local village woman and shared the exact composition that would make the metal as reflective as a mirror.

And since then the secret composition has managed to stay with the families of the original bronze casters who were privy to the secret.

To check out a genuine Aranmula mirror, you should keep your fingertip on the surface of the metal mirror, if you don’t see a gap between your fingertip and the reflective image that means you have an original in hand. In a regular mirror used all around us, the gap is quite evident. This is also the reason why it is considered pure and auspicious by many.

I was told by the makers that Aranmula ‘Kannadi’ is forever, it will never ever get spoiled. You bury it in the ground and dig it out after years and it will still be as good as new! It requires no maintenance and comes with a lifetime guarantee.

But turning metal into mirror takes a lots of work. Since each piece is handmade, it takes a lot of time to put together an Aranmula mirror. Depending on the size, it can take anywhere between a week or 6 months.

That brings me back to my meeting with the Girish and Girija which left me with a lot of food for thought. They welcomed me into their home with open arms. Showed me how the alloy is made and then poured into a cast before the metal thus made is ready for polishing till it shines like a mirror. Theirs is the sixth generation practicing this art.

Looking around their humble abode, it is not difficult to make out that they have to struggle to make their ends meet. Then why invest yourself in an art form which fails to pay you enough, I ask?

And their answer, “When you love something and believe in it, you can never put a value to it. Making these mirrors is in our genes, how can you give up something you were born to do. We know we cannot afford most things in life, but then then there is a sense of satisfaction, knowing that everyday we work towards creating something, that is unique and rare.”

But their children do not share the same passion for the art form, there is peer pressure to do better in life and like most kids their age they dream of making it big elsewhere. They might just be right in their approach, no point being sentimental about an art form which cannot survive the pressure of competing with machine made fakes for lack of buyers who look for genuine stuff and not cheap imitation.

Says Girija, “Our children know the art form, they have grown up around this, but they have different dreams and ambitions. We do not want to force them to take this up and give up their chance at a better life. There is a risk……in our family, ours might be the last generation practicing this professionally but then, unless there is a major shift in perception, the fate of this art form hangs in a balance.”

This is not the first time I have heard an artisan say that, their story is similar to other artisans we have met in the past months in other parts of the country. It must be terrible to live in fear, knowing well, something you are so passionate about, would die eventually….

If that happens, it is as much their loss as ours, each one of us out there who enjoys a piece of genuine artistic expression…….

Post By Merlin Francis

Rustic Motifs Blog

Creating A Brand, Outside The Box!

April 30, 2012March 15, 2017
by Merl

Do you know, what it feels like to feel a dream? Two weeks back, if you had asked me that question, I would have secretly laughed inside my head 🙂 But today a week after the launch of Rustic Motifs e-store and the phenomenal response we got from family, friends and total strangers, I can tell you, it is out of this world to feel a dream, to see it in real and to experience the joy it brings with it.

When we set out with the idea of Rustic Motifs, there were a lot of uncertainties in our minds. Then, fitting all our ideals and revolutionary views of changing the world around us into a profitable and working business model seemed quite a daunting task, but one we decided to take on anyways.

Self doubt and fear of failure is part of the growing process for any start-up and the Rustic Motifs team was no different, but the toughest was when people around us tried hard to bracket us into a type of business, “ Ah you are like another Fab India” or “Oh, so you are going to be handicraft sellers”. For them, the need to bracket us into an existing model was part of their acceptance process, but for us who had set out to define our own business model, it was a challenge we have worked really hard to overcome.

Today, when people call us and tell us, that they find our products and presentation very different from any of our direct or indirect competitors, it is like a validation of our beliefs and we definitely see it as our biggest achievement.

We are no different from other business’ when it comes to our plans, of being profitable, in the run for long and making our presence felt. Where we think differently, is in what we expect of Rustic Motifs, here we have our priorities clearly chalked out. Creating value for our artisans and our customers, bringing a change in the way Indian artforms are perceived in our country and around the world and making a difference to the lives of all who are touched by Rustic Motifs and its creations, is what we would say is our single most priority at the moment.

This is a sentiment, we have tried to incorporate in everything we do at Rustic Motifs.

If you have visited the Rustic Motifs e-store you will notice, unlike the other e-commerce sites, there are not too many things trying to grab your attention and make a sale. It is because, we want our visitors to relax when they are visiting us, take time to explore our offerings and read about our artisans, just like they would do in a physical store. For us making a sale comes second to making our customers feel one with the brand. We believe, if we achieve the first, the second will eventually happen.

We have been questioned by experts on our logic, but we know we are right in doing what we do, when our customers share their feedback, a customer who recently bought from us says, “I felt I could breathe while browsing your site. There was no hurry, no pressure on me to act fast, I could think and I could spend time evaluating which products would look good in my house. Reading about the artisans who created the products just made it more personal.”

The point I am trying to make here is, it is a conscious choice to take the unbeaten path, to make new inroads and to learn from our mistakes. At Rustic Motifs, we are not scared of the unknown, what scares us more is getting typecast as the known!

So this post goes out to all those who know Rustic Motifs and to those who will eventually know us, be prepared to be surprised always 🙂 We are the thought that emerged outside the box, part of an open, interesting and creative world craving to be explored!

Post By Merlin Francis

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