All right, this will be my final two-post day for quite some time, I promise.  I wanted to invite you all to visit our new family business at www.cupthreads.com.

A little over a year ago my wife Molly began making items out of felted wool from used sweaters and selling them, purses and scarves, etc.  I thought, this would be a great little upcycling business, but the income levels were such that her creations quickly became a hobby.

I began to play around with an idea for making coffee cup sleeves out of the material, just for a gas at first, as something that could be made rather quickly and generate revenue as a means of keeping my wife in the crafting business.  Over the past two months though, my playtime became a bit more focused.  I figured out a way to more than double, almost triple my previous production (and I’m not a very speedy seamster, by the way!).  Additionally, I believe that we have developed a way to grow this homespun business while keeping costs very low.  (Cue: Revolution – we all want to change the world!)

So we’re giving it a shot!

Our initial target markets are coffee and tea retailers in the Cleveland area.  We think our product is unique, and once it is held in the hand of a coffee connoisseur it will be hard to NOT buy one!  While we are waiting on packaging and other promotional materials to arrive, I’d like to invite you to be among the first to own a cupThreads – upcycled and reusable coffee sleeve.

kinder.cooler.better.

These are our driving principles behind the product (story here).  Our sleeves eliminate waste.  They are made of wool (highly renewable, just feed the sheep!), but not just any wool, already used wool, thoroughly laundered by the way – Kinder for our environment.  They look rad.  You can’t deny it! – Cooler.  They also cover your entire cup, adding an insulating value to the old standby, boring, wasteful cardboard sleeves you currently use – Better.

Please stop by cupThreads.  Then return to Ream of Paper (with or without placing an order, you’re still my friends) and let me know what you think.  You can email me your private responses at cupthreads(at)gmail(dot)com.  Or gush publicly!

Also pass the word about cupThreads.com on to your caffeine-addicted or environmentally-conscious friends.  There are only 60-or-so products listed, but we have literally hundreds more that are not on the site as of yet.

If you choose to make a pre-launch purchase, enter the coupon code: reamofpaper to receive a dollar off each sleeve.  Order three or more and I’ll ship them for free!

Let me know privately if you encounter any problems with the site or checkout process.  Thanks so much.