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New Growler Tote

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New Products on the Horizon

At Oowee Products we have been working hard to create some new leather drink accessories for you. On our travels to breweries and retailers across the country, we had one request that kept popping up, a growler tote. After many trials, we have come up with a stylish tote. Our growler tote, like all our products, is handmade in Asheville, NC and stitched by adults on the Autism spectrum.

Use this Growler Tote to get your favorite beer and then you can transport it hands free, whether you are biking, walking or paddling. The tote has an adjustable strap to fit everyone, with an extra comfort pad. Bring your beer, keep your hands free. You can customize them with a full color metal badge or with you custom branded logo.

Handmade in America

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Supporting economic development in the ethical way!

WNC

It is becoming more and more noticeable that many companies are seeking workers from other countries to produce mass manufactured products that lack in quality. Unfortunately, this is robbing Americans of needed jobs and eventually ends up creating large amounts of disposable material.

Oowee Products is proud to produce our koozies from material that is 1) a renewable resource and 2) is from the heartland of America. We use high quality, all natural leather  from the boot and lace industry.

Partnering with the Autism Society of North Carolina had been an significant aspect of Oowee Products. It has contributed greatly to our handmade koozies. We are very proud of our crew at the ASNC, These individuals do an amazing job and we are lucky to have them as part of our team. Each order of  leather koozies are hand stitched and assembled by individuals on the autism spectrum through Blue Ridge Bags and More, a business operated by the ASNC. For more information please visit our Autism Society section on our web-site.

Recently, Oowee Products decided to become a part of HandMade in America. HandMade’s mission is to “grow economies through craft and creative placemaking.”  They are a non-profit community and economic development corporation. Their goal is to help handmade crafts become more recognized  and, consequently,  more supported by communities. HandMade is focused on educating communities about how to best support local crafts. This is an important role in growing a sustainable, thriving economy in Western North Carolina. They are also involved with helping local artists grow their businesses.

So if you want to start contributing to your community in a positive manner, an easy way to start is by making an effort to buy things grown locally and made by local artisans.

Chicago

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chicago city from river Oowee Products made it’s way to the Windy City last week. Mixing a little family, craft brewery time, museums tours, and navigating the city, Gabriel had a packed schedule! Lots of craft beer, art and travel.

There are so many great breweries in The Windy City it’s hard to mentioned them all but here are a few that you shouldn’t miss if you are up that way:

Revolution was the 1st brewery on the agenda. Oowee met with Kim, head of merch. She was nice and had never seen anything like our awesome leather koozies before. Oowee really enjoyed Pipeworks, This brewery has a cool website, worth a looksie. After that, Oowee checked out The Beer Temple. Chris, the owner was super nice. Chris is recognized by the Siebel Institute of Technology, America’s oldest brewing school, as a Master of Beer Styles and Evaluation and his knowledge is abundant! We loved Half Acre! They have fantastic graphics on their cans. In April 2010 Half Acre became the first brewer in Chicago to can beer and they went with the classic “tall boy” as their canning preference. They actively collaborate with other s to create tasty craft beers for your drinking pleasure.

Argus BreweryAnother brewery that we really enjoyed was Argus! Byron, the head brewer was awesome and really enjoyed our leather koozies. Argus Brewery bottles their beers and has growlers available. Oowee Products is working on leather growler holders. The design is coming along and should be housing tasty growlers of craft beverages soon! Prototypes are already in use!

IMG_20140508_153029184Sonia, head brewer with 5 Rabbit Brewery was super sweet. This brewery has a unique Latin influence. They boast cuisine and craft beer that is rooted in the history of Central and South America.

At Buckle Down Brewing, Oowee met up with owner, Ike, and bartender, KChey. Everyone there made Oowee feel very welcome! They were very receptive to our leather koozies, and the work we do with the Autism Society of North Carolina. IMG_20140509_122603535_HDR

After a week of bouncing to various breweries, Oowee landed at Soldier Field for the American Beer Classic.  This was a full day of incredible craft beverages at the famous Soldier Field in Chicago. The day was all about showcasing and sampling some of the finest craft beers in America. Oowee Products had a tent set up with a variety of leather koozies and got to meet a lot of local patrons as well as brewers and brewery owners. Oowee had a great trip to Chicago and is looking forward to going back!

chicago beer festival

Coming Soon in May

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french broad 2014 bike raceMay has a lot of awesome events to put on your calendar! To kick off the month is the 17th Annual Spring French Broad Fest. This festival is family friendly and is always a good time! It’s May 2nd-May 4th, 2014 in beautiful Hot Springs, North Carolina! There’s a mountain bike race and river race and these are friendly to all levels of outdoor enthusiasts. Even I would do the bike race because it’s fun and, unlike Gabriel (founder of Oowee) who is a great mnt. biker, I am a total novice! There’s family activities, arts and crafts, and good tunes so get your tickets and get out to Hot Springs!

The next week is LEAF in Black Mountain, NC. This is May 8th -11th. If you haven’t been to LEAF yet, you gotta check it out! It’s super family friendly and has tons of activities for all ages. There is camping for those who want to hunker down and check out of normal life to enjoy a celebration of Spring and the eccentricities of LEAF. The festival will be carrying Oowee Products will have our newest product available with the new LEAF logo branded on our leather koozies with stainless cups and s-biners.

Leaf festival

If you can’t make it to LEAF, no worries, there are plenty of other options. On May 10th, The Best Firkin Beer Fest will be going on at Pisgah Brewery in Black Mountain. This festival celebrates artisan, small batch, barrel aged brews from some of the country’s top rated microbreweries. This is a fantastic place to sample some delicious craft beers!  Beer enthusiasts welcome. Come and get your drink on next to brewers and other connoisseurs in the fresh open air of the Blue Ridge Mountains in our lovely state of North Carolina.

On the weekend of the 16th Asheville starts up “Downtown after 5”. This is a free event downtown and has good tunes, craft beers, yummy local food and excellent people watching. Budget and family friendly!

If your into the Spring flowers, the Biltmore has a “Biltmore Blooms” festival that happens May 20th-23rd. After you check out the beautiful gardens stop into the winery or Cedric’s Tavern for a tasty beverage.OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

To close out the month of May is Asheville Beer Week! This is a week long event celebrating all things beer from  May 23rd-31st. The last day of the month is Beer City Festival at Packs Square Park in Asheville, NC  complete with craft beers and tunes. This is a super fun festival and a great time of year to visit Asheville!

Autism Society 5K pic

Tent Store Front!

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Oowee-Banner-2013-FINAL_OOowee has recently made a jump to having a store front. Not exactly a brick and mortar, but a portable tent. Due to popular requests we have been expanding our product line. You can see many new leather sleeves on our ready made section on this website:  https://www.ooweeproducts.com/ready-made/

Our customers have given us great feedback and we are excited to be creating more styles of leather sleeves.

5K Autism Society 2013

We had our 1st round with the portable store front for the 5K race for the Autism Society of North Carolina last weekend. The race had a fantastic turn out! 500 racers showed up to support the Autism Society. This is the biggest fundraising event for the Autism Society all year. There are several 5Ks in NC to support the cause. If you missed the one in Asheville you could sign up for the next one in Raleigh, NC on Oct.12th 2013. 

Oowee was happy with the amount of folks that came to the Oowee Products tent and inquired about our involvement with the Autism Society. We also got great response to our new t-shirts and our ready made leather sleeves. Our next event with the portable storefront is the Brewers Jam in Knoxville, TN. We are busy bees creating lots of awesome leather sleeves for that fall event. Oowee is looking forward to it!Autism Society 5K pic

Partnered with the Autism Society

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Oowee Products are Hand Stitched by adults on the autism spectrum.

Did you know that each day two North Carolina families have a child diagnosed with a form of autism. The incidence of autism is now 1 in 88 births and 1 in 43 for boys. We are so proud to be partnered with the Autism Society of North Carolina! Adults with autism are hired to hand stitch all of our Sleeves. They enjoy the job and are great at it because they are so meticulous. They also thrive well with routine. Stitching the leather koozies is a way for the Autism Society to employee autistic adults. This adds routine to their life in a healthy, controlled environment.

   Autism Society of NC is holding an event on June 2nd with Asheville Zipline Canopy Adventures and Asheville Treetops Adventure Park. All proceeds raised by individual and team donations will go to the Autism Society of North Carolina to offer respite, increase advocacy and services, and to assist families in Western North Carolina!

Zipping for Autism, the first event of its kind in the country, had over 30 teams and raised

$31,000 in its first year!

 

If you have questions, please call 828-236-1547.

or go to the home page:

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