Spider’s AltarLook how much this plant has grown babe!lovely shadows, I miss this catcher and remember it was really heavySunsets down at garbageThat sourgrass meditation I wrote a million moons ago, nom nom nomI miss that hanging succulent, I think we killed itYew! I love how the beads matched the sticks of fireShagadilla I want chickens babe
Welcome to this week’s Phone Dump, where I snag a few photos from my camera roll and explain to an OMie what I see. A great writing prompt for myself, a great way to share window into my soul, this week I give you a slideshow of photos that I am describing to my husband, Jawwwsh. Off I go, happy viewing 🙂
Lovely citrus from our neighbors! Working on dream catchers for our Etsy shopOur small and sacred altar that we kept at the back of the trailer Someone rear-ended my Camry and didn’t tell me. I walked outside and found it this way, but looked cute.Thanks mom for the really cute Free People Jacket! She found it for a really good deal, I never took it off my entire trip to NYC 2017Our lovely sleeping space, 2016. It has changed so much since then! Lovely seashell dream catcher hanging above us was clunky and divine. Seashell from Carlsbad CA Fresh lavender from our garden, Nag Champa incense, and Ganesha blessing our essential oils
Every week on Thankful Thursday, I take time and reflect on what I am truly grateful. When you get into the practice of turning to gratitude, you may start to realize that your laundry list of gratitude is starting to feel a little insincere. First, be proud of yourself if you have noticed a lack of oomph in gratitude! This is part of the journey.
Keep searching until you truly resonate with something that you are grateful for. I always tell my student/teachers in Yoga practice- Yoga is finding what you don’t like, what doesn’t work for you, what won’t work. Once we get comfortable in this uncomfortable feeling, we start to listen to our intuition and tap into what does work for us. This is a daunting task, as you rid yourself of limiting beliefs, preconceived notions, and the guilt trips that may have lead you to yoga, to buying that gratitude journal.
Yoga accepts us as we are. And so, during this wild week of pandemia and anxiety, I turn to my coping mechanisms that help me most! One of those is nostalgic, looking back to times in my life when I really felt grateful.
Sit down and reflect on a chapter in your life that you loved. Yes, we glorify these chapters, as they all come with their ups and downs. I take my mind and my gratitude to 5 years ago, when Josh and I bought our travel trailer.
Little did we know, this travel trailer would be a lovely oasis for us during this week! Completely isolated, respecting the quarantine, and honoring the hermit within, we are back in our trailer, back to simple pleasures.
Enjoy these pictures from when we lived in our trailer in Spring 2016, and when we were working on the trailer, at home, in 2016.
There are so many similarities to our time living in the trailer, and this current chapter of our life surviving and living with the hysteria of COVID-19. Why?
Isolation! When we first started living in the trailer, we realized what was the most important to us. We wanted to learn more about medicinal plants and invested a few hundred dollars in essential oils. From there, we made out own laundry soap, body soap, conditioner, and bug spray.
The BUG SPRAY IS what started it all. Remember this, Kelli! Bugs were eating your body alive, and you were so sick of it that you decided to figure out an herbal remedy to keep the bugs away. Gallons of melaleuca, citronella, and sage oil to keep those bugs away. The real trick to keeping bugbites at bay, in the deep wilderness, is to STAY INSIDE DURING GOLDEN HOUR. Our mosquitoes only attacked while the sun set. Cheers to paying attention.
And so, I rattle off my gratitude- I am grateful for our trailer, the best investment we have ever made. I am grateful for essential oils and that I now have almost 5 years of experience working with, and falling in love with, oils! I am grateful for my husband and my parents and the awesome job that we did remodeling the trailer and prepping it for us to live in for over a year. And lastly, I am grateful for the bug bites.
Just like I say in yoga practice….
Your pain and unhappiness led you to Yoga. BE grateful for it.
Love and light as you embrace all of your emotions that you are feeling right now, they are VALID.
Thank you for the love and support! XO- The Corders
Greetings, family! Thank you so much for the continued support and inquiry as we navigate all things COVID-19.
Currently, Josh and I are adequately quarantined, with ample food, Rx, water, and income to survive us the next month. We remain humble, helpful and hoping that the community will continue to uprise and uplift one another during this trying time.
Many of you have expressed wanting to help us, as we have been financially impacted by the Corona Virus. I work as a small business owner and Independent Contractor, teaching yoga, and Josh works as a landscaper. Together, we feel calm and rooted for our future, yet fully alert. Now is the best time to water our roots and watch us grow.
There are many ways to support us that will never involve money. Please feel inspired by this list of ways that you can support Josh, Pinecone and I during this healing quarantine, both spiritually and financially!
1. Follow our blog, CorderCollective.com. Chances are, you are reading this and following our website! This website will continue to be the hub of our empire. Yoga, landscaping, retail, upcycle, vegan eats, and lifestyle are a few of our niches that we continue to hone and craft. By believing in us now and following along, you are investing in our future and giving others permission to trust us. Thank you!
2. Find us, and please follow us, on social Media platforms.
3. Please leave us a positive review on Facebook, Etsy, or SQUARE. These are 3 of the ways we currently accept payment, and your reviews give others the confidence in the future to purchase our products. You do not have to purchase a product in order to leave a review. If you have ever taken Kelli’s yoga class, purchased plants with the help of Josh, or depended on us as a reliable source, we would love your review. Don’t want to publish online? Please email us your feedback at cordercollective.com and I would be honored to use your anonymous words for various media
This will help us for years to come!
4. Consider giving your housewear, book, cardboard boxes, dying plants, and clothing donations to Kelli.
Why? Many donation collectors (cough cough, Goodwill) do not practice the same environmental or moral standards that we do. Rather than shaming Goodwill, I offer the alternative of letting me filter through your Goodwill donations first. Many of my friends and family have been doing this for years. Some of the things I do with these donations:
-Give gifts to the community at large
-Properly recycle and trash all materials ethically (that cannot be resold at retailers such as Salvation Army, Goodwill, or your favorite thrift store)
-Restructure, Repurpose, Upcycle, Revamp, and resell your items (fabric for quilts, beads for dream catchers, old vessels as planting pots, the list goes on)
-Make dream catchers and jewelry out of old bobbles and bits
-Sustainably wrap and ship all of my Etsy and Poshmark orders (I have never bought shipping supplies in my life, sans packing tape! I have and reuse EVERYTHING. With over 120 Etsy sales and 1,120 Poshmark sales, I know I am making a positive impact on the environment)
-Did you know I have the heart of an American picker? Rather than stressful, this brings me joy, so let me take it off of your plate (or pick it up off your curb…)
-I sell valuable items on Poshmark (I am a Top 10% Seller and Posh Ambassador that has been using this site for almost 7 years now). If you would like me to sell your items on your behalf, I am happy to split profits with you (popular option). Or, you can just give the items to me on good faith that they will land in the right hands and MARIE KELLI YOUR LIFE *Marie Kondo jokes*
-You will see life, love and happiness breathed into the dusty items of your loved ones
-all books will be donated across San Diego county to various Free Little Libraries
5. Support the Yoga studio I work for.
Join our facebook group, Hapa Yoga Ohana Online, for video content of myself and fellow teachers as we continue to teach during the quarantine! This has brought me such joy. Follow our Instagram @hapayoga @hapayogaeastlake, and when our doors open, come take your First Class Free with ME.
6. Contact Josh and I for ornamental landscaping, potting and garden needs. If you have any questions about your California indigenous plants, what to plant that you won’t kill, etc., Josh is your guy 🙂 The plant whisperer.
7. Hire me to marry YO ass. Rev Kelli in the house! I am officiated through the Universal Life Church as a certified reverend, which means, I can marry you and your loved one! If you are looking for a spiritually well-rounded, cosmic and carefully curated ceremony, email me: cordercollective@yahoo.com
8. I teach private yoga at offices, apartments, and online. Once this pandemic dust settles, let’s book some yoga classes! Kids birthday parties, weekly office yoga in a conference room, or in a gym- there are infinite ways to play on your mat. I am always accepting used mat, block and strap donations to recirculate to the community.
9. Order a custom dream catcher from my etsy shop. Or, better yet, organize a Dream Catcher Making party for your friends and loved ones! I am able to cater this class to littles (12-17 y/o), or adult classes. I have flexible pricing, ranging from $28-$68 per head, depending on the detail that you would like with your catcher.
10. Support my friends! I am surrounded by small business men and women that would love your fellowship and camaraderie during this time.
I love a good bookmark! I vividly remember my favorites that motivated me to read. Who doesn’t love a Lizzy McGuire accessory 🙂
Wow- custom ordered bookmarks are expensive! I dream of having my own book mark, but I needed to supplement in the meantime with a smaller order.
My goal is to put a bookmark inside of each donated book at our local Little Libraries. Yes, this is a great marketing tool, but I speak from my heart when I say I want to connect. I want to be approachable, and I want people to always know where to find me. As jack and janes of all trades, Josh and I have a lot to offer. The best way to showcase our work is to get them to our website!
Perhaps you found me here at cordercollective.com because of this bookmark! If you did, will you send a little lovebeam and leave a comment below?
As a stewardess- I am always collecting and accepting book donations. Please contact me if your local free libraries need a REFILL.
For 500 bookmarks, or business cards, I paid less than $33 with shipping! Vista print is an amazing Business tool that we have accessed for more than 5 years. Take a journey with me as I reflect on our previous business cards:
Our first business card from 2015! We predominately used them as price tags (as shown) for dream catchers that we were selling at various retailers and booths. I still love this business card and I love randomly finding them in our home office!Last year, I switched to a Yoga Teacher-dominant business card. I wanted something custom; I am always getting asked about my Spotify playlists. I needed a large gap where I can write a prescription for whatever I am talking about with a student/teacher/friend. This particular card has a link to the palindrome themed class playlist that I taught on Febrary 2nd, hence the title ‘02022020’.
I ordered all 3 of these business cards on Vista print and paid less than $35 each time. I love them! Not everyone loves a business card, but it is still one of my favorite business tools that I use regularly.
Here are a few of my favorite dream catchers I crafted in 2019! I am proud and honored to take the time to reflect on my work, as I am really, like really, terrible at archiving and photographing my catchers. I get so excited to give them as gifts, that I forget to capture them entirely. I also work best under pressure, so I am usually out the door while clamping feathers and knotting bits. Luckily, I remember them forever! Thank you to everyone who placed a custom order, as special requests really spark my creativity and give birth to some of my favorite pieces, like this double decker nursery mobile: a very special vegan catcher was requested! Instead of feathers, I repurposed fabric for the tendrils. Not everyone likes bird bits hanging over them- I can work with that!!
Perhaps you found me here at 
Our first business card from 2015! We predominately used them as price tags (as shown) for dream catchers that we were selling at various retailers and booths. I still love this business card and I love randomly finding them in our home office!
Last year, I switched to a Yoga Teacher-dominant business card. I wanted something custom; I am always getting asked about my Spotify playlists. I needed a large gap where I can write a prescription for whatever I am talking about with a student/teacher/friend. This particular card has a link to the palindrome themed class playlist that I taught on Febrary 2nd, hence the title ‘02022020’.
a very special vegan catcher was requested! Instead of feathers, I repurposed fabric for the tendrils. Not everyone likes bird bits hanging over them- I can work with that!!
Karma San Diego Podcast 