Local Business: the OVer Company

Sabrina Maulucci is the up-beat, always-smiling creative force behind Canadian apparel line, the OVer company, which specializes in fasionable pieces that do triple duty as a car-seat-cover / nursing-cover / shopping cart cover. Each cover is lovingly handmade in Canada with fabrics that are both durable and trendy. 

Recently I sat down with her to find out more about the OVer company.

How did you decide to start your own business?
I have been actually thinking about starting some kind of business for the last couple of years! I just didn’t know exactly WHAT kind of business I could start that would still keep my creative juices flowing and also be fun to do… the OVer company kind of happened by accident actually. I started making the OVers for baby gifts… and then people just started asking me to make some for them to buy for baby shower gifts. I had a few orders right after the first gifts I gave and then it was my husband who really encouraged me to make it official. I designed a logo that I would hand-draw onto the packaging I created for the first orders placed. My husband took the first step in ordering 350 woven labels so once those arrived, I had to start sewing!

What is the process from the time an order is placed until it shows up on someone's doorstep?I try to have a decent stock on had of all the different OVers available for order. Once the order is placed, the order form is printed, I package up the desired OVer with a white band that has the OVer logo on it (and material content and washing instructions) it goes into an envelope with a receipt and OVer postcard that has examples of how to use the product and then once the orders are all packaged up I go to the post office. I ship daily to ensure a speedy delivery. We send all of the orders that will be sent within Canada priority with tracking shipping! So the OVer will arrive to your door step in 2-3 business days… sometimes it arrives the next day. I take pride in have a quick turn around because I don’t think people really expect it to arrive so fast- I want my customers to be delighted in every way!

What is your process for choosing fashionable fabrics for your products?Honestly, I have been choosing fabrics that I am drawn to myself. I want to be 100% confident in the product I sell. I would never choose something I didn’t personally like but I try to stay up to season with the latest trends and I am now looking for my Spring Collection that will be launched in March 2016! 

How does social media play a role for you?Social media plays a HUGE role for me- Instagram and Facebook gives me the opportunity to connect with people all across the globe that I would never have the chance to interact with in person. I am a visual person- so I try to post photos that will attract people to my product. I have a vision of the brand I want to create and I try to make that happen through my instagram feed and on the website. Facebook also lets me have conversation with potential customers who have certain questions that I can answer right then and there for them! I love that. I love being accessible and that OVer customers are able to connect with a real person for real answers.

Who are some of your other favourite Canadian sellers?Ahhhh! I have SO many. Just to name a few….-MiniMoc, for baby apparel-The Wild Kids Apparel, for monochrome kids accessories (YAY!)-Mushybooks, modern baby books!-Kardz Kouture, all things stationary, prints and little home goods-The Swank Social, for party styling ideas! (my MOST favourite hobby!)…this list could really go on for days….!

Is the OVer company a one-woman show or do you have help?My husband helps me A LOT! He does whatever he can as far as ALL the website creating and design, He is my photographer and editor. He prints all the orders and sends out the confirmation of shipment emails and he is my biggest encourager! I would not be able to do what I do without him by my side. He really is the very best. Also, the orders are pouring in so I can’t even keep up to the sewing myself! It really is amazing how fast I needed help. I cut all the material, wash and dry it, then send it to my seamstress and when they are done, I pick them up and package them all and ship them out! I have been keeping her BUSY since she started sewing for me a couple weeks ago!!

Run me through the process of naming your business. What is the significance of "OVer"?One evening after a late night grocery trip, I was trying to come up with a good name for my “baby cover” business. I knew I wanted to have a V&O in the name somehow (my daughter’s names are Violet&Olive) and was thinking through my options… I thought -OH! cover has both of those letters in it… then when I was thinking I wanted the O&V to stand out in the name, I saw it in my head and just dropped the c…and there we have it, OVer! Right away I knew how I wanted it to look… as soon as I got home, I drew a little sketch of the logo I saw in my head and that is what I use now! 

How do you find the time to get everything done in a day?
My family is amazing. I am able to reply to emails and messages during the day from my phone which I don’t always have beside me but I do have the sound on so I have an idea of when an email/message is coming in and I try to answer those pending messages when Olive is down for a nap and Violet is either busy playing or doing crafts next to me. Violet is 3yrs old and really is a wonderful toddler that has a long attention span when it comes to crafting- like her mama!:) So I make sure to have lots of paint, markers, stickers and paper on hand for busy days! I also package up the orders and go to the post office during the day right after my husband gets home form work so he can spend time with the girls so I can focus on reaching my deadline (5pm when the post office sends the packages out!) Both my girls go to bed between 7-8 so after hey are in bed is when I will cut/wash fabric and finish up with emails and responding to unanswered emails/messages. Also, my mom and my grandma have come over a couple times to help me cut large amounts of fabric. seriously, I have the best family!

What is next for you, and for OVer?I would hope for growth! I just finished my wholesale price list so I am now open to retail orders which is so exciting! I have four retailers that have contacted me in the past month that I am now just waiting to hear back from… so I am hoping to get into a few stores and into more mama hands that I would not have been able to reach myself! smile emoticon


Quick Favourites:
Ice cream: Vanilla! (with fresh bananas and caramel…mmmmm!)
Book: Does my House&Home subscription count?
Date night: Dinner at Dolcetto, London, Ontario and a walk with a hot drink.
Starbucks drink: Morning= unsweetened iced coffee. Afternoon= Iced Soy Chai Latte.
Place to travel: Palm Springs, CA!
Down-time activity: Reading my design magazines and planning parties
Blog to follow: threelittlecrowns, theinspiredroom
Beauty must-have: mascara and lipgloss!
Activity with Olive: blowing raspberries on her belly and hearing her CRACK UP! She has the very best belly laugh.
Activity with Violet: Making up silly songs to princess tunes, any crafts and playing dress up!

To connect with Sabrina and the OVer company:
IG: @theovercompany | www.theOVer.co | facebook.com/theOVerco | theOVerco@icloud.com

Pulled Pork Dinner

For almost ten months I was working a steady shift of 7:45am - 5:15pm. It was pretty ideal.

Recently I've changed my routine to be working at all the hospital sites again, which means much earlier mornings.

When you're working 6am to 6pm, you do not want to walk in the door and think: what should I make for dinner?

Pulled pork is a life saver. I can even skip the step of searing the meat and just throw it in raw to the slow cooker with some salt, pepper, maybe cumin. Make sure there's some liquid at the bottom like apple cider or chicken stock. And then set it on low.

The result is this incredible fall-apart-on-your-fork meat that pairs well with so many things. If you make enough you can have leftovers for tacos, soup, pizza, sandwiches... the possibilities are endless.

I owe so many successful post-work dinners to the saving grace of pulled pork.

An Amazing Restaurant I Found

Okay, technically I didn't find this restaurant, my sister did. And she's a hero for doing so because I am truly obsessed.

That Crepe Place & Bakery in St. Thomas is a DO-NOT-MISS eatery. They specialize in both insanely delicious crepes, and gluten free baked goods. Both are top notch, to die for.

The crepes are in 3 categories: breakfast (think: bacon, salsa, cheese, avocado), lunch (like a whole Caesar salad stuffed in a crepe), or dessert (my fav was nutella, pecan, coconut whipped cream).

They are super affordable, are made so quickly, and will change your life.

I realize that St. Thomas is a 20-40 minute drive from London depending what end you're in (believe me, I'm in the north end and drive there for work - I get it) but this food is worth it.

Go today!

A love note to my stove

When Calvin and I bought this home it was built for an electric stove. It was priority-uno for us to have a gas technician run a gas line to the kitchen. We both love cooking with gas, literally.

My sweet stove has given us hundreds of amazing meals. On top I keep a kettle, a skillet, and often a spicy candle.

Beside the stovetop is a little bucket filled with my wooden spoon collection. They're super safe for using with a cast iron skillet because they won't cause scratches like a metal one would, or melt like plastic!

I hang these simple grey and white kitchen towels, from Ikea, for the million times a day that I have to wipe up spilled water from the kitchen, or dry my hands after a scrubbing with Pumpkin Cupcake soap.

It may not always be 100% clean, but I love my gas stove.

My garden in October

Can you believe this salad that came out of my garden this late in the season?

These are heirloom carrots & heirloom cherry tomatoes.

I tossed them with a vinaigrette and some parsley.

Wow, my mouth and eyes were blown away!

My Problem with Under Eye Concealer

This is a may-day all-call to my beauty-product-savvy friends out there.

As a self-proclaimed make-up-failure, I basically will buy and use anything that other people recommend, especially if it's a) natural b) affordable. 

Tarte Creaseless Concealer is certainly more a) than b) but it's not the priciest thing in the world either, because it lasts a while. You really only use a touch of it.

I do have a major under-eye problem, looking like I've been a sleepless coke-head until I get some make up on. I think it's just in my DNA.

So every day I put on my Tarte Creaseless Concealer and I love the results but it's soooo shiny. Take a look.

I look like I'm sweating it out from a half-marathon in Texas!

So, does anyone have a recommendation for either a different product (with similar coverage and no harsh chemicals please) or for a 2nd step where I fix the shine with something else?

Thank you!

Mornings with Oliver

No matter what I do, my sweet first-born just will not give up his early bird nature. I'll be kicking myself when he's 13 and I have to drag him out of bed to catch the school bus but for now I am relying on the sweet graces of coffee to give me a power-up when Ollie wants to party before the sun does.

Vegan Leather Jacket

Calvin's been on a serious role lately with buying me unexpected gifts. He might have seen me checking out some leather jackets the past few times we've been out. One day I got home and he'd bought me this Cavalini one with faux fur. 

I was relieved to see a tag on the wrist confirming that it was 100% vegan.

I'm quite fashion-challenged so I flipped through Pinterest to see how other people are wearing their fur lined leather jackets and my favourite photo was this one.

I'm sure if you look in her hand you'll realize why I was so drawn to it. :)

Squash Three Ways

I was so blessed the other day when my friend from work gave me both eggs (my very favourite food!) and squash from her garden. 

I was quick to roast them up at 425 with avocado oil and pink salt. It took just over an hour. (Before roasting just chop in half and scoop out any seeds. IF the squash is organic you can save the seeds, let them dry, and plant them next year!)

Now with 8 halves of roasted squash I needed to really get cooking. I still have about 2/3 of it in my freezer but here are three ways that I used the freshly roasted squash.

Spiced Butternut Squash Dessert Smoothie 

If you check out the top of this photo you can clearly see Dakota was loving it! Right behind my mason jar you can get a hint of the glass that belonged to her, about halfway done. I guess she realized mine still had all the whip on top and would be a more lucrative option. 

Recipe: Blend about 1/2 cup roasted squash with 1/2 cup cashew milk. Sweeten to taste with maple syrup (maybe 2 T). Shake in your favourite fall spices - cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, allspice, ginger.

Squash Mac n Cheese

I put some of our leftovers from this recipe into Ollie's lunch the next day and apparently he was the king of the lunch room. 

Recipe: To start I put about 1 cup of squash and 1/2 cup chicken stock in a mixing bowl and pureed it with a hand blender. Then I mixed in a simple cheese sauce (1 T flour, 1 T butter, 1 cup milk, 1/2 cup shredded cheese, salt.). I poured this over cooked macaroni and there you have it. Mine bowl has habanero sauce just so the kids wouldn't steal any.

Fried Rice, Fall Style

If a friend described this meal to me, I'd guess they were surely not sober at the time of making it. But truth be told I'd just gotten in from work and was starving so I basically just starting throwing leftovers into a skillet. It was heavenly. 

Recipe: I began crisping up leftover hickory ham in the skillet. Then I threw in at least 3 cups of cooked rice (cooked with stock instead of water). As it cooked I chopped up 1 gala apple, and about 1 cup of roasted squash. I tossed those in as well as a little aged white cheddar. I finished with a squeeze of lime and splash of soy sauce to lend some acidity to a pretty heavy dish. It was delicious.

Flower Crowns on Thanksgiving

Every year for five years now, my family has taken a photo behind our Pond Mills home, with the gorgeous red- orange- and yellow- trees as the backdrop. 

It's been so cool to watch Oliver go from a newborn, to a one-year-old who can stand on his own in the photo, to a two-year old who needs to be reigned in just to get the photo taken, to a three-year old who wants to be the one directing the photo, to a now four-year old who could probably operate my SLR camera better than me. And now we have Dakota joining the shot, and my sister's boyfriend Marc too. 

This photo I'm sharing today was taken a few minutes later after my sisters and I realized we are all blonde at the same time. It's been a while for that because Sarah more often has red hair and I've flipped between dark and light blonde and even a lighter brown, as well as purple for a really short time. 

We whipped up these flower crowns with help from our florist mama. Each is a little different, and Sarah's is the same plant variety as our background so it pretty much camouflages, but all three of us are pretty happy to have a little bit of nature wrapped around our head.

For those curious, Sarah (left) is 23 years old. Angela (in the middle) turned 25 this summer, and I am the ripe old age of 27 - until next month!

Feeding a Crowd: Taco Salad Bar

Since the newest season of Survivor started, a group of us have started kind of a "supper-and-Survivor club" every Wednesday evening. We get together around 6, have a big meal, and then tuck into a new episode, which ultimately ends in a long discussion about who went home and why and what's going to happen next. 

The week before last the club was hosted at my house so we put out a simple taco salad bar. Honestly, it's an incredibly easy meal for a crowd as long as you're okay with a bunch of chopping.

We set out:

- Ground meat (I used uncased sausage because it's delicious)

- Mixed greens 

- Nacho chips

- Salsa (can you believe I used grocery store salsa when I just made my own batch of homemade?)

- Sour cream

- Shredded cheese

- Chopped tomatoes

- Corn

- Beans

- Diced bell pepper

- Diced onion

- Mashed avocado

- Lime

- Ranch dressing

- Hot sauce

Correct me if I've forgotten anything in the photo.

It's a perfect meal because everyone can customize, and, it's awesome for gluten-free, dairy-free, even vegan diets. Everyone can make their plate to their liking. 

Outdoor Decor for Fall

Calvin has been really excited about sprucing up our front yard and porch this year. Weeks ago we dug up about a foot on each side of our driveway and planted small boxwoods and then laid black mulch and set nice silver solar lights in. I think it looks pretty sharp.

We also swapped out our other flower situation for beautiful yellow mums.

Then, and I don't know the whole story behind this, Cal set up some dried corn stalks, a hay bale, and a medley of cute pumpkins on the porch.

My only contributions were a maple leaf wreath I'd made last year hung on our outdoor lantern light, and a dollar store raven that I just bought to scare people.

It's been nice to walk up to the house after a stroll around the neighbourhood and really get the autumn-vibes from our place.

Toronto Blue Jays Post-Season

The past few weeks have been incredible for Blue Jays fans. Yes, a lot of people have jumped on the bandwagon. Hey I might even kind of fall into that category. But really, as a nation we are living out their hashtag "come together". It's so energizing for everyone to be excited about something at the same time. I can text anyone, ANYONE, a non-sports-fan and be like "Wow, Pillar's catch right?" and they'll understand. I love that. People who have never liked baseball before know which base to find Donaldson at.

Cal and I went to the last regular season home game and had an amazing time.

In our house we are decked out in Jays shirts, hats, and of course rally towels. Oliver, in particular, has gotten into the spirit. One day in his school planner his teacher wrote "Oliver was quite sad this morning because he had forgotten his Jays hat at home."

I still have fond memories of the '92 and '93 seasons. I remember my dad being onnnn-fire excited. He still wears his '92 shirt proudly, and we're pretty sure it's a good luck charm for Bautista.

The day before they won the World Series (game was on a Saturday I think!) I wrote this in my journal. Age 5. This was one of about 50 Jays-related entries.

I can't wait to see what this afternoon's game brings and the week to come. 

My wish list is:   that..

- Bautista hits a grand slam and somehow shows us all a bat throw even more epic than his last

- Donaldson gives us a bare hand catch that hits #1 in all the highlight reels

- Pillar continues to literally sacrifice his body for the sake of an impossible catch

- Encarnacion can basically do anything and it'll make me smile

Oh, and more Kawasaki interviews please.

What a time to be alive.