Hug Your Homies (HYH) makes upcycled apparel from thrifted and vintage clothing, predominantly cotton, using a combination of screen printing, cut and sew, bleach work, and tie-dye techniques to create unique apparel, all branded “Hug Your Homies” to sustainably promote mental health and suicide awareness, spread love and stoke, and bring people together. We started making stickers that say “Hug Your Homies And Tell Them You Love Them” in December of 2023 after we lost Jacob Guden to mental health in the Alta community. Since then we have tried to push this message out there as far as we can through upcycled apparel, hosting events, and youtube and instagram content. Our goal is to inspire others to really show up for their homies, and have it be a life motto, and in-turn, to save lives. I source/thrift everything myself, hand pick quality items with intention based on the style, feel (mostly heavyweight cotton for men and lightweight/flowy/corduroy cotton for women), and color pallet (mostly earth tones, blacks, and blues) that I feel matches the overall feel, aesthetic, and vibe of HYH. The types of clothes I try to make the most of are: T-Shirts, Long-sleeve Tees, Baby Tees/Crop Tops, Tank Tops, Button Ups, Denim Shirts/Jackets, Sweatshirts and Hoodies. My personal favorite item to make is denim shirts/jackets. I source landscape graphic tees, cut them out, sew them on the back of the denim jackets/shirts, then with the excess fabric from the tees, I add a screen-printed “Hug Your Homies” patch with people hugging looking out at the landscape. For the majority of the tees/sweatshirts/basic merch, I screen print my designs on them, with mostly eco-friendly water-based ink.