Ornamentea Customer Kate Ward Featured In The N&O

We love this recent profile of Kate Ward in the News & Observer. Her textile necklaces are beautiful, colorful and innovating. They look great with boho and preppy fashions, and they are each unique due to the antique and vintage textiles she uses in the manufacturing process.

We've been lucky enough to watch her tackle construction and design issues as she's developed this line, which means we've also been able to fondle quite a few of these as she was working on them. That is a great job perk!

Her designs are carried at Fab'rik and Charlottes in Cameron Village, Raleigh, as well as many other shops.

See the full article, including a video interview, here. That image is by Julie Leonard and was taken from the N&O article.

What's a charm swap all about? Ask Re-Maker!

are you joining our Sweet 16 Birthday Charm Swap?

I hope so! This post might inspire you, it's from Re-Maker, an Etsy shop we love and one of the 2012 swap participants. I love her writing, her photos and her take on our swap! 

check out the blog post here and check her out, too!

Join us for a Birthday Charm Swap!

Do you love making charms?

So do we!

To celebrate our 16th birthday, we are having a charm exchange that you can be part of. You'll be able to make and share charms with artists from around the world and you'll receive a set of beautiful charms in return. As you join the swap, you may want to also join the We Love Ornamentea facebook group to watch as swappers post pics and updates about their projects. We'll also make Celebrity Swapper announcements there first.

The theme for this exchange is Birthdays and Sweet 16 and you are invited to interpret that theme in your charm and your packaging in any way you wish. We have no strong restrictions on colors or materials for this swap, BUT please make your charms smaller than 1.5 inches x 1.5 inches. Any bigger, and this would be a pendant swap!

the details!

• Charms due September 21st, 2015, by 7:00 p.m. Please submit 6 charms, no larger than 1.5x1.5 inches. Please make your charms wearable, meaning they can't be made of something that decomposes or decays (sorry, no teeny, real cupcakes! but sculpted cupcakes would be fab!)
• Please wrap or bag your charms individually with your name and (if you wish) contact information. We recommend including your contact information: it can be fun to see what people do with the charms you make! The wrapping is part of the fun with charms, so feel free to continue your theme to the packaging.
• Please fill out the submission form completely and include it when submitting your charms.The submission form will be available here on the blog, and at the shop, starting on September 1st.
• If you will not be able to attend the Pick-Up Party on Saturday, September 26th at 1:00 pm, please indicate whether you want your charms held for later pick up or mailed to you. the Pick Up Party will coincide with both Keith O'Connor's trunk show AND our Cup-Cake Pot-Luck. 
• ALL AGES are invited to participate! In the past we've had MANY young charm makers and we swap child-made charms with other child-made charms. 

Ornamentea Attn: Charm Swap
509 N. West Street
Raleigh, North Carolina 27603

• Please click here to purchase shipping in order to receive your charms by mail after the swap. Shipped charms will be mailed out on September 28th and 29th via USPS Priority Mail. The shipping fee covers US shipping only; if you are an international swapper, please contact Galen at the shop to discuss how we can best get your charms back to you! 

The submission form is available RIGHT HERE. You can print it out at home, or stop in and we can give you a copy to fill out. 

Still confused? Check out these blog posts about past swaps and exchanges. You will be inspired! 

Gabe Bratton's In Our State Magazine!

Raleigh native Gabe Bratton is featured in Our State magazine. She creates beautiful cast-lace jewelry that is hard to describe, but absolutely beautiful!

Read the full article here. 

Our mix table is busy...

stir, stir, stir, pluck

stir, stir, stir, pluck

stir, stir, stir...

That's the sound of our bead mix table. This is a large, custom-built table that holds our various bead mixes. It's in the back of the shop, but it's one of the most popular places in the shop. Regulars visit it every time they stop in the store. We fill the compartments with a variety of mixes; glass beads from the Czech Republic, or wooden beads of all shapes and sizes, or a mix of chevron beads from India. It's the most cosmopolitan part of our shop, and one of my favorites. 

Because the table can be accessed from both sides, quick friendships form. 'What are you looking for? Blue? How about this one?' and 'Can you see if you can find any of these brown flat ones for me?' Strangers spend long minutes happily helping others find the perfect match. It's a place of social connection, I'll help you find what you need while you help me find what I need. If I don't find it, well, it's just a bead...The search is so much fun. 

It's also addictive. Even for me, the quick glance at the table can lead to minutes, hours? spent stirring and plucking beads. See that one gold and green one in the picture above? When I was taking this picture, I saw it and thought 'oh, those would be perfect in earrings...' and then spent a few minutes stirring through the mix until I found a match. While doing that, I found a pretty red one that also needed a match...

You see how it goes. We do sell a few of the mixes on our website, like the glass beads right here, but the real fun in the mix table comes from joining the group crowded around the bins...

stir, stir, stir, pluck

Making Valentines

Every year I make hand-made Valentines for some of our customers. I can't make them for everyone-although I'd like to!- but we create a mostly random list* of customers who get a card. The cards are different each year, and we send out 200+. Some years the cards contain candy, some years a gift certificate or coupon. I'm not saying what will be in them this year...

Each year I have to think really hard about what they'll look like. I do some Pinterest searching...and try out an idea or two before settling on a design that I enjoy making and that looks interesting. This year, I was inspired by my ever-growing selection of spray paint and some really cool spray-painted wrapping paper I saw at Edge of Urge this last holiday season. My oldest daughter ('Mom, I LOVE spray paint!!!!') helped me get the process down. We started out just setting the heart templates down on the cards, but the spray paint blew them off. We didn't want to tape or glue the hearts down because I envisioned painting the layers quickly, moving the hearts around as the paint was applied. After a bit of  experimenting, we created these finely crafted (ha!)  heart sticks. We did this by taping hearts to the ends of wooden chopsticks. The sticks make is possible to safely hold the hearts down and spray paint around the edges. No paint on fingers, or not much paint on fingers! 

We'll keep working on Valentines this whole week...and hopefully start mailing them out next week. After we make the cards, I sit down and address envelopes and write messages inside.

Do you want to make sure we have your name and address? Just call the store at 919-834-6260 and ask them to check if your info is updated in our system. We are pretty old-school, so just because you get an email from me, or are subscribed to the blog, I can't promise we have your updated address. Calling the store will make sure we have all your info. 

*How random is the list? Pretty random. Our system will generate a listing of names and addresses for us. If the address looks faulty, or the person got a Valentine in the past and it was returned to us because of a bad address, we remove the name and replace it. Staff and instructors also add in customers that need a bit of extra love this year. We aren't above bribery, baking us treats gets you on the list! 

Thanksgiving Weekend Events

valid on in-store visits only!