Magical fish...

Saturday night I stayed late at the shop and, with the help of my business partner/husband I made a stick chandelier. It's just a blue-painted crepe myrtle branch with five winsome felted fish hanging from it. There's also a printed paper lantern that completes the scene, with grass and flowers and trees and soaring birds.

It makes me smile.

The fish were felted by McLeod Skinner, an artist who I am proud to say teaches felting classes here at the shop from time-to-time. She also sells her work on her etsy site, MilePost13.

Check out McLeod's upcoming needle felting classes. She's a great teacher.

Here's a quick Vine video I tweeted of the chandelier that night...


One of the best things about working with my husband as my business partner is that he understands why I might want date night to consist of making a stick chandelier. He's cool with it.

Our date night went like this: We ate dinner with my mom and the girls, then we changed our clothes and walked out of the house. We passed lots of swanky couples heading out to fancy dinners here in Glenwood South. We just kept walking, into the store. We turned on the music and I opened him a beer and then he got out the REALLY tall ladder. We took down the old light extravaganza over the work table. After a lot of discussion, we worked together to create this one. He kept me from (possibly) starting a fire with some of the lighting combinations I wanted to use and I tried not to stress him out too much with my crazy ideas.

It was fun.

Sometimes people will say 'I don't know how you can work with your husband! We'd kill each other!' and I have to say, I don't know how I could NOT work with my husband. Ornamentea wouldn't be the place it is, heck, it wouldn't even exist without him. He moves the big ladders, keeps me organized and keeps the whole place a bit safer. I paint the sticks and remember that we have beer in the fridge.

That's love.

Fabric Scrap Necklaces

I've been having a nice stretch of time home with my girls. I've been in the store a bit this week but we had some computer problems that caused my husband (and business partner, and reluctant Tech Guy) to have to work A LOT.

I tried not too act TOO overjoyed when he had to rush in to work while I lazed around with my daughters, making more hot cocoa and deciding what we'd do to occupy ourselves.

See, that's the way it works in our family-we trade off. When he's at work, I'm probably with the girls (unless they are someplace else) and when I'm at work, he's probably with the girls (unless they are someplace else.) Sometimes we are both at work, but not often. There is school and playdates and Grandma, you know, but there are also teacher workdays, and summer break, and holiday break. His emergency need to be at work meant that I had to stay home as we would usually switch off days over a school break.

Which makes me happy. Yes, I love my job but you beady people will be here for a long time. These two girls won't always be nine and five-and-a-half and they won't always want to hang out with Mom for a long, late-December day.

What do we do at home? Well, we make stuff, of course. These fabric necklaces (picture above from Moomah) are on the list for this week. My older daughter wants to incorporate the sewing machine into hers. My younger daughter wants to use bells instead of beads. Me? I'm thinking waxed linen is just perfect for the stringing material.

Get the full instructions from Moomah right here.

It is time for him to come home...

My husband and I share an office. This is a good thing. We are not generally at work at the same time. I don't spend long hours at a desk when I am at work-I try to do my desk work at home and when I'm at the store I try to be ON the sales floor.

Plus, well, I'm messy. When I did have an office it looked like a flea market store room that had been decorated by a crazed bead collector. I tend to pile up the papers (which I probably will ignore anyway) and get very distracted by the beads, ribbon...rivets. Our current arrangement forces me to be a bit neater. Since I share an office with my husband I clean up the desk most days so that he can come in and use it.

Well, not this week! He's been gone on a rare long trip. Eight days. That's the longest we've been apart in our 21 year marriage. It's also the longest stretch I've had alone with the desk...

heh-heh-heh

Tomorrow night, late, he comes home. I gotta get this mess cleaned up.

But first I need to go finish some riveting...

I've got the hiring blues...

We need to add a person or persons to our staff here at the store. Staff members have babies, go back to school, participate in art shows, take trips, grow gardens. Life happens.

We need a new face. I'm not happy about this at all.

I love my employees. I hate hiring new ones...

Why?

Well, it could be because yesterday I put a very carefully-crafted ad on Craigslist and then I got twenty seven emails from folks who don't really fully read the ad, and don't use spell check, and aren't available when we need them, and aren't really crafty at all, and did I mention the spell check? Or the fact that the ad specifically says to go to the store and fill out an application not to email me?

Now sometimes, this is kinda funny. Like the time we got an email from a guy who was a club DJ. Maybe he thought we needed better tunes at our work table?  Or yesterday, I got an email with no fewer than a dozen exclamation points where the writer wanted to tell me that she really! wanted! to! work! at! our! store! Another email told me what a detail-oriented person the writer was. Actually, what it said was 'I am very detail orientated.' Then she told me she was only available on weekdays.  These things are both odder if you read the ad.

I go through this every time we hire. My husband and I run this business together, but he insists that I hire all the floor sales staff. He shifts his schedule around so I can spend the time to meet with all the right people. He listens to me when I rant about the probably-qualified teen who showed up for the interview in flip-flops and a tank top. He pours me a glass of wine as I wonder how I could clone one or two of our current fabulous staff members instead of hiring someone else.

In the end, it seems worth it. We have an amazing staff of really talented artists and craftspeople. Most of them sell their work at craft shows or galleries or through free-lance design jobs. They know so much technical information about so many different items that we carry AND they get really excited when a new tool or bead or ribbon arrives. Adding another great person to this mix always ends up improving our store and making our customer's experience better.

Hmm, maybe we COULD use a DJ?

Stealing a few minutes...

Today our store is closed. No beadfreaks have questions, not a single vendor needs an authorization, no boxes will clear customs. The printer won't call. No orders will be packed. No products will be priced. No samples will be made. The UPS guy won't have a damaged box for me to inspect. No articles will be edited. We won't shoot a video tutorial. I won't help a fledgling artist with pricing, make a pot of coffee for a customer or take out the trash. I'll wear my jammies all day, cook a giant meal and spend the entire time with some of my favorite people in the whole wide world.

I love Christmas.

I hope you are having a great day.

Note: this was written in advance, and posted using top-secret technology. That picture? It was taken by Cleo a few weeks ago. Nora is cutting paper snowflakes for our window.

Note #2 We just might get SNOW in North Carolina today. On Christmas. I cannot describe the joy this brings me as a Midwesterner. Wow.

Mess in the classroom

I love to make signs and rearrange the stores. This is one of my favorite parts of my job. On Tuesday I had to work the evening shift and it was all I could do not to rearrange the entire back wall at Ornamentea. I mean, it needs a coat of paint and some new shelves and we could add a chandelier or two...only the fact that I really could not work until 2:00 a.m. kept me from doing everything I wanted to.

Instead, I did do a bit of rearranging and tried to get the new cases better integrated into the store. We have added more cases in the metals section to get ready for a big expansion of tools and metals. We are adding nickel/German silver and expanding our selection of fine and sterling silver strip and sheet metal. We are adding some fancier new tools and do-dads. I get to make a lot of new signs (!) and I even bought a new paint marker. It was a really, really good day. The only 'not good' part of the day was the mess I made in the classroom. See that mess? I took this picture on THURSDAY so it was a Two Day Mess. Sigh...I just cleaned it up today to make room for a class. Basically, that means I transferred the mess to the back classroom and will deal with it later.

Back in the beginning days of the store I would have stayed up until 2:00 rearranging the whole thing. Actually, the 'whole thing' was smaller, so I might have gone to bed earlier and still rearranged a lot. Either way, I moved it all around a lot more. I wasn't so respectful of my body's need for sleep and we didn't have the girls at home so if my husband wanted to see me he just hung out with me at the store and helped me. We'd stay up late painting or building and I would make a few signs while he re-wired a lamp or installed a camera. They were like date nights! We actually joke about that now and say we are going to get a sitter and have a date night where we come into the store and repaint the floor or move a big display. That sounds kinda pathetic when I type it here, like we have no romance in our lives, but we enjoy working with each other on an actual project. I think we would have made good pioneers or homesteaders. Beads on the prairie.

Changes at Panopolie

We are adding a second classroom at Panopolie. We are doing this with a half-wall made of shelving and some curtains and a bit of this-and-that. It will look great when we are finished and it will allow us to have more private parties (a big deal, especially in the winter months) and classes at our largest store. It also means that we get to rearrange the entire store. I am saying 'we' but what I really mean is 'Tracey and her staff' as the store manager is the one doing all the work. I get to pop in and say helpful things like 'please move that entire display seven inches to the left' or something else just as annoying and nit-picky. I am pretty sure that Tracey does not like having her nits picked, but she is so good at her job that, honestly, I don't get to do much picking! My main contribution to this endeavor so far is saying yes and providing new furniture from my magic supply of flea market goodies. There will be some heavy lifting required, thankfully my business partner (a.k.a. my husband!) will be able to handle that with ease.

We are going to have a family day at the store this Friday and do the bulk of the heavy work. Yes, that means that I will be there with my husband and both children. It is a family business, and that means that sometimes the girls get to help dad and mom drill holes in the walls and hang up fancy chandeliers. They love it, don't worry that they are being worked too much. The girls do a small amount of work and then pretend either to be customers or store workers. The games are similar; if they are customers they go around with baskets and fill them up with beads and supplies. Then the girls like to give me the baskets and switch to pretending to be store staff. I pretend to be their supervisor and tell them that we have a new shipment that just came in and it needs to be put out. They walk around the store and 'restock' the items they put in the basket just a few minutes ago. Sometimes we have very serious-sounding conversations about reordering items or mailing items to customers. If you see me giving instructions to a six year old to pull an order for the website, you will know this game is going on. Do me a favor, ask the six year old to help you find the Toho beads, that will make her very happy.

Staff Development Day 2009

It is that time of year again. Our annual Staff Development Day is this next Tuesday, May 5th. We'll spend the day outside at a secret location, enjoying good food and learning new techniques. Last year we all painted and collaged as a group and then played bocci ball.

The Staff Development Day is one of the few times of the year that we all get together and reconnect. Our stores are open seven days a week, most of the year, and many of our core staff work part time schedules around the demands of family. We close the stores to allow as many staff members as possible to join us for the day and it is totally worth it. We're like a big, extended family and this is the summer family picnic, except without the hairy uncle that wants to talk for hours about the summer when he went to Indiana with your dad when they were teenagers, and without the really, really old great auntie who keeps asking whose baby you are.

I can hardly wait.

on the internets

We have a new feature at Ornamentea. We have added a wi-fi network so folks can surf the web whilst they bead. Actually, we added it so that I (and a few other staff members) could use our laptops at work but then we figured, what the heck, why not make it available to the public? Right now we are pretty quiet about it but we do intend to post some 'Internet Bead Cafe' signs around at some point. Since we occasionally have free coffee or wine in the evenings (just ask!) this is the next logical step, right?

While I don't imagine that our usual customer will be surfing while beading we often have a trailing friend or spouse on our couch, looking bored and perusing Car&Driver or InStyle. Now they have a choice; they can bring their own laptop and play World of Warcraft.

Since I can now bring my ancient laptop to work with me I think I may invest in a nice laptop cover. That would make my husband happy. He would like me to wrap it in bubble wrap before I throw it in my huge bag but I cannot do that for obvious reasons*. Maybe I will get this nice squirrely cover from the fine folks at Brokesy on etsy. A panic-y squirrel is just the totem animal for my computing times and I didn't find a single chicken laptop cover on etsy. Not a single one.

*because it looks bad, duh!

Inventory Woes and Good Times

We will be closed on March 18th and 19th for Inventory.

Yes, spring is here and that means flowers, birds, new seeds and, of course, INVENTORY. Argh. This is my least favorite part of having my own business. Counting all the parts is bad enough but the worst bit is seeing all the items that I love but ordered a few too many of. Why are they still here? Am I the only one who loves them? I look at all those ingredients and see all the fun times that I (or you!) could have working with them. Can't you see the good times? Beading a necklace and chatting with a friend and sipping a cup of tea. Creating a card for your mom and talking with your sister while she stamps some gift wrap. Stringing up a bracelet for a friend while you both listen to music and solve the world's problems. That's what I see when I look at those beads or ribbon or rubber stamps.

Unfortunately, the Wizards of Inventory DON'T see good times, they see SKUs* and this means we have to count them all. We'll close for two days and do a lot of "1,2,3,4,5..." while listening to loud music and eating junk food. If you see me at the grocery on the 18th or 19th you'll know why I am carrying three boxes of granola bars, two bags of potato chips and a six pack of Dr. Pepper.

There are a few things that experienced store owners will tell you when you are starting out; things like Buy At Multiple Price Points and Buy For All Your Customers Not Just The Noisy Ones but the hardest for me to really listen to is Do Not Fall In Love With Your Merchandise. That's rough. I am not selling widgets or cleaning supplies or lumber. I am selling BEADS. For pete's sake, how can I NOT fall in love with them? The point of that pithy saying is that as a store owner I should be brutal and just mark down things that don't sell quickly. No love, no second chances. It seems so harsh, though, so mean, to tell that strand of lovely beads or that book that it's not worth full price. It is hard for me to look at just about anything we sell and not think of all the good times that could be had if I just made something out of those ingredients.

Since we have Inventory coming up next week I have put on my Cruella De Ville hat and walked the stores. We have lots of teary-eyed beads and do-dads wearing green stickers. My husband and business partner does not understand why this bothers me so. He's a numbers guy; a statistician with years of working for a giant corporation where numbers were IT. He doesn't get all high-pitched when something new and sparkly arrives. That's good, usually, and really I think I may have to put him in charge of marking items down...

*SKUs are Stock Keeping Units. Doesn't that sound sweet? So romantic and friendly. Arggh.


Items that need to be part of your Good Times:

Getting Ready for CHA

I am off to the Craft and Hobby Association trade show this weekend. It's a big show with aisles and aisles of cake decorating gear, scrapbooking supplies, knitting yarns, sewing do-dads, model trains, fine art supplies; if it's crafty, it's there. The show is HUGE and overwhelming but also really fun. I like looking over a big display from a company that makes nothing but snaps or specialty styrofoam shapes and wonder at the possibilities.

This year I am excited but I am also a bit nervous. I haven't traveled away from my girls in a long time; I have actually never been apart from Nora for more than a day. She's going to be o.k.; she has her favorite person (Dad) and her second favorite person (her big sis) but still...I am trying to talk to the girls about going away on 'my trip for work' in a matter-of-fact manner and since Cleo is now six that is easy. Six year olds are all about matter-of-fact.

me: I will fly on a big airplane.
Nora: why you fly on a big airplane, not a tiny airplane? (Nora's favorite word is 'tiny')
me: because California is really far away and I need to fly on a big plane to get there
Cleo: Mom, California is not really far away, it's right next to the Pacific Ocean. China and India are really far away, California is just on the other side of the country.
Nora: (excited!) Yeah! Mom, you can take a tiny airplane! A teeny tiny one with a mommy airplane next to it.
me: (gulp!) yep, I can check into that, maybe I will try to ride on the mommy airplane.
Cleo: (disgusted) there's no such thing as mommy airplanes, machines don't have mommies

what I am really thinking is that it is WAY too far away...too far for kisses and finding dolly shoes and making banana animals. But then I realized that Cleo's world is big enough to have places further than the ones I am headed to and that is a good thing...it makes me seem like I am not so far away.

The second thing that makes me nervous is my wardrobe. Stop laughing. You know you'd be doing the same thing. I have so few outfits that make me feel 100% great and none of them are warm climate trade show appropriate. I know there is probably some How To Attend A Trade Show site out there that recommends 'comfortable clothes' and suggests jeans and a tee shirt but honestly, that would make me feel like a slob. Business suits would work, but I don't have ANY or the appropriate accessories. I am shallow enough that I like to have a consistent look day-to-day at the trade shows so that I can carry the same tote bag. I have been turning my closet inside out with attempts to find the 'perfect' outfits and I even visited my friends at Galatea and bought one new, soon-to-be-favorite outfit. I think I might lay it all out on the bed tonight and make my husband give me his opinion. That will make him want me to go far away so I stop obsessing about what to wear.

Par-TAY!

Tracy gets really happy-





Nice shoes!











Melissa has no idea who the guy in the black sweater is but he's cute, I hope she got his number!



Hailey and Heidi, the dangerous duo!





Gift joy for all -





Melissa wears a box lid as a hat, or does that hat work as a box lid?



And earlier in the evening this was Mom and Dad heading out for a fancy night-



This was the gift Galen made..check out the wrapping on those brownies! Watch out Martha!



I hope your work parties are this much fun-we really do like each other a lot here and this party is one opportunity to show it to each other AND to wear our fancy shoes and be silly! We have done a party every year since the business began. At first they were fondue affairs on our tiny back porch with lots of beer and bread and cheese. Since we have outgrown our own house we go to a different place each year. This party was so nice as the Globe is homey and the food is really great but it's not too expensive (shhh! don't tell!) which makes my spouse happy. He has to balance the books, after all. I have thought about getting a professional photographer to document the party and think I will do that next year. About half of my photos were a bit blurry...musta been the Pomegranate Margaritas!

Prep Maynard has a chain making class coming up at Ornamentea this week. He's a retired engineer who has been making chains for decades. He's precise and detailed-a real engineer-who brings that problem solving personality to jewelry making. I happen to enjoy engineers, although I know some women think they are dry. I like the ability to fix things, the intelligence and the great collections of mechanical pencils. My husband is an engineer, or he was before I dragged him into the world of bead entrepreneurship. At our house his training has translated to a large collection of short wave radios and cameras and some forays into electronic music-making, but not lapidary and chain making supplies.

I wonder if my husband would like to take Prep's class?

You'll learn three different chain styles and make one bracelet. This is a great guy or girl project, call Ornamentea to register at 919-834-6260.

Pie

Do you like pie? I do. This time of year I like summer fruit pies or cold vegetable tarts (like zuchini and cheese) but I willingly take a bite of anything good you put between pastry crusts. I love to bake pies and tarts (that's my apple galette right there, galette is a fancy word for a pie with no pan) but I don't have as much time to indulge in this lately. Something about two young children, businesses to run, etc. that drops pie to the bottom of the list next to painting my toenails and finishing a book.

We are treating ourselves this year to a subscription to a CSP. That's Community Supported Pie. It's a lot like a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) where you pay ahead for a share of a farmer's crop except in the CSP you pay ahead for a share of the baker's work for the week. Every Friday we get a box of deliciousness that is the biggest treat ever. We do most of our own cooking most of the time, so a fabulous treat in the house made by someone else is a REAL treat. We've been extra busy and sometimes on Friday night after the girls are asleep in bed and my husband has closed the store for the night we sit on the couch and eat a slice of pie off the same plate and talk to each other for the first time in a week. It's what passes for a date in the glamorous world of us bead entrepreneurs.

Phoebe Lawless of Scratch Bakery has a CSP that drops off at Ornamentea on Fridays. Thanks goodness. I don't think Friday would be the same without it. Tuesday nights would be a little less exciting, too (she says as she licks her fork!)

*if you wish to learn more about Community Supported Agriculture here in NC, visit the Carolina Farm Stewardship Association. Good folks, good food.

Cupcakes and clean plates

We had delicious double layer Twins Cookies last night to celebrate hubby's birthday. They were made by the magicians at Twin's Kitchen. Yummy. The generous twins sent along a box with four sweet extra cupcakes that somehow remained hidden in our fridge until just a bit ago. Both girls asleep, hubby just home from work, the house a serious mess and we are putting on some music and cleaning up and licking the icing from our fingers. I have other, actual, work to do here on my trusty laptop* but I am blogging in between putting up all the dishes and dollies and colored pencils and hubby is washing, washing, washing.

Since we trade off time with our girls and time at work we are rarely in the same place at the same time except for breakfast and dinner (we always eat together!) and meals with children require a good bit of child-level and or interrupted dialog. The nightly clean up is one time when we can finish our sentences and even ask questions. You know, have a conversation. I seriously love to clean the kitchen with my husband.

So, dishes to wipe.

Oh, the Twins are at the Moore Square Farmer's Market on Wednesday. They'll also be at Ornamentea for the Designer's Downtown Market on July 19th. That's right out my front door. Extra yummy.

*why is it called a laptop when it lives on my kitchen counter? shouldn't I call it a countertop?

too much to do

Arrgh. It has been ages since I posted. We've been busy and I have had minimal down time. Christmas is coming and we are getting all the holiday displays up in the stores. This year I really haven't had any opportunity to do any displays and I miss it. My available work time is so short that I can't really spend time 'playing' with rearranging the beads. I did go in last night to set up for a bead show we had at Ornamentea for about four hours. I took Nora and she just hung out on the floor, rolling around and making squealing noises. That won't last, a few months from now I won't be able to just plop her down and work nearby. Right now she is still amused by watching me as long as I talk about what I am doing. This means I narrate my activities which could be either funny or really annoying to adults who are listening. Nora is enthralled. She's my best audience.

Oh, an update on the hiring...I have interviewed almost ten people this last week and they were all pretty good. A few were really stellar and we'll probably hire them. Whew. It's been pretty tight with the schedule so now-hopefully-we can all breathe.