It’s tough to stay on task during these steamy times when your job requires you to stand directly in the blast of a 1500 degree kiln, but I try to look at it as a purifying experience. Think Bikram yoga meets steam facial.

I feel sheepish, but I realized far too late that our original post about our newest store Colfax , an awesome accessories boutique in Kansas City, was languishing in the draft file. Boo! Check them out on Facebook–lots of lovely handmade items from around the country.

I’m off to concoct a meal of sorts for this warm evening. Pasta salad and grilled chicken sound just right, especially when you follow them with freshly picked frozen strawberries and grilled nectarine halves with vanilla ice cream. Yum!

Of course, there are some beauties in the earrings section too! After several collections of all-etched pieces, I wanted to return to a clean geometry for summer and fall.  I’m so happy with the unique way each pair lays and how lightweight and comfortable they are.

I’ve had several customers come to me in the past few months asking about weight and wearability of earrings and I’m really concentrating on making every pair easy on the lobes. Thanks for asking! Your comments and questions help me refine the line and make it better, so bring ‘em on.

In celebration of the new line launch, I’m happy to offer 25% off your entire order through July 28th. Just enter “new2010″ at checkout and click “Update Qty” to view your discounted total before proceeding through Paypal. As ever, thank you for your support and interest in my line!

Take the day off, that is. For those fortunate enough to live in the Pacific NW, these past two days have been an explosion of spring-summer goodness. Neighbors you haven’t seen in months are out mowing their lawns, families are having picnics in their yards and your brother is hosting a Brisket ‘n Brews party on the nicest day of the year so far (okay, maybe just my brother, but I bet you wish your brother was having said party). So, in honor of the day, I leave you with this inspiring photo:

Well, the house hunt is over a mere 2 weeks after it began! We looked at 18 places with our realtor before stepping into “the one”. We feel so lucky to have gotten it and can’t wait to begin our lives as home owners! Though the process seemed to proceed with lightning speed, we’d actually been researching for at least 6 months and it helped a ton when it came time to make a list of must haves for our first home–so glad I took that time back when I thought home owning was a veerrryy distant prospect. Now, on to the dirty details of moving, address changing and reorganizing.

I’d also like to take this opportunity to announce that Alisha Louise Designs are once again available at our very first retail location, Fancy in downtown Seattle! The owner, Sally Brock, was the first person to take a chance on my work way back in 2005. I think I came in to our meeting with a cigar box full of mismatched jewelry and had no idea what I was talking about. Ah, memories. Above is a sampling of the quirky/cool work that Sally is known for. Fancy also has all kinds of jewelry invitational shows throughout the year that I’m super excited about. Once you’ve done production work for a few years, it’s a treat to do a one-off piece now and again.

Could this be our new home?

In other news, I’ve begun the search for my first home! B and I couldn’t be happier and are going to scour the city again tonight. Lots of amazing finds and odd quirks abound in Portland, one of the many reasons why I love it here. Wish us luck!

I finally got a chance to visit the world famous Tucson Gem and Mineral Show this year, thanks to the gracious hosting of my good friend Andrea. I’ve been wanting to visit her forever and figured the arrival of the Gem Show was a great time to take advantage of the opportunity before she leaves for Korea (sad). We had a great time catching up, eating amazing Mexican/American creations (the Sonoran hotdog is a delicacy not to be missed) and hanging with her adorable 18 month old son.

I hardly knew where to start concerning the show. The whole shebang runs for about 2 weeks in 30 locations around Tucson proper. You’ve got your raw rocks, fossils, beads, flashy gemstones, jewelry showcases, tools and seminars and I had about 3 days to see what I could see. I feel good about my show choices (AGTA, GJX and Holiday Inn seemed the best to me in terms of prices and variety, but the eclectic nature of the Electric Park was a big draw too) and bought modestly with the hopes of more to come once I’ve figured out my final designs and refreshed myself on stonesetting. Since I neglected to take many pictures, I’m heavily borrowing from those with more foresight on the interweb.

Geode slices were everywhere you looked. I brought back many with the hopes of creating coasters and mobiles to put up on Etsy.

Found some awesome, chunky smokey quartz pieces for cocktail rings I’ve been seeing in my head.

Splurged on impratical yet delightful watermelon tourmaline slices. Going to have to save these until I know what I am doing with the diamond drills I brought back.

In keeping with “large stones that look good enough to eat” theme, I picked up a yummy lemon quartz that I see either gracing a pendant or chic cocktail ring for summer. Other delightful finds include chalcedony, tanzanite, peruvian opals, chrysophrase and sapphires. Oh, the gems. It’s enough to drive one to bankruptcy.

Finally, this vision of gaudiness was found at the entrance to the granddaddy of all shows, AGTA. What a specimen! Cheyenne and I both had to photograph it. God bless America!

After all that walking around and shopping, I definitely needed to hit up the venerable Tucson institution known as Eegees. They seemed to be as pervasive as Starbucks, but those blended fruit ices (later combined with rum) really hit the spot. I can’t wait to head back next year!

]]> http://www.alishalouise.com/wordpress/?feed=rss2&p=123 http://www.alishalouise.com/wordpress/?p=109 http://www.alishalouise.com/wordpress/?p=109#comments Mon, 11 Jan 2010 23:01:17 +0000 Alisha http://www.alishalouise.com/wordpress/?p=109 Yes, we are off to a late start with our sentiments, but better late than never, no? And, while I truly hate to use the word resolution this time of year, I have made a tentative agreement with myself to post more and put up some photos. Remember those wedding pics I promised?

Check! I found in the course of the entire wedding planning and having process that most of the cliches are true. It’s the biggest, most involved party you will ever throw (fun + stress like you’ve never known), it is a day of 1,000 emotions, it is the best day ever that goes by in about 5 minutes. I didn’t stop dancing from the minute the music started playing until it was time to pay the caterers. It still feels like a bit of a dream, but I do get to wake up every morning next to proof in the form of the best husband ever. Life is very sweet. Okay, I still don’t have the shooting pictures, but in good time. Patience will reward you with some select pics of Augs in his hunting jacket on a snow day. It’s as cute as it sounds, I assure you.

Re: Jewelry, please check out my brand new Etsy site! I posted a few items up there right before Christmas, then took the time to read all the helpful tips Etsy puts out for newbies, realizing I did things a bit backward. Still, I’m excited about it and hopeful that it will create a new branch of the Alisha Louise empire!

In other news, it’s a tough time to be selling jewelry online, according to this Business Week article. While I do understand the issue at hand with buying jewelry online (what if the photos lie? what if these earrings are so heavy they kill my earlobes?), I try to make it easy for my customers and welcome all questions you might have about size, color, weight and even custom options. If you ever have a question about my work, please do email me at alisha@alishalouise.com. I’m currently working on getting a picture of each and every piece of my jewerly on a model so that my customers can get a good idea of how said piece will look on them once it arrives. Until the professional shots are done, I can always furnish an amateur pic at your request. I can’t promise excellent quality, but I’m happy to try!

We got married here!

So, where does creating/making/marketing/selling jewelry come in? Well, it kind of took a backseat this past month to be honest. It’s not like one gets married every day and since we are not in the category of those with means to hire out all the wedding decisions, most of the planning went on in-house. Now that the bestdayofmylife is over, it’s time to think about the holidays, the economy and how to approach both without losing perspective, chucking it all and spending days in a coffee-cocktail induced haze trying to convince myself that I don’t miss cable television. It’s tough out there, times are tight, [insert favorite cliche here], but that doesn’t mean it’s not possible to put your work out there and have it appreciated by the thoughtful consumer. To that end, we’ve added 2 new stores (welcome Pedx and Moxsie!), updated our Supermarket portfolio and have had mentions on these fantastic blogs:

Freshly Blended

Portland Loves Local

And though I can’t read it, this mention from Pepermint out of Slovenia. Rave? Slam? Who knows, but it’s cool to see your work being posted internationally.

Speaking of international, we are hard at work setting up for international shipping for the holidays! And not just Canada, though we do love our neighbors to the north. I’ll keep you posted, even if all of my readers seem to hawk scary porn and terrible meds (oh, just trollers? Makes me feel better). Our last project involves getting back to our roots, the handmaking of all things silver and gold. When and where will be available soon!

In happier news, B and I made a glorious road trip to San Francisco this weekend. The weather was perfect, we received hotel upgrades, ate delicious sushi and roamed what very may well be the best city park I’ve ever laid eyes on.  Golden Gate is the list topper for me at this point. Yes, I’ve been to Central Park, but something about the variety and unexpected features (waterfall! bison!) of Golden Gate was a true delight.