Sharma Designs - Behind the Scenes of a Handmade Jewelry Business

Interview!

Check out my interview with Miss Evil Kitty!

Read the Interview Here

Posted in Celebrate_

A Little About Me

My friend Jen sent this to me in an email and I thought it would be fun to answer it on my blog. For the web question she said she reads my blog everyday so she will get to see the answers here! (Hi Jen!)

*Four jobs I have had in my life:*
1. Ice Cream Scooper (yes you CAN get sick of ice cream)
2. Nanny
3. Business Specialist (I swear that was my official title. I think that it was not a coincidence that the initials were B.S - ie they couldn't think of a title for what I did)
4. Jewelry Designer

*Four movies I would watch over and over:*
1. When Harry Met Sally
2. Swingers
3. Contact (yes I am a space geek)
4. Fiddler on the Roof

*Four places I have lived: *
1. Japan (I was 6 months old)
2. San Jose, CA
3. Costa Mesa, CA
4. Campbell, CA

*Four TV shows I love to watch:*
1. Project Runway
2. Law and Order (SVU is my fav)
3. The Apprentice
4. E.R

*Four places I have been on vacation:*
1. Paris
2. Maui (Yay! My Honeymoon!)
3. Alaska
4. Colorado

*Four websites I visit daily:* (Only 4?)
1. Sommer Designs blog
2. Pink is the New Blog
3. Confessions of a Beauty Addict
4. Go Fug Yourself

*Four of my favorite foods*:
1. Chips and Salsa
2. Lasagna
3. Ice Cream (I got over the being sick of it)
4. Coffee (It's like a food)

*Four places I would rather be right now:*
1. Maui
2. Shopping
3. Somewhere where it isn't raining
4. In my Bead Room

*Four things that you would buy immediately if you inherited $250K, tax free*
1. More Beads! (A no brainer)
2. A College Education for Ms Bells
3. New Clothes (Can we ever have too many?)
4. A big present for my hubby - maybe a new motorcycle

*Four Worst Habits*
1. Leaving lights on
2. Going to bed with my makeup on (I know Mei!)
3. Spending too much time on the computer
4. Staying up too late!

I would love to hear some of your answers. Either leave them in the comments or email them to me! Come on! It will be fun!

Jewelry Preview

Hah! See here is proof that I have been working on jewelry:

More to come tomorrow.

Posted in Jewelry Previews_

A Few More Pictures

Yes this is a distraction tactic. Right after I posted all about my great intentions of tons of jewelry every night I came down with some kind of nasty virus. Ya, I have NO voice. This has never happened to me before. It is so weird to be trying to talk and have whispers come out. How will the world hear all the wonderful and witty things I have to say? Ha ha ha

When I went in to my daughters room to get her yesterday I said "Good Morning Bella" which came out all whispered and croaky. She just looked at me like I was crazy. Oh and another fun part of the day was when someone came to pick something up from work. Now because I believe in safety, I lock the door to the office when I am the only one there. I heard someone rattling the handle so I ran outside. The man was walking away so I began to screech "Wait Wait!" and jump up and down but he just kept right on walking. I finally had to chase him to his car and scare the crap out of him by tapping on his window. Oh good times.

I did make some jewelry last night despite my current state of unwellness. I will try to get pictures today to post tonight or tomorrow.

In the meantime, here are a few more reception pics:

Reception Weekend

This weekend we had a wonderful wedding reception! My friend hosted it for us in her house and it really was absolutely perfect. I took a few before pictures. Ha ha once things got started I was busy talking to everyone and forgot to even get one of me and my husband. Oh well! We have some fabulous wedding pictures that hopefully I will be able to share soon.

So here I am showing off my own jewelry:

This is my sister. She has very conservative jewelry taste and I had to convince her that these earrings were not big. They looked really cute with her pink cami she had under her sweater. She was looking very sassy:

This is me and my little munch. She stole the show. She was a little grumpy before we got there but once she was around all her adoring fans she was the hit of the party.

And here is what our tables looked like. We had planned to have the reception in my friend's backyard but when we realized it was not going to be warm anytime soon we went to plan b and held the reception inside. My friend graciously let us take over and take out her furniture and replace everything with a ton of tables and chairs. It was really such a great night!

I am glad I can stop stressing about all that now and get back to jewelry making. I sold a lot of stuff over the weekend too and man the website is bare! I promise it won't be soon. I plan to really crack down this week. So be on the lookout for new stuff soon!

Hope your weekend was as great as mine!

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No more checking back 15 times a day! Ha ha. You will find out just by checking your email if there is a new post.

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Posted in Website News_

Back to Work

Well the Moonlight Madness sale was a great success. I have been busy making all kinds of new stuff. The above picture are some new earrings and Simply Stated necklaces. Those are almost out.

I most likely will not be able to get them up this week. We have our wedding reception this weekend which I am running around like a madwoman for and we have tons of family coming into town. It's going to be a fabulous weekend but lots of work.

I promise to keep posting progress photos though. If any of you have great storage solutions let me know! I have been trying to fix up my design room but don't know where to start as far as getting everything organized. I need help!

Hope you have a great week!

Posted in Jewelry Previews_

Big Big Sale!

Posted in Sales Alerts_

Slowly but Surely

I know I have been very bad about updating my blog lately. I have a few other blogs besides this one so its hard to come up with stuff for all of them.

I have been working hard on my bead room. The bead shelves are up:



There are 4 sections of the shelves. Each has their own colors. Man I have a lot of beads huh? I'm hoping that having them all up where I can see them will help inspire me. The room is nowhere near done (As you can see by all the boxes on the floor). I really want it to feel cozy and to be a place that I love to spend time in so I need to decorate it and such but all that does take time and money. So it will definitely be a process. I am excited to have the beads up though.

I have been working hard on getting my spring/summer jewelry ready. I don't really do "lines" but I do like to have seasonal jewelry on my site. In the summer I tend to do more shells and such and use brighter colors. I sure wish it felt like summer. The weather in the Bay Area has been horrid. It has been raining, hailing, snowing, you name it! It makes it hard to be inspired to make spring/summer jewelry.

Oh! If you subscribe to my newsletter list make sure you keep your eyes peeled for a very special sale announcement. I have a "Moonlight Madness" sale that will be posted very soon! If you haven't already subscribed to the newsletter you can do so on any page of Sharma Designs

Lastly, check out the My Yahoo link I put on the sidebar of my blog. You can now add the Sharma Designs blog to your My Yahoo page with the click of a button. I like to make things easy!

Hope everyone is having a great week!

Posted in Business Babble_

Customer Appreciation

One of the joys of being a designer is when a customer really loves your product. One of my friends who lives out of town was over last night. She went "shopping". It was so fun and encouraging to hear her go through all the necklaces and watch her try them on and "ooh" and "ahh". It's also fun because she adores the same necklaces I do.

I love all my necklaces but there are some that make my heart flutter. My friend picks up all those and I think they make her heart flutter too. I love it. I love that my favorites are going to a good home too. Someone who will appreciate them as much as I do.

Here is one that she picked that is truly on of my favorites:

She has this gorgeous auburn curly hair that will look amazing with the brownish beads of the necklace. The turquoise color looks great on her too! I'm so happy she got it!

Posted in Busines Babble_