Sharma Designs - Behind the Scenes of a Handmade Jewelry Business

Viva La Moda

As much as I love flipping through magazines I love the online versions too!  It makes me very happy to be able to click through to the items featured.

 Viva La Moda is an online magazine that features all handmade and vintage items.  Ainhoa, the editor, does a really great job.  The magazine is really well done.

 Because I love to support other indie business I volunteered to do a "Shop ad Tell" which is a section where you show yourself wearing an item you have bought on Etsy and then give a review.  Flip through and see if you can find it!

The Bead Nook

I just added a set of pictures of my bead nook to Flickr if anyone is interested in taking a peek.  I know I always love to see where people create.  Keep in mind that this location is temporary for us so I have not added any of my personal touches to the area.  That would just be one more thing I have to pack eventually. 

The storage containers are from the container store and can be found here.  They hold a lot of beads in each drawer as you can see in the detail.  You can also attach them to a wall if need be.  They are pretty lightweight so I wouldn't recommend that you keep them within reach of children because as I found out the hard way......they rain beads when tipped (thank goodness it was just the small one)  Oh also, make sure you buy extra dividers.  They give you some on the back of the unit but not enough to do each drawer (annoyance).

Enjoy looking!

Catching Up

I know the silence has been deafening the last few weeks.  I was busy packing up my family to move across town.  Phew!  Glad that is over with and I hope we don't have to move again anytime soon (even though we do. ugh)! 

One positive thing that came out of packing up my bead room (which could seriously double as a retail bead store) is that I had to come up with a temporary storage solution/smaller setup. If you remember, my old setup (this picture cracks me up because what started as a small section of the room being my bead room ended up being me taking over!) consisted of storage units that were bolted to the wall.  Our new digs are temporary so I didn't want anything that was permanent.  I found a great solution and as soon as I recharge my camera batteries I will snap some shots for the blog.

I've had some great press recently.  The Etsy blog, The Storque did a post on scallops and scales and featured my vintage lucite scalloped hoops. That was a fun surprise!

26 Olive Street featured me as their Etsy crush of the week.  They have a very charming store on Etsy that sells vintage housewares.  I took photography for 3 years in high school so I especially love this GraLab timer.  It takes me back!  Love their pictures too!

Lastly, Try Handmade has a Shop Local feature and today's location was San Jose.  My shop got a feature along with a shop of a girl I used to babysit (many years ago) Poppy Joy (that doesn't make me feel old or anything!)  Try Handmade has some very cool handmade finds so check out their blog!

Because of the craziness I haven't had time to send out this month's newsletter with a contest winner so I am going to skip this month but next month I will be back on track.

Have a great week!