Back in the grind

I'll spare you the "sorry for not blogging/we've been super busy/we moved away from each other making working on this project together complicated....and that has taken away time for blogging" spiel, and go straight into what we've been up to. We got back Sunday Sept 20th from Arts in the Heart 2009, an art festival in Augusta GA. The festival is huge, there were 130 other artists all hocking their peices/treasures. I had the pleasure of being neighbors with Billy S, a very well known artist from Augusta, He was great. It rained...no, poured Friday night but, it was beautiful Saturday and it brought the crowds out. We actually placed third in the juried art selection. I KNOW!! I was so sad that Angie wasn't there to accept the award with me (yes, I got to go on stage, and get a check, and get a big ribbon....they could have given me that ribbon and I would have been just as happy). My wonderful boyfriend stepped in and helped set up and break down my little shop six times! (no wonder I'm so sore). All in all it was a complete success, I had a great time, met A LOT of cool people and, got some really good feedback on our stuff. Thanks to Brenda Durant and her staff and the volunteers for such a wonderfully organized event! We hope to make it back next year. I also hope that everyone who bought one of our pieces is enjoying it thoroughly.



The next steps we will be taking will obviously be to put everything we didn't sell up on ETSY. We've got some really, really cute rings and bracelets. Check the shop soon at designsbysorella.etsy.com. Which reminds me, we haven't updated that little shoppe in quite a while, so excuse it if it's a mess. We're still working out the style of our graphics and signs. You'll notice we changed the header to the blog and put the old image at the bottom. We'll see how this fits before changing it again. It's hard to identify your work with images and font, it's a lot harder than I had imagined in the beginning. We want to creat a sort of vintage/antique/classy/whimsical feel...so we'll see if we can accomplish that.



Here are some lovely pictures from Arts in the heart 2009:


Thankfully the rain came after we set up Friday night



Making the best of it


The necklace on the left is $58.00 and the one the right is $44.00. Both are made with brass gears. The tri-necklace on the right is sterling silver at the top and also has laser cut wooden gears.



Oh, I love sweater clips. The one on the top has clocks from wrist watches from the 50's and 60's. One is actually like a locket and opens. The strands between are made of brass balancing wheels from pokcet watches, gold plated chain, and turquouise plastic beads. The top is going for 48.00. The clasps are like little alligator teeth clips and will handle lots of wear. The clip on the bottom is made from pieces of the movement within a pocket watch and the chain is sterling silver. It reminds me of wings, so that's what I've named it :) ---costs $36.00








The earrings and bracelet sold but we still have the dainty balancing wheel necklace, cute with everything and great for layering.

I made a few brooches and they turned out so cute, they look great on peacoats.




This one's for you Ang ;)

summa time projects, what we've been up to

Expect more regular posts now that I'm not living in cardboard boxes. :)

My boyfriend had this great picnic table that was starting to fall apart due to neglect...and lots of rain. We decided that it needed to be revamped because of the sentimental value behind it instead of being thrown out. Sooo, in one Saturday afternoon we sanded it down, repaired some of the planks that had come loose, and re-stained it the best gray blue we could find. Most picnic tables are red so I thought the nantucket blue was way cuter, plus I'm all about mixing traditional with non-traditional. It was an easy and very cheap project...and it completely made over the old picnic table. Here are some pictures of the process:

We forgot to take real "before" pictures, but this is during the sanding and repair

It really only took one coat of the stain because we liked how the red
was showing through.



The finished product!!! So cute.



an up close view of how I got carried away with the sander,
no splinters on this puppy. :)


On to Jewelry:

We have applied to be in the juried art show "Arts in the Heart 2009" in Augusta Georgia, filled out the application, sent in the checks, and have gotten no response as to whether we've been accepted yet. It's only a month away!!!! I checked to see if the checks were cashed and one of them has been, so I'm not sure what that means. Either way, we're headed into the studio to make as much as possible in the shortest of time. AHHHHH! With Angie in Little Five Points and me in Athens, there will be lots of our individual style shown in the new pieces and lots of phone calls and picture texting. I think we need to set up some sort of video calling too. :)

Side note: We're loving the bib necklaces and have LOTS of ideas for watch gear versions.

Keep checking in with us. It's been a slow blogging summer but now that the craziness has died down we should be able to document all the pretty things in our lives a little more frequently.

The Skinny...

We have not been posting as regularly as we should. And I'm not making any excuses....except for the fact that we're both packing, planning a move, working at our "real" jobs and enjoying time with our pugs in the very little free time we have...those are not excuses :). I'm reformed now. Having decided that this will take priority in my week over NYC Prep. Either way, you'll hear from me more often...like it or not. Sorella Designs and Co. spent the fourth of July weekend in Athens and I think our fireworks show was bigger than the city's. Don't tell anyone that, I'm sure it wasn't legal. Although we took all safety measures possible.

This is Rosa, she was awesome.

I bought an awesome painted nightstand from Kristen Fountain Davis of KFD Designs, (I can not plug her enough, she is so talented and I love her taste) for my new house. It was built in 1918, before closets apparenltly but FULL of charm. Picture hanging molding, a claw foot tub, and a very nice rocking chair front porch. We've purchased some pieces we plan to refinish and I hope to post before and after pictures when we get time to actually do it. It's overwhelming to think about all that has to be accomplished in a little less than a month...AH we'll get it all done, I'm not worried a bit.

This is Kristen's masterpeice

We officially changed our name to Sorella Designs and Company. Now I have to change the banner and maybe the blog web address....maybe not. Building a website will be the next step. But we do have a Tax I.D. number!! and a small business bank account. Both were extremely satisfying to have accomplished after starting this whole venture. We're learning new techniques and getting stocked for Arts in the Heart of Augusta. A HUGE arts festival, if you can make it, you should!! It's September 18, 19, and 20, 2009.

It's late, my witty banter has faded and all inspiration has gone to thinking about how my sheets are still in the dryer. I promise I'll post something pretty that has been inspiring us. I have a few artists in mind that everyone should know about too. **sweet dreams

For A "Beary" Good Cause

We kind of have this little mascot/logo that Angie designed in Japan and we have been hand silkscreening onto hand dyed tees, onsies, anything we can get our hands on. It's been a big hit and until this past weekend we didn't really have many of the tee shirts on hand because they sold so quickly. We decided to set up shop...might as well have been a sweat shop, in my parents garage and pumped out a bunch of these VERY cute tees in lots of different color combinations for guys and girls. The design is an Owl...how wise of us :) The tees are Hanes white v-necks and round necks in all sizes that have been dyed and won't fade. Once dyed and dried (jeez, with all these ryhmes maybe I should contact so so def... kidding and I have no idea why I'm so cheezy tonight) we screenprinted the owl design strategically in the upper/center of the chest and allowed to dry. Did I mention they won't fade, we used permanent screen printing dyes. A special thanks goes to Mom for working for free and thanks Dad for all of your advice in between watching the golf network, eh it was Father's Day, what do you expect. The even better news is that we have decided to donate a portion of the sales of these shirts to Bear Hollow Wildlife Trail, those of you in Athens, I'm sure you have heard of or even been to the small zoo that houses wildlife that can not be released back into nature. It's a great little place and I have gone there for walks and runs since I moved to Athens 9 years ago. Because they have several owls that they take care of there, we thought we'd like to help out with their expenses...and of course the other animals too. The shirts are $20.00 each and a fourth of each sale will be donated. We hope you are as excited as we are to help out such a great cause. At the moment we don't have many pictures of the tees we did this weekend, I am posting a picture of the owl printed on a onsie so that you can see the design. If you are interested in purchasing one of these tee shirts please contact Angie or I, you can leave a comment here or email us. I hope to have pictures of all the different colors up soon, but we literally have any and all color combos. The one I have is navy blue with a gold owl in the center. The metallic screenprinted owls look really cool. I just wanted to put a quick post up tonight about them because I was so excited about our idea to give back to a place that I have enjoyed so much. AGAIN, if you can dream up a color combo we either have it or can make it :) Let us know what you think and if you'd like to purchase one!!!! I'll upload a picture of mine tomorrow.

No, we didn't fall off the face of the earth :)

We've just been a little busy. With work and a very eminent move, we've put blogging on the back burner. Sooo here we are to do a little update and let everyone know that Sorella Designs is alive and well. We have a very talented blacksmith and jeweler teaching us different techniques in his Athens based studio. We are SO excited about this. We're even learning how to forge our own tools and how to use machines built in the early 1900's for black smithing. We've got SO many ideas swirling in our little heads. From enameling the gears to cutting our own clock hands and gears from different kinds of metals. Seems like the possibilities are endless and we hope that you bear with us during the learning process. Great new pieces will be up soon for your viewing and buying pleasure :)

Yes, we are moving too. Which adds a nice sense of panic to our lives. Me and Angie have lived together for almost all of our lives and the idea of her not being down the hallway is a little overwhelming to me. She's my best friend and partner in crime, so we'll have a little adjusting to do if we end up in different zip codes....but don't worry, Sorella Designs has just begun...you'll be hearing a lot more from us whether we're in the same city or not.

That leads me to do a little business lesson update. We're still in the process of getting the articles for our LLC. We hit a slight snag though. Although the state of Georgia has the company name Sorella Designs, LLC available, if you google sorella designs you'll see that another online jewelry company will pop up. This is no good. We've come up with some alternate names that we really like but wanted to get some feedback from anyone that reads this. I think we're really leaning towards Sorella Designs and Company, LLC. Cute right? Plus, we do have a lot of folks helping us out and it's nice to acknowledge them. We could also do Designs by Sorella, our Etsy name. I like the first option better, what about you? I think changing the name is okay when it's still early in the game.

So there you have it, a short but sweet update on our comings and goings. I'm having a jewelry photo shoot this afternoon, weather permitting, so make sure you check out our etsy shop this weekend!!! Oh, and check out my adobe photo shop skills at the top of this blog, I'm teaching myself and it's been painstaking, there's still lots to fix but I think it came out pretty cute :)

Enjoy your weekend!

Decoration Day

In remembrance and to honor all those soldiers who have lost their lives while serving our nation, we are dedicating this blog to all things red, white, and blue.

morningcoffee.wordpress.com

Kristin.A

quiltownusa.com

collectiblejewels.com

painting by Alyse Radenovic

Published in 1942 by General Cable Corp.

Happy Memorial Day!

A real update blog will follow soon. This week sorella designs hits the metal smithing studio!

ahhh...the sweet smell of success

We spent this past weekend in Griffin, GA (our home town) showing off our works of art at the Hatch Market. First of all we would like to thank everyone that had anything to do with putting the weekend together, everyone at Scoop Magazine, especially Jessica W., who was able answer the thousand questions I had before the event. Everyone was so helpful, as this was our very first art festival and we didn't really know what to expect. We're so new to the jewelry hustle. Just think, it was only 2 months ago that we got the idea to make our watch/clock piece jewelry and now we're actually selling it to people. It's really humbling to hear someone say "oooo I really like this one, I have to have it, how much is it?". So, all in all, it was a success. We will have the pieces that didn't sell plus a few we came up with this week on etsy. We met so many nice people this weekend and hope we picked up a few readers in the process!! This week are filing out the paper work to get our tax I.D. number....and making our little business legit. Then on to the oh so exciting merchant bank account opening. We'll post all the juicy details, so in case you're thinking about starting up your own business, maybe our adventures will some how help you on yours.

I'm going to leave you with pictures of our sweet set-up from the weekend and some new pieces we've made. They are in the most ridiculous order because blogger is being crazy and almost caused me to throw my computer out the window. I had to give up, I've been wanting to post this since Monday :) Happy Hump Day!!!

A birdie and a gear, 16in chain

a very cool mix of materials. wood, brass, gold, jade, and sterling silver (34 in chain)

The mustache tea cup coupons we gave out for tea and cookies

Mr. Kole Hamilton made an apperance

Enameled flower, tassel, wooden gear, and brass vintage clock hand (34 in sterling silver chain)

The jewelry "trees"my dad made for displaying the jewelry, so cool.

Angie, hard at work ;)

This is us Saturday, the booth looked a little different Sunday.

Dad made these too, to hold Angie's hand designed and screen printed bags

Okay, I'm done with blogging today, now all my words are underlined and bold, how annoying!!! :) (making me laugh a little bit too, of course this happens after having all the trouble copying/pasting pictures...ARG!)

Procrastination has got me thinking. Of course when I have soo much to do, so many things to finish before this weekend..I feel most inspired to sit down and put my feelings into words..not make jewelry or finish the one billion things I have on my list. Recently there have been a turn of events that have lead me to think about how thankful I am. So often you find yourself going day-to-day, same ole routine....ignoring the special moments and wishing for time to pass quickly for one reason or the other. I'm sure I don't let those most close to me know exactly how much they mean to me or how I'm sure I couldn't live with out them. My sister is my best friend and I don't tell her that enough. My parents are my greatest source of inspiration..through tough times and great times they have always been there for us....instilling in me a true sense of what family should be. I remember my first lesson in slowing down, I'll always be thankful for Mrs. Patterson, my high school freshman english teacher. She had us read "Our Town", a play by Thornton Wilder (which I recommend reading if you haven't already) and now every time I feel like life is getting too fast or I'm getting lost in the routine, I remember the theme of that play: To find joy in the monotony of every day life, to stop and smell the roses...be thankful for what you've been given. Seems like a very poignant lesson to be teaching 14 year olds, I'm surprised and glad that it really stuck with me.

So the point of this entry: The Hatch Market is fast approaching (THIS WEEKEND!!!), we're freaking out because this is our first juried art show....first trade show...first time we're going to get face-to-face feedback on our jewelry (from strangers :). We're running around like mad women trying to make sure we've covered all of our bases... So this is for you Ang!, calm down...enjoy the days before the madness. I love you and couldn't imagine doing this with anyone else. I'll try to take my own advice too!

Update on the life and times of the Palmisanos

We had an amazing weekend filled with friends, family, and flea markets. The parents came to Athens to hang out, along with their 3 other "children". Needless to say our house was packed, but packed with looove :) (Imagine me saying that in my deepest Al Green voice) Anyways, we spent Saturday morning perusing the aisles at the J and J Flea Market and then in the afternoon we did yard work and planted flowers. I know it was exactly what my parents wanted to do on their mini "holiday"....but me and Angie have not been successful in the threats we've given our landlord to cut our grass. The backyard had literally turned into a jungle...giant grasshoppers and all. Sooo, Dad came to the rescue and now our yard is livable again. He's pretty much our super hero :)

We also went downtown Saturday night to watch some friends race in the Twilight Criterium...I'm still completely amazed at how they go almost 35 mph around those corners and stay on the bike. AND they go around the 1km loop 80 times.... how I have no idea. The longest bike ride I've ever been on was 18 miles and my bum never forgave me for it.

All in all, a good weekend. Although you'll notice I said nothing about designing jewelry or working in our little sweat shop. That's because we didn't. AH! and the Hatch Market is in 2 weeks. With that being said, you'll understand why there won't be many posts in between now and then. (MAY 9th and 10th in Griffin at Special Occasions on Tenth St. Music, Good Food, and Indie crafts. Be there or be square!) Time to get to work!


Here is what I accomplished, with my mom's help of course. (all pots courtesy Brad Robinson and Christopher Brewton, Pictures done by me :))


















We got a huge jewelry supply shipment monday and are currently working hard to get prepared for next weekend. We'll blog and show off the new designs laterrr. HAPPY HUMP DAY!!!

Read Yer Manual

So I finally figured out how to take clear shots of jewelry up close. You have to switch your camera to macro mode...which is usually represented by a flower. (yeah, I totally had the whole "Oh that's what that little symbol means! moment) So my advice when you don't know how to use your technology.. read the manual.


Here is a picture of the ring that I love, made by Kristen Fountain Davis Designs, that actually does it justice.

Lovely isn't it

Spring has sprung!!

Right now we're preparing for the HATCH MARKET in Griffin Ga on May 9 and 10...a very good place to go for something unique and handmade for Mom's day!!! And we're in the process of putting more up on ETSY...which we're working on tonight as a matter of fact. We've got SO many cute ideas and just had a huge shipment of antique watch gears and parts come in, make sure you check out our etsy shop located to the left of our blog!!!




So, the main purpose of this blog is to provide me(erica) and Angie a creative outlet where we can write about all the people and things in our lives that inspire us and to also document the process of starting a small business. This week we will be getting our very own tax I.D. number, how exciting!! (note sarcasm) But we figure we should be able to write off all of these business expenses and make ourselves legit. We should also let you know that we are running our business in a very "green" way. Everything from our 100% recycled/biodigradable jewelry boxes to the recycled materials we use to make the jewelry to how we are going to recycle all of the other parts of the clocks we're not using (currently these parts are living in a box in the dining room, we'll let you know where/how we are able to recycle them). It's important that we leave only a very small carbon footprint and we're working hard to do so.



I also wanted to post some pictures of a ring I just got from Kristen Fountain Davis Designs (visit her etsy shop!!), the pictures do not do it justice...for some reason the automatic focus on my camera is not automatically focusing!! (HELP!) so either way, you should check her out, she makes the little birdie nest ring in whatever size you want and I've had nothing but compliments on it. Thanks again Kristen!!

ADORABLE!!!

(That Star Wars coffee mug was a birthday gift from Jason, a co-worker's son, Yoda is on the other side. He said he got it for me bc I'm short like Yoda...but I like to think it's bc I'm wise like Yoda. :)



Here are some pictures from this weekend!! For a second Friday night I thought we might get blown away by a tornado, but the weekend actually ended up being beautiful and the dogs had an extra special easter playing soccer in the back yard. Mom gave us the cutest easter presents (age does not matter in our household) and Dad made us all fresh blueberry pancakes Sunday morning. Thanks for being such amazing parents, we really lucked out. :)

Tucker has little man syndrome...

Me and my child

My Mom's green thumb still amazes me

My Mom and the biggest baby of them all, Sake

The girls

the end :)