Ath Fest 2010 and where we've been!

So, yes this blog has been neglected and we're working on this problem of ours :) (is there a support group for this kind of problem...)


Even though we have not been updating you on what we've been doing, we have had our heads down and our pliers out furiously making new pieces to get ready for our most recent arts festival, Athfest 2010. Which was a success! Thanks to all of you that came out to support us and even took home a sorella and company design. We appreciate all the business and kind words....it is truly inspiring to hear someone else say that the pieces we hold dear to our hearts are "beautiful" and "very creative". Gives us the boost to keep up the good work. Also I want to thank Andy Payne for all your hard work...I know we asked a million and one questions and you were very gracious to accommodate us in every way.

The pieces that didn't sell are on their way to our ETSY shop, don't check it yet, give me a second...it was a million degrees this weekend and I stayed up late last night tending to my sunburn and obsessing over Trueblood (OMG!)

On a side note: Angie will have her silk-screened European shammed pillows for sale on ETSY too, I know there were a few folks interested in purchasing them, you can also email her directly at angiepalmisano2@gmail.com.

More posts to come....I promise.

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.

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Kristin.A

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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!