Trunk Show!

We are having a Trunk Show featuring our Artisan Jewerly and would love to have all you locals that can make it! There will be awesome deals available only at the show, so please come if you can!

Saturday, December 13, 2008
11:00 am - 1:00 pm
2055 Parley's Canyon Blvd.
(2400 South 2055 East)
Salt Lake City

Lots of Goodies

I can hardly believe that it is nearly Christmas again. How did this happen so fast? Rosie and I have been VERY BUSY these past few months! For starters, Rosie and her husband bought a house and moved down the canyon into suburbia. A bit of change for them! The solitude of mountain living has been replaced with neighbors within a stone's throw living. As much as they may miss their private mountain cabin, the rest of us are glad to have them a bit closer! And their new bathroom is going to be AMAZING once it is done.

In other news, Gabs has started pre-school, Alejandro has started his terrible two's a few months early, and I have started clearing some room for a Christmas tree.

Oh yes, and we have been busy making more jewelry! We participated in the Avenues Street Fair in early September and LOVED IT. This is a great street festival and I love the fact that it was 2 blocks away from my house this year. We also participated in an Art Festival benefitting the J.E. Cosgriff Catholic School at St. Ambrose Catholic Church in Salt Lake. This was a fun event too and it was a lot of fun checking out some fantastic local art while selling our jewelry.

Our Etsy shop has been a little bit slower this fall. But, we are running a great sale through the month of December - 10% back on any order over $100! This is our way of saying thanks for supporting us! New items are being listed daily, so check back with us often! And as always, we love doing custom work too! Come and check us out!

It's Been Awhile

We have really slacked in the blog department, haven't we? Time to catch up. Where to begin? Rosie and I have both taken some much needed vacations, her to Northern California in July and me and my family to Disneyland in September. We participated in the Avenues Street Fair in Salt Lake City on Sept. 6th and it was a HUGE success! Our first show together and we couldn't have been happier with the results. We are hoping to have equal success at the J.E. Cosgriff Art Festival next weekend.

Also in the plans for November is a Jewelry Trunk Show. This will be one day only in the Salt Lake City area. More details TBA.

And of course our Etsy store is still there. We had a fantastic summer and an impressive first 6 months on Etsy. Stop by sometime to see what we have! Lots of Tourmaline and Ammolite pieces, plus our cuffs, earrings and wire-wrapped necklaces as well. Mention our blog for a 10% discount!

That is all that I have time for right now. Bedtime beckons.

Cheers!

Stephanie

Got Cuffs?

Our Pilar cuffs are branching out in a big way. We now offer them in Sterling Silver, Jeweler's Bronze, and copper. We also have them in satin finish and hammered texture. They are absolutely the best cuffs you will find for the price and any one of them will rock out your wrist!

New items are on their way!

I am so excited, and also a bit hesitant, about the new items we have been posting (and will be posting). The excitement is that I love them all. There hasn't been a single thing that I haven't wanted to just keep for myself. Of course, that isn't the plan. But, that is a good sign.

I am also a bit hesitant because every item that we have posted, and will be posting this week, is a bit more expensive than the items we started out with. The reason for this is simple - we found some wonderful, high quality stones at the recent gem fair we attended. We figured out how much each and every bead, chain and wire cost so that we could more accurately determine the pricing of our jewelry. And guess what? It turns out that we have been underpricing ourselves ever since we opened our etsy store!

We actually are not upset about this. Everything that we made was made out of inventory that Rosie purchased a few years ago - it had been stashed in her studio waiting for her to find the time to turn it into something lovely. So, we had a destashing of sorts...only we used our destash to make jewelry rather than to sell loose beads to others. And we made some lovely stuff too.

We will not be marking up any of those items in our store. They will remain the price that we have set - and some are even on sale to make room for new items. The lesson learned is don't ever sell yourself short. We are in this field because we love it. But, we also have to make a living to support ourselves and our families. Our prices are still very fair for the industry and it is nice to finally be confident in our pricing!

So, my advice for everybody is to snatch those sale and previously priced items now before they are all gone!

And Mother's Day is right around the corner...just sayin.

Spring!

Spring is in the air here and it is making it tough for me to stay inside! The result - my garden is finally getting some much needed, much overdo attention....and my jewelry making is at a stand-still. Rosie has been busy creating her usual masterpieces while I have been busy doing the Mom thing and cleaning out gardens. As much as I love to work in the garden, I am missing making jewelry. It has become a bit of an outlet for me. My goals for this week are to:

- Start working on my backyard.
- Buy a yoga pass.
- Take lots of deep breaths.
- Make at least 3 pieces of jewelry.

To be honest, I am looking forward to each and everyone of those goals. None of them sound like work to me, but each of them is going take my full attention to get done (or at least started). I have been in a big funk lately, so hopefully reaching my short list of goals this week will help me get out of the funk and into some spring, so to speak.

New this week!

Rosie has been polishing off her jeweler's bench and working with silver the past few weeks. Here are the results:
Eden -
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=11070126


Maya -
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=11067694

Some of my favorite items from OTHER etsy sellers

The world of etsy really is a fun one...and so easy to window shop in too! This is the beginning of a new segment I plan to add to the blog where I feature 3 fellow etsy sellers. I have been checking out other shops and have run into some wonderful stuff. Each post will focus on similar products from different shops, beginning with today's topic of cute kiddie wear. Seriously, this is dangerous territory for most mom's, and some dad's too.


Breathing Beside Us : Adorable baby clothes - I love the modern twist on retro style. www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5100831

Hana and Violet: These are some of the cutest little girl clothes I have ever seen, and I love how they are not just in infant sizes. http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5307341

Little Girl Pearl: Such cute fabrics and designs here. http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5278624

These are just 3 of many wonderful shops specializing in children's clothes on etsy. And, as you can tell, they each of have their own special look. It really is hard to pick from the wide selection available, and that is a good dilemma to have!

Finds at the Gem Fair!

GORGEOUS Peruvian Opal!!!

That was our big finding at the Gem Fair this past weekend! Both Rosie and I were continually drawn to it and finally, after recruiting our mother to our cause, it was decided that we simply had to buy it. Yes, we dragged our poor mother to the Gem Fair Sunday, along with my two kiddos. It was quite the scene indeed. Rose and I had attended on Friday and went back for a last look Sunday afternoon.

We also scored some tourmaline, peridot, iolite, andolite, labradorite, pearls and lots and lots of teeny, tiny, faceted stones. For some reason, it was the tiny stones that kept grabbing my eye. I may regret that purchase later as I curse from trying to thread them. Regardless, we got out of there with a lovely stash of stones, some wonderful chain and some findings too!

As much as I wanted a strand of gorgeous green diamonds, I stayed grounded enough to know that I just couldn't buy those no matter how much I coveted them (seriously, my house payment is more important but they sure were beautiful).

All this means is that we have lots and lots of creating to do! Woo Hoo!

Where has the time gone?

So far, I have done a pretty poor job of keeping this blog up to date. In all fairness, the month of March is hectic in our family with birthdays galore. Regardless, we have posted some new stuff on etsy and are having fun making our jewelry. We are still relatively new, but the month of March was good to us!

Below are some pictures of what we have been up to:








Of course, this is just a snippet of what we have been up to since our last post. To see more, visit our etsy store at http://beaucoupdebijoux.etsy.com!

We also will be sending out promotional mailers with a great discount offer. Contact us for details!

Rosie has been BUSY!

While I was out sick, Rosie was working her little tail off up in her cabin studio. The results will be popping into ETSY over the next few days, but I think this is my favorite so far:

They are really gorgeous and funky at the same time.

Influenza A

So already I have a big absence from the blog. Our household was hit with an epidemic of Influenza A - even those who got the flu shot! As a result, anything that didn't include calming a fever, aches and pains and a cough got pushed to the side, including this blog. Gabriella, my daughter, also had Strep throat on top of the flu, so it has been a real blast.

We are now all starting to feel better, so back to blogging!

Let's start with a necklace...

This is the Emme Necklace - named that because I like that name.



This necklace is longer on purpose. It is made of Malachite and multi-colored Tourmaline beads. The Pendant is another Malachite bead followed by a trail of Tourmaline. The method is wire-wrap. I especially *love* the top Tourmaline bead that hangs from the pendant (it is the first one) because it has this great black spotting inside:


Here is something that I found very interesting:

"Black Tourmaline crystals inside of clear crystals. Balances and unites conscious with subconscious, male with female, spirit with matter, heaven with earth. Brings harmony to any polarity and brings moderation and unity to all situations."

That makes me love this necklace even more.

Welcome to the Beaucoup de Bijoux Blog!

Welcome to Beaucoup de Bijoux, the jewelry store, and labor of love, opened by my sister, Rose West, and myself, Stephanie Quintero. We are based out of Salt Lake City, Utah and both work out of studios within our homes. Our shop is on Etsy and is still new. I am quickly learning that a key to Etsy success is networking, networking, and more networking. To be honest, that was the original purpose of this blog as well. But, I have to admit that I love to write and am hoping that this blog will also become a labor of love too.

Some background - my sister started her jewelry making career in the parking lots of many a Dead show as a means to afford her next show. Thankfully, she has matured since then and as part of that endeavor she attended the Gemological Institute of America in Carlsbad, California, eventually earning her Graduate Jeweler degree. She is an incredible artist and designer. Her resume includes working for fine jewelry establishments, teaching jewelry making for the University of Utah Division of Continuing Education, and creating custom design orders for her customers. She is currently learning Gem Vision CAD software design too.

So that brings it to me. I am a SAHM to 2 lovely little children, Gabriella (nearly 4) and Alejandro (nearly 1). To help support my lavish lifestyle (ha ha ha), I encouraged my sister to teach me how to make jewelry that I could sell to others to bring in some additional income. Little did I know how therapeutic this new hobby would become. I have come to crave my time to make jewelry - it has become not only a creative outlet, but also a meditative time to myself. Any mother can agree how rare and appreciated that time can be.

I will gradually begin updating this blog with pictures of our work, how it was made, what has sold and what has not, etc. I will also be including links to articles and websites that have made this journey a bit easier. I would LOVE feedback and constructive criticism to help make Beaucoup de Bijoux all that it can be. Of course compliments are welcome as well ; )