Catch my work in Colorado

Those of you from Colorado, or folks just visiting the outdoor mecca of Salida this summer, can now find my work at The Rosy Finch.  They're in the process of moving to 139 F St., excited to be sharing the big, old downtown hardware store with Yospun yarn shop.

The owner, who's been so great to work with, used to live just 20 mins. from me but we never met. Now, when she's 1,689 miles away, we found each other on the internet. How do these things happen?

And its outta here!

The Anthropologie order shipped yesterday! Can I tell you what a relief this is, can I just tell you?

 It was a lot of work and the last month ended up being a case of "if it can go wrong, it will go wrong".  But I will tell you this, I learned a heck of a lot about wholesale, about business and most certainly about myself.

And this was a calm day...

Fragment Drop necklaces in verdigris - anthropologie is calling this "blue motif"

Out to Sea earrings

Hemisphere earrings in process

I purchased some IKEA bins ahead of time and they were really helpful for storing and moving things around.

My mom and my husband did the barcoding and packaging last Saturday.  

This is 227 pieces. And to think the buyer originally was talking about 4000 total with pieces "to all doors"! Instead they're carrying my work as a web exclusive only and you can also see some of the pieces on models throughout the website. 

Game On

I'm happy to tell you that an order from ANTHROPOLOGIE is finally official. There was a bit of back and forth and a bit of "price point" and a bit of "ball park" and 37 emails, 3 phone calls and a vendor manual but its finally settled.

The samples

The size of the order initially suggested by the buyer (which is beyond my capacity at this point) has been whittled down to a very manageable quantity of seven different pieces with the ship date extended by a week. The flip side of that is that the pieces will only be available online. However the the flip side of THAT is that the samples may be included in a photo shoot which would be pretty cool, I must admit.

Its been a bit like jumping into the deep end really but I feel pretty good about it and I've certainly already learned a lot.  And now…its production time.

(The Etsy shop is relatively full and will stay open. I've even got some new pieces to add. Check back on Wednesday if you're interested.)

Today is the last day for orders in my Etsy shop before a bit of Christmas break. How much of a break it will be is yet to be determined as anthropologie is still working on my order which they expect to finalize by Christmas day at the latest.

Earthy beaded necklace

Now that the preliminary decisions have been made, I am working the an assistant buyer and buying operations coordinators and I do have to say that everyone I've talked to has been really nice. I sold a small selection of pieces to Terrain, anthropologie's earthy, garden/home goods "sister store", about 4 years ago so I'm still in the Urban Outfitters vendor system which makes things a bit easier. The legal vendor stuff is ever so fun to read (NOT) and a bit frightening at that.

And in other news... its so great to be part of a dark, jewelry finds collection over on Amy Tavern's blog. Probably no surprise that I love her work so I'm quite please to be there with such great company!

The package of samples should actually arrive at the Philadelphia ANTHROPOLOGIE office today. I re-wrote the cover letter four times and re-packed the box five times. (The box was free from the lady at the post office who wanted to make sure I had just the right box. A great reminder of why is nice to live in a small town :-)

Although I'll be waiting to hear from them, it will be a very active kind of waiting while I wrestle with the camera over the next couple of days. I decided to hire out and have a tech savvy young person work on my website and straighten up the blog. I need to get the photos together though and one thing I know I'm really lacking in is model shots.

I have a problem

So. Anthropologie has now requested samples. After the initial inquiry in early July I was beginning to think I had fallen off the radar.
I rattled off all my fears to my husband over the weekend  "I'm going to have a crazy, busy week! What if they don't like them? What if they DO like them?! What if…? What if…?" I continued in this vein for several minutes.
When I took a breath my husband calmly said, "Honey, anthropologie wants to see some of your work. That's a very nice "problem" to have, don't you think?"