CBY Sparkle

Valerie — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 20:50:47 +0000

CRYSTALLIZED GHOSTS

: CRYSTALLIZED bats

Super cute NEW kits!!!

: CRYSTALLIZED Tree

: vintage owl charms

new kits available!!

: turquise pupmking earrings

harvest pumpkins

East Coast Adventures

Valerie — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 10:44:58 +0000

brooklyn bridge

If I am lucky, Or I come up with a great reason, I get to travel to the east coast, I find the entire east coast to be such a contrast to Hawaii that it excites my creative energy. I had not gone to visit this area for at least 15 years and 5 years ago, I started to travel in that direction often somtimes 2-3 times a year. perhaps it was to runaway from the island life as we know it where really, there are no fashion rules and we wear slippers, shorts and t shirts to the mall. believe me.. the New Englanders dress nicely to stay home!

I traveledfor sourcing merchandise, ideas, personal shopping, etc. but now it is really to visit with old friends that I have met over the years, for creative candy where everything in NYC is beautiful this is where I realized that I am drawn to Architecture, history and middle Eastern and Medditeranean Foods.

bead Stores?? there are several the only problem is that most are owned by one family many of the stores are planned the same, and the merchandise is the same. and all the samples look like they came straight from a foreign area with no individual creativity. I do however visit the trimming shops and dream to have one like MJ trimming and Tinsel Trading.

My latest visit was extremely short I basically only had 60 hrs unfortuately, as I was on my way home after spending the week with Swarovski and working a bead show, a friend Kellie Defries of Crystal Ninja ( who by the way is the most talented Rhinestone artist there is) and her husband were comming to NYC and was going to be there on my only available day so we booked a Pizza tour thru Brooklyn, we had a great adventure seeing the sights of Brooklyn including the many sights from movie scenes, multi million $$ homes and Yes Pizza.!!

after the tour we walked in the rain to SOHO where the Swarovski Creative Concept store was and I have to tell you it was beautiful! what I would do to have a crystal wall like that! but it comes with a pricey price.

I got to see the movie Wall Street with 2 of my city friends and ate dessert at one of those cute little cafes that you see in the movies, took a coffee break at Bryant Park which I absolutely adore. and got my hair cut by the cutest Puerto Rican Hair Stylist KIKE who I visit at every trip. and went to a Back yard BBQ in Queens, NY style and that is where everyone was surprised that I was not Hispanic! my only regret of having such a crazy schedule this time is not going to Grand central Station, and Central Park. so until next time..

bryant park

coney island

: times Square

: val and kellie at the Crystal wall

hand bag cart

SWAROVSKI ELEMENTS Ambassador Training

Valerie — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 10:47:05 +0000

: Anna Draeger and Stephanie Dixon at the Wall

: the Ambassador Team

Deb Saucier Learning a new Technique

A couple of weeks ago, I along with 18 other SWAROVSKI Ambassadors ventured out to Rhode Island where SWAROVSKI North America headquarters is Located. This facility at one time was where many of the jewelry pieces sold in boutiques across the US was designed, manufactured and Plated, over the last several years, the actual production is now outsourced to other factories around the world, you may ask “what is a SWAROVSKI ELEMENTS Ambassador?” first of all there are only 32 of us world wide. we are known as the right arm to SWAROVSKI Elements DIY division. we are the voices and the designers of many of the products and ideas in the creative circuit. Some of us are professional designers, magazine editors, bead show hosts, bead store owners, extreme hobiest. Our goal is to promote the Brand name, quality, sparkle and design buy teaching, creating and brainstorming new products and techniques.

From the moment we checked into our hotel rooms, the creative energy filled the rooms with sparkle and ideas and excitement flowed as many of sparkle sisters and brother, reunited or met friends for the first time. we were even instructed by our manager not attach any beads or stones to anything in our hotel rooms which literally made us want to do so :) Our group spent the first day and a half learning very technical marketing, trends, legalities and branding the second day was really enlightening as we learned new techniques with new products that we will soon be implementing a t Creations By You and across the country.

exploring and discussion of new products

val, Diane Whiting, Deb Simon, Monica Han, Brenda Schewder

The state of Rhode Island in it’s prime was a huge factor in the American Industrial Revolution as early as 1790 where to this day you will see the remnants of old factory buildings some renovated as luxury apartments, office spaces, or retail . but you can still feel the nostalgic reminisces of yesteryear where these factories made textiles, clothing, luggage, shoes, hats, furs and once was the leading area for costume jewelry manufacturing. now sadly most of all factories have all closed due to outsourcing all the manufacturing to Asia. Rhode Island was also known for the “Slave Trade” region as they were the main port of New England for slave trade.

currently, Rhode Island is home to 3 very well known Colleges RISD Rhode Island School of Design which one day I would still like to attend on a non credit base. Johnson and Wales which is known for hotel Hospitality, buisness school and Culinary arts, and Brown University.

Our Adventures and movie set stalking

Valerie — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 10:04:02 +0000

Every once in a while, Debbie and I take our hardworking shop girls out for adventure. we had friends visiting Hawaii so this time we decided to take them somewhere they had never been. can you believe that Rachel and Danelle had never been to Valley of the Temples to the Tranquil Byodo - In Temple. so late one Saturday afternoon, the girls headed out to Kaneohe with our Koi food and bread to feed the birds. did you know that if you hold the bread up in your fingers, they will land at your fingertips and eat the bread right there.. we also figured out that if your shirt is a boring black (like mine) the birds ignore you they much rather go to someone in a bright color like pink or red. and the Koi fish go crazy for pellets and splash water all over….

We then headed to Haleiwa Joes at Haiku Gardens where we explored the gardens to our delight found paths that we never knew existed and were able to show our friends Rosa and Fernando our tropical folliage they saw sleeping grass for the first time and took a video of it! after the adventure, we had a nice dinner together and shared some very sinfull desserts

the next week, we went to our favorite breakfast place Cinnamon’s in Kailua can you say Red Velvet Pancakes? yum yum! counting the days until we go back!! basically, we like all the crazy fans of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, went to stalk the Black Pearl what an exciting event that was, dannelle and rachel and my daughter love love love the movies and wanted to take as many picures as they could . they were even scheming ways to distract he security gaurds..

so after all of the adventures our CBY girls came back refreshed and creative!

First Weekend In March

admin — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 19:27:00 +0000

This weekend at Ward Wharehouse was the Soft Flex bead show, now I have to admit, I rarely every go to these type of shows, mainly because I am a slave to the shop and rarely venture out and because I really don’t need anything.. but as a Swarovski Ambassador, I decided it was time to check out the show and besides, my friend Andrew Thornton http://www.andrew-thornton.blogspot.com/ was going to be there selling for Green Girl studios. Dannelle aka Bruiser and I set off to the show looking for something to tempt us.. we looked at tables and tables of semiprecious, china metal, crystal rivolis, handmade glass beads, bruiser settled for a cupcake bead from JuJu beads, and I settled for a little bag full of fairy charms and beads by Green Girl ,I have to be honest and say, at this show I did not see anything different enough that really caught my eye.. I ran into Micheal V. who is an amazing jewelry designer he bought a cool dragon necklace made with wireing and a glass dragon it’s an art piece. we ran into several customers who were surprised to see us and in our street clothes and not the CBY uniform we left the show spending less than $75.00 and we headed downstairs to visit our friends at the wedding cafe and then to find lunch and head back to the shop where they were super busy YAY!!

Saturday afternoon my family and several friends headed out to Mailae Kahana beach which is a really long drive we chose that beach (as if we arn’t surrounded by beaches right?)because of the circle island drive it would take us on and It’s not crowded.. when
I got there, my sister handed me a beautiful purple shell. she said there were quite a few here and there in the sand as the ocean washes them up so right away, I set out for a walk in the sand to find my own, I am in the process of reading a novel called Remarkable Creatures, which tells a tale of finding shells and fossils on the beach on the east coast beach in the early 1900’s my little helper and I found a whole handfull of them with the clear bubble animal attached and a few that were empty.. we took pictures ofo them and showed our friends then we put back all the shells with animals back into the ocean so they could continue to live.

the sky was picture perfect but it was really windy and the ocean tide was very rough so all the babies had to be bundled in warm towels and jackets..