Monday, April 27, 2009

Take our Dauthers & Sons to Work Day ... at the Silver Rose

Sylvia photographing John accounting
Emily packing orders. Amber answering email.

Do you ever wonder just who you are buying from out on the world wide web?

I wanted to take some time and introduce you to us in honor of "Take our Daughters and Sons to work day" as we are a family business.

Sylvia (my mom) created this business when I was about 2 months old. She started as a silver & gold smith creating pieces in the Navajo tradition. After teaching a few college courses, she decided to do more. She created a fund-raising business for local hospitals and other corporations. As my brother, sister and I grew older we began to help out by selling and creating the jewelry. John (my dad) joined us and now does the books :)

Now that we are a online business, we get to see each other everyday! Sylvia does most of the photography, jewelry design and creative work. John still does the books and gives us a male perspective on many things. I (Emily) pack orders, create sales emails, write newsletters, design how-tos, manage the blog, Facebook, MySpace and Twitter accounts along with my sister, Amber. Amber is also our email Goddess! She answers all the questions, resloves all issues and harmonizes all requests! A very busy one ... that sister of mine!

Thank you for all your support! Without our fabulous customers, SilverRoseBeads would not survive :)

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Save the Planet - Shop Online!

Shopping online saves the planet!

Just by doing your shopping online you can save the planet! "There's no transportation required by the customer. Approximately 65 percent of total emissions generated by the traditional retail model stemmed from customer transport to and from retail stores." Shop Online - Carnegie Mellon University

So celebrate Earth Day and shop online at www.SilverRoseBeads.com

Enjoy 35% off all Boxwood Beads (ecology friendly) with the promo code: 35Boxwood

*Enter promo code 35Boxwood

*Website purchases only, eBay items excluded

*Limited to stock on hand

*Sale begins April 22 and ends April 24 at 11:59PM Eastern

For thousands of years Netsukes have charmed their viewers. A huge detraction to this exquisite form of legend/myth telling was that fact that they were carved out of Elephant Tusk. As the planet has become more aware of what happens to the magnificent elephants, it has made this extraordinary art form repugnant as well as illegal to own for many. The switch to boxwood has made these enchanting objects a green product as boxwood is an easily farmed wood. Boxwood is carved green when it is soft and as it dries it hardens. It is used in it's dwarf form for topiary in the west and the larger variety for ornamental and even furniture carving in China and other eastern countries. It is an ecology friendly solution to preserving an ancient art when boxwood is used to carve Netsukes and other object d'art.

Monday, April 20, 2009

Pearls - A Renewable Resource

Once one of the most highly valued commodities on the planet, the freshwater pearl is now available to almost everyone. The catch phrase in all we do should be , “is it a green product or green?”. You can rest assured Freshwater pearls are. Rivers, streams and lakes are kept clean so this ancient creature can grow breathtaking pearls to adorn the most discerning taste.

The oyster is taken care of in a manner to assure that it lives a normal healthy life span for the larger it grows; the larger the pearls. Large pearls bring in more revenue. The cleaner the water; the healthier the oyster and with this comes more beautiful, iridescent luster and smooth blemish free nacre. In this manner pearl or oyster farming encourages keeping the waterways clean and free of pollutants.

After the first crop of pearls is harvested from the oysters a pearl sac or pocket is left in the oyster. It doesn't need to be seeded for the oyster will now produce the very valuable and sought after Rose Petal or Corn Flake Keishi pearl. A Keishi pearl is composed entirely of nacre as no seeding has been done. After the Keishi is harvested the oyster is now ready to grow to the truly spectacular 10mm to 12mm pearls that are the reining divas of the pearl world. As this is the sought after outcome, safely guarding the life span and health of the oyster has now come full circle.

Through farming practices that bring premium harvest of the highest quality pearls, one can witness this amazing gift of nature as a truly green product. It is a renewable resource that keeps small independent groups of individuals employed, keeps the waterways clean and assures that the oysters producing this treasure of nature are carefully tended indeed.

So relax and enjoy pearls in all their varied form. These gems of nature are an absolute delight to design with and gift some to yourself as the hues they come in compliment every skin tone.

Monday, April 13, 2009

Social Networking! not just for teenagers!

SilverRoseBeads has joined the social networking scene! See our MySpace, Facebook and Twitter pages (links above). These pages have given us a great opportunity to branch out. I really enjoy 'meeting' you and seeing what our you create with the beads. Maybe like me you have been intimidated by these online tools, but I have found them very easy to use! I even found that you can link your twitter account to you facebook pages! I was also worried that only teenagers used these social networks, but WOW was I wrong! I have been surprised to find many of my 'long-lost' friends from college, high school ... even grade school on Facebook. Twitter has also allowed us to keep in touch with our brother Jason who lives in London, is very busy but finds it easy to twitter a couple of times a day! Even John McCain and Barack Obama are on Twitter! What a great place to keep up with family, friends, work, politics, world news ... you name it!

Monday, April 6, 2009

How to create earrings with briolette beads

From Movies
I just figured out how to use Picasa3 to create and post videos made from images. This is a great feature for how to videos! I often get questions about briolette beads and how to use them in wire work, so I created this video for my friends. Check it out! Google has some great free products that are very easy to use. I started with gmail and now use the calender, picasa and googlebase. Picasa is the photo album aspect of gmail. You can download picasa to your computer. Then using picasa you can edit, caption, and create videos with your images. Picasa is set up to help you load your images to your gmail account, blog postings or youtube!