Catch your breath. Don't pass out! Yes, we are talking about jewelry designs from AGD. :) I've had too many of you to count - email and ask me when I'd be releasing some new designs again (clothing and jewelry). I know it's been forever. Truth is...I've battled this question myself. I'm sure many of you have noticed that I stripped my website down to just the items made by me - the items that got me to where I am - the items that started it all. The boutique clothing designs and my jewelry designs. There are a few items still on the site that were made by friends and vendors but they are only a couple of jewelry pieces. I've battled with where AGD is going at this point and I still don't know for sure. What I do know is this. I love photography and I enjoy beading jewelry. Those are my passions. Photography heads that pack. I enjoy the design process of my boutique outfits but I detest sewing. My sewing employee and friend, Karen, lives 977 miles away now. She isn't down the street from me to where we could do midnight runs to one anothers mailboxes with new orders like we used to. I miss that. However, I don't miss the sewing. Kenidi is also getting older (almost 7 now) and growing out of the frilly, ruffly, designs that she used to model so well. I don't want to use another child over my own for my designs. I just won't. I'm weird that way. The sewing also took a back burner to personal issues in my life over the past year. Medical/health issues to do with my heart, the personal junk, our move from Indiana to Florida back in the fall, and just the overall fact that my photography business has moved up to my #1 priority when it comes to my hobbies/passions within my business goals. So for now...I guess you could say that the boutique clothing designs will be a thing of the past. I've been there, done that, got a thousand t-shirts. I'm proud of the accomplishments I reached via the AGD clothing designs and am humbled and blessed by my loyal clients which have also become some of my dearest friends over the past 6 years. Should I decide to re-ignite the line one day, you guys will be the first to know. I promise.
With that said, you are probably wondering where that leaves my jewelry line. For now, I plan to keep my website up and feature my jewelry designs as I get new ones listed as well as continue to sell my older creations too. Like with my boutique clothing line, I have tons of loyal clients that have stayed by my side and enjoyed the jewelry pieces I've created thru the years. You guys are in luck. I plan to begin designing all new never seen before designs in the coming months. The beach is a great place to drag a chair to with some bead supplies. I'd love nothing more then to sit by the seaside and let its beauty inspire my new creations. I can't promise how often I'll list new items here on the blog and website but whenever I do finish a new piece, I'll introduce it here as I've always done in the past. In the meantime, I will continue to forge forward in regard to my photography career. Like with my AGD designs, I know my photography journey has a purpose within my life and I'm eager to see where it leads me.
Before I get started on introducing new jewelry designs though, I wanted to highlight some of the most popular pieces in my collection. One of them being the winged cross and winged guitar pearl strand necklaces. Here are some older images of them...
I've had an over abundance of these being ordered again all of a sudden and thought I'd showcase them here for those who might not have seen them before. They are big, bold, chunky pieces that are designed for my statement making clients. They definitely aren't for the shy. When I wear these, I can't get 10 feet without being stopped and asked where I got it. It's truly one of my favorite AGD designs EVAH! As you all know, I get into funky and out of the box looks and these take the cake. I have 3 winged crosses left and 2 winged guitars left. To order one before they are all gone, clickHERE.
Thanks again for all of your support over the past 6 years. Each of my clients/customers from around the world mean so very much to me. Thank you for helping to breathe life back into me at a time when my world seemed to be crumbling all of those years ago. AGD was started and created out of a need to focus on something positive - something other than all of the negative to do with Kenidi after she was born and we discovered she had health problems. Your support carried me thru many difficult moments all those years ago and I'll never be able to thank you enough for that. You guys were the light in those dark moments. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Meet Karen. Yes, that Karen. All of you have heard so much about or from Karen in the past but I've never had a photo of Karen here on my blog before. Karen started out -like two years ago - being hired as a sewing employee of mine. In the past, my sewing employee had been responsible for handling all of the overflow within my work whenever I was bogged down and too swamped to get to another order. By the time I hired Karen though, I had come to the conclusion that I didn't enjoy sewing as much as I did the designing part. Therefore, Karen immediately began handling the majority of the "sewing jobs" while I focused on designing the clothing and jewelry. Now my jewelry I still make on my own. It is something I truly enjoy constructing from start to finish so every AGD jewelry piece that leaves the studio was made solely by me. However, if you order a custom boutique clothing design, Karen is most likely the one constructing it for you. Once finished, I check it over (not that I really need to because she does such a FAB job) and then I ohhh and awww at her quality...get it packaged up and shipped off to you - my lovely clients. Some of you still get pieces made by me. For example, orders that have come in over the past month or two were handled by me while Karen has been in the process of a move. She and her husband just built a beautiful new home and they are still unpacking after having been in limbo for the past couple of months. Soon Karen will be back on the production line & we'll be cranking out the winter collection (if I could ever get the rest of the fall collection photographed).
Anyway, Karen is my gift, my blessing from God, and one who instantly went from being titled as "my sewing employee" to being titled as "a dear friend." I love Karen! She makes me laugh. She has great a great cell phone ringer - no I mean a really great one! She invites me to auctions with her and her bestie. She always brings me the best girlie gifts - like the pink sign for my studio last week that read "Well behaved women rarely make history." (one of my favorite slogans) She taught me one of my favorite spellings of one of my favorite words..."GUR-FREN!" (you'd have to hear how it sounds when recited in person. Too fun!) And...she introduces me to restaurants such as "The Original Pancake house" here on the North side of Indy. You must go to their website I have linked here and read about their food. And if you reside in Indy and have never been there, you MUST go! This image below is of Karen's breakfast last Friday morning. She and I met there for brunch and had "Jose" as our waiter. Jose was a hoot and we loved him! Karen ordered the "dutch baby" off their menu. I tasted it and let me tell you...for all of you carb lovers out there like muah...get this...get this...get this! I could have sat and ate that entire thing of dough baked to perfection like it was candy. YUM! They actually bring you the powder sugar, lemon, etc. to make your own glaze for it. Amazing! I still can't believe it is real. Ha ha!
What did I eat you ask? Well I always order omelette's when I go somewhere for breakfast. But like potato chips without chocolate...I must have a slice of french toast after my omelette because I crave the sweet after the salty. I know...I'm totally messed up and very weird. Anyway...I had their omelette which is more like eating a small child. The omelette's there are massive. See photo below. The omelette is the big, brown, orange, cheesy looking thing on the far left of the image. Yeap...that is a(n) small child omelette! Notice they never let me order just ONE slice of french toast as a side either. Everywhere I go, they make me order a full order of french toast which I don't understand. I end up wasting the other two slices as well as half my omelette. I then walk away feeling like I thru out enough food to feed a third world country. It's ridiculous! In the end though, my belly loves me for it. My rear end and my thighs do not!
Oh and whose regular pancakes are those in that photo you ask? Yeap...mine too! Jose brought me out a full order of french toast which apparently included a full order of pancakes as well. Imagine my surprise and the guilt process I went thru as I just stared at all of this food. Ridiculous I say...ridiculous! The best part to the whole breakfast though was my down time with Karen. No work talk - no AGD assignments or supplies - just Angie and Karen. We got to just enjoy the girlie gab and have fun laughing with Jose, our waiter. By the time we were done, Jose had talked to us all about "project runway" as well as how his pug (dog) gets out and runs the neighborhood like a wild man. He went into detail about how he has to sneak up on him, bend down a certain way, and SCOOP him up before the dog runs off again. Jose was nothing short of hysterical! This all came on the tail end of a mail man calling Karen's cell phone about her dogs being loose as well as the end of our conversation about how Jessica Simpson's dog just recently got snatched up by a coyote right in front of her. Needless to say, we had a fun morning. A great 2 hours just chumming around and giggling like women should when with their girlfriends. I think Jose was tired of us taking up his table potential as we sat and gabbed about life. We eventually got out of there, stepped back into the Indiana rain, and headed home after a brunch full of good laughs.
Thank you Karen. Thank you for being who you are to me. As I told you last week, I truly appreciate your transparency and your friendship as a whole. You mean the world to me. Not only do you have some mad skillz when it comes to sewing and baking an "apple pie," but you have a huge heart and it shows in everything you do and say. Thank you for always being there for me. Can't wait for next months outing. Oh...don't be alarmed if you get recognized in public now. It is a little freaky at first but it's all good. Hee hee! Love you gur-fren! Hugs, Angie
PS...I must admitt that I used my Canon point and shoot for these images above. Big Papa was at home and I totally feel guilty for not taking him out on this rainy morning. However, I prefered to take his crazy cousin, the canon point and shoot, instead. It's easier to carry thru the rain. Wink wink! ;)
A big thank you to the "Little Designer Book" and staff for their AGD shout out on their site this week. I received word late yesterday that we had been featured and I couldn't be more pleased. I'm flattered and humbled - it's all just very, very, cool. To view & read the quick articile regarding AGD, go HERE. Thanks again to everyone involved in making that quick "word out" possible. xoxo, Angie
PS...Foto find Friday is happening today. I'll be back later with it's post. The theme this week is HATS. Get your images centered around "hats" ready to go for this afternoon. Fun, fun!
That is correct friends, only one spot left in the photography workshop that begins July 1st. If you are wanting a spot, now is your chance. We opened it up for 20 spots when the class registration began. We have now filled 19 of those seats with only 1 open one remaining. If you are still interested in the class, get over HERE and sign up under photography courses Q-U-I-C-K-L-Y! I can tell already what a fun group of girls this is going to be. We are all super excited for July 1st to roll around so that we can be "hanging" with each other in the forum and learning all of this photography lingo and tips/tricks. I have been up late every night working diligently to finalize the forum and it is just about finished. It will be a blast to meet up with all of the participants/students there and get to know each of you better.
With that said, my web gal who did my photography website and blog (Crystal) is currently working to revamp my photography site and photography blog. In the last 6 months since going full force with my photography business, I have come to realize that I needed my site to take on a more sophisticated, mature, look. Therefore, I sought out Crystal to re-vamp the site and blog in regards to grasping that look I was after. Needless to say, she is rocking it out and I couldn't be more pleased. The new site will not only have a shopping cart for any future online courses but it also has a client area where my clients can now view their images online thru my new website. Love that! She has been up with me till' wee hours of the morning working back and forth, side by side, to tackle this project. I love her! She ROCKS! But then again, you guys already know that! Ha ha! So...while revamping everything, she also made me some new blog buttons for all of you to use on your blogs should you want to. They can be found at the bottom of my photography blog pageHERE. The code and photos are there for you to grab and place on the sidebar of your own blogs if you so desire. Of course I always appreciate the extra traffic and would be eternally grateful should you decide to use the buttons on your sidebars. She made two different ones for the photography business and one for ol' AGD. Feel free to grab one for each business if you'd like. You know I'd love ya to pieces for it. They look like this...
And then the Angelica Grace Designs blog button looks like this...(you can find it at the bottom of this blog page)
And like I said, feel free to grab them and use them on your side bars as you wish. Thanks for all of your support. You know I have the best blog readers in the world, don't you?
For now, we are headed out to the pool. My Dad and Cathy fly in today for the next week. We pick them up at the airport at 5:30pm this evening. Fun, fun, fun! And yes, we are dragging them back to the Air boat Tour Adventure this coming Saturday morning. They are really looking forward to it. We are looking forward to doing it again as well. I can't wait to take a normal lens with me this time and get some even closer shots. Good stuff! And for those of you back home in Indy, I hear you are finally getting sunshine today. Gosh knows you need it after all of the rains hitting that area. Get outside and enjoy it. And no, I won't be trading locals with you just because it's sunny there today. It's been 94 degrees here with heat that could melt the tires off of the cars but I'm not complaining. The hotter and the sunnier, the BETTER! Love me some good ol' fashion sunshine and summer heat. Love me some beach!
