Blue Gray Striped Shell Bracelet

You may remember my Blue Gray Shell Earrings, $10 - this bracelet is intended to be a match for the set! I blogged earlier about how drawn I was to these mother of pearl shell beads, and how much they reminded me of Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Which is an awesome cereal.

Pictured below, again, for your reference.

Mmmmm. ANYWAY, this handmade bracelet is now available in my etsy shop, and it has definitely passed the "Ashley wears her own jewelry to work" phase. It matches black and white outfits, and the freshwater pearls, faceted glass, and hematite bead dangles make this piece almost reminiscent of a charm bracelet. And it goes without saying that its super dangly and fun.

I love working on handmade jewelry pieces :) Do you like the design? Not edgy enough for you? How do you feel emotionally about Cinnamon Toast Crunch? I want to know!

View Your Personal Brand with a Wordle!

I went to a RainCamp convention the other day for work, and it was full of useful SEO information.  The speaker also gave some fun websites to visit and play around with that are now available. For example, the following image is a Wordle I created using my blog feed. Visit wordle.net, copy and past a feed URL, your Twitter, or any amount of text content and the website will generate a Wordle. The words that are the biggest, you use the most, and you can organize the text in any color and format that you want!

I thought that this was completely cool. You can save your Wordle to a public gallery under any name, too! Very nerdy, but in a way, it is a great tool to help you figure out how you are being perceived at any point in time, or to understand your personal online marketing brand.

Apparently for me, I say "really" a lot. Don't know what that's all about! Luckily, calligraphy and wedding terms show up a fair amount of times as well.

So click on mine, go make your own wordle and see how awesome it is. And show me!! Comment what you find, or link me to your wordle :)

I Want But Really Need: A Business Card Holder

I know I am not the only chronic online shopper that finds justifications in all sorts of sh!t I don't need. (Which was almost the title of this feature, but I didn't want to offend. I know, boring. Gotta love professionalism) I am the ultimate impulse buyer. Probably because I've been there, and just want people to buy my stuff so badly that I want to help someone else out by doing that.

I ordered Marketing Associate business cards for my day job at Boston Logic. Yesterday I went to a conference, and unfortunately had to distribute my coworker's cards instead. Imagine how excited I was to see my business cards on my desk this morning. Great.

Anyway, I started browsing etsy for cute handmade business card holders that I wanted but really do need. I didn't see any at Staples that really blew my dress up, so I turned to handmade :) I found two that I really mostly need, as there's my artists cards, Marketing Associate cards, and while I'm at it I'll probably need a card holder for my desk, because, duh.

I really love this Mother of Pearl Business Card Holder, $19.95 from nacreart. All the colors are so mesmorizing, and I'm really attracted to the layout of shapes. Gorgeous. Oh, one day...The artist seems to specialize in a mother of pearl inlay technique.

Then there's the more simple cloth business card holders from GracieDesigns, $8, which are a bit less expensive. I like the simplicity of these, and I almost wish that they were available in a funky brown design to coordinate with my website, blog, and business theme. I also got inspired to maybe do some business card holders with recycled sail material, and embroider a number on those. What a simple, cool way to expand my recycled sail products line!

Then there’s the cool business card holder I’ll need for my desk, and I was thinking of something that would match the deep blue ceramic vase of my bamboo. (Yes, bamboo: it keeps me Zen.)  I love the colors in this Stained Glass Business Card Holder by LA Glass, $23.

So thanks for allowing me to vent this awesomeness before buying too quickly. It still may happen, but awesome. Great work, guys!