Ornamentea - July 6, 2010: Happy Independence Day!

July 6, 2010: Happy Independence Day!

Hello-

I hope you are having a good week. I am sorry I didn't send you a note last week. I was actually on vacation and tried to get a lot of work done in advance but had some technical difficulties. I do hope you had a safe and happy 4th of July.

My holiday week was spent in the company of very good friends and the cool air of the North Carolina mountains. We ate great food, hiked and swam and goofed off. We soaked up as much nature as we could and even lived without a wifi/4G signal like the early settlers. We handle our lack of media access by crafting furiously. My friend Nancy imagined an innovative craft project and we worked on it for hours. We are pretty certain the project directions are original as they came to us while we were outside under the sky, far away from the internet and a library of craft books. We solved the problems old timey style; we tried a few different things using the materials we had on hand until we got what we wanted. We were like some kind of Ur-crafters, in the woods hammering and cutting and even grunting a bit. I'd like to say our husbands were hunting down bison, or at least lattes, for us but they were sitting nearby, eating blueberry biscuits and making friendship bracelets.

I hope to see you this week!

Cynthia

Lisa Daly Trunk Show! Join us July 16th and 17th for a trunk show of work by Raleigh glass bead maker Lisa Daly. Her work is brilliantly colored and often humorous and I can't stop collecting her beads...she'll be set up at Ornamentea on both days with a great selection of her newest work. I'll have pictures of some of the beads next week so you can drool!

Designer's Downtown Market

Join us on Saturday, July 17th for the Designer's Downtown Market right here on North West Street. I'll be grabbing a couple of tees from Flytrap , especially if she brings her Cycle Raleigh design! Oh, there's lots of other vendors including Locopops so be sure to join us.

Weekly coupon codes on Twitter and Facebook...

Are you part of our Facebook group, We Love Ornamentea?

Do you read our tweets?

Every week we tweet and post a great coupon and you can use it on line OR in the store. If you don't use facebook or twitter the weekly tweets are on the store blog on Mondays, too!

a week of crafty cool-

Tuesday is Try-It Tuesday at Ornamentea. Come make a $2 project and learn something new. Today you will make the Bling-Bling Summer Ring...all day, every Tuesday.

See all the upcoming Try-Its right here.

This Wednesday it's time for the Altered Book Club. Bring your paper crafting stash to this fun free club and you can learn lots of techniques for creating handmade journals, scrapbooks and art books by repurposing old books. Click here for more info.

Thursday Want to learn something new but don't want to commit to a class? Join us for Technique Thursday every week at Ornamentea from 6:30-8:30. Registration is not required, visit the page to see some of the projects you can learn to create.

Friday is Breakfast & Beads. Join us for some early-morning craft time at our work tables. We'll have coffee, tea and breakfast treats ready to go for you. We also have fun, age-appropriate activities for your child to do in our classroom, from blocks to crafts.

keep cool in a class...

Read it now on the blog:

my favorite tool organizer (I traveled with it last week!)
learn how to make cute hair blooms for hot-weather hairdos
Earring Of The Week (every Wednesday!)
new project at the end of this week, a bolted-together filigree ring

New and restocked items this week:

restocked wires! sterling plate, gunmetal, copper, gold plate, antique brass and more...please bear with us as we try to keep our fab Beadfreak brand wire in stock, the little wire-making elves are working very, very hard!
Old repro keys
stainless steel screw sets, in 1/4" and 1" sizes
Elaine Ray beads-including a new patterned tube bead shape (on line soon!, in store NOW!)
new colors of Japanese rayon crepe cord, plus new glue-in ends that make it easy to finish-in antique silver and antique brass, see new items here
new bead caps in several styles
SALE! most styles of SoftFlex trios are now 30% off! ask at the store

want to make your own blueberry biscuits? we like to pick our berries at Snikroc Farms in Durham. They're at 5220 Wake Forest Highway. They are open 'sunlight to no sunlight' which means you can pick in the early mornings or in the late evenings. They recommend the evenings as the bushes are in shade then.

Oh, they also have insanely good soft-serve ice cream with home made blueberry sauce. That opens at 4:00 on weekends, 6:30 on weekdays. It's worth the drive.They don't have a website but they are on facebook at Snikroc Farm and on twitter at snikroc_farm.

Snikroc Farm
5220 Wake Forest Hwy
Durham,NC 27703