Lemongrass Boutique!

So my vision is to have these two businesses that every so often intersect-- Agape Events being my "love this/do it for fun" business that I hope will make money, and Lemongrass Boutique will be the money making venture. I'll sell some bridal/high end jewelry designs, planning binders, and wedding emergency kits on the Wedding Belles ATL site that's linked to Agape, but most of my jewelry and gift sales will go on the Lemongrass site. 

At least, that's the idea... 

I put a bunch of stuff up on the Lemongrass site today and got the ball rolling on that-- my goal is to make at least one item a day and do all of my photography on the weekends. Our dining room makes a fantastic jimmied up studio!

Branch Out Necklace

Opera Necklace

Ballerina Ring

Erin Ring

Janet Ring

There are also several bracelets, but I don't like the pictures for those quite as much ;)

Things have been going pretty well so far in 2012, which pleases me infinitely! My car is broken, but easily fixable, and the internet has sucked a little more than usual, but I've been hired to coordinate at least one wedding and my hair stylist has handed out a billion of my business cards! I'm stoked! Also, an hour after I put some of my stuff up on Etsy, one of my sorority sisters saw a bracelet and it was something she'd been trying to find for years and she's buying one! What a blessing social networking can be!

I'm hoping to really beef up the offerings on the Lemongrass site once I've had a chance to get to the fabric store-- I'd like to offer some makeup bags, travel bags, fabric covered cuff bracelets (some with embellishments), small card sets, fleece and felt pocket warmers for winter, and eventually some tops and skirts.

It's ambitious, but mom's boyfriend was telling us the other day how one of his co-workers at Home Depot was able to quit her job last week because she was doing so well with Etsy sales! I'm also hoping to be able to sell at the numerous craft fairs and arts festivals in the area. So, the point of all this is... keep your fingers crossed and your prayers and positive vibes coming my way! I'm really hoping to be at minimum down to part time in a "real" job and subsisting mainly on my own stuff by the end of 2012!!

Yes!

I'm starting my own business, I have potential clients and everything! I'm having a little trouble getting blogger to cooperate for some reason, but that's OK because soon enough Holly will have my website up and going! Agape Events is a real thing!

Tasteful Weddings and Parties by Agape Events-- agapeeventsatl.blogspot.com

A little something

So I'm seriously considering starting up my own custom cards business. I hand make most of my special events cards and while Christmas got a little out of hand this year (as I custom-tailored each card for each family), almost all of the cards usually end up pretty sharp and darned cute, I think. I don't have the capability to do anything super fancy, but I can do some nice, hand-made cards and get the envelopes to go with them from like PaperDirect (if I need special colors) or something. I could sell them on Etsy and possibly market them to some of the boutiques in Decatur-- have some stock designs and then offer custom type stuff on a website? Plus, the materials aren't that expensive and since I only work part-time, my time isn't all that valuable...

I don't know, what do you guys think? I know there are lots of you who come by, but nobody ever says anything! Well, with the exception of Em who left a note last night :)

Things are going along here, I ordered my save-the-dates tonight and I'm really excited! Hopefully I'll have them out in the next week and a half/two weeks. The template that I ordered ($3 to save myself hours of screwing around with layout in Microsoft Word? Hells yeah!) is downloadable, so I can go ahead and figure out fonts and layouts and all that sort of thing before the actual paper gets here so I'll just print 'em out and address them on slow nights at work, maybe have Em over to help with the rest.

Work hasn't been too bad, and I have my car back which is a huge weight off my shoulders, so now I have to replace the Mass Air Flow sensor and plug the exhaust leak, which will hopefully get done by mid to late February so I can drive down and see Jeremy! He's also talking about coming up here for Valentine's day weekend, which would be really sweet. I have to work Valentine's night, but there's a good chance the dishwasher won't show up, so maybe he can make himself useful during that time and do some dishes... hey, it'd be an extra $30-50!

I'm finally exhausted enough to fall asleep without tossing and turning (not that I wasn't exhausted when I got home, but mom was still packing so I ended up waking up a little bit which was awful), so I'm going to hit the hay and try to prepare for the whirlwind of packing tomorrow morning...