Gavin&Lily

Musings on Christmas December 18, 2007

We finally got a tree tonight, a big deal in the life of a 3 year old (that’d be Gavin) and in a 32 year old (that’d be me, mama).  We haven’t had a tree in a few years and I forgot how much I missed the whole process of listening to Christmas music (my own playlist that includes Carol of the Meows and some Big Bad Voodoo Daddy Christmas tunes) and digging out the decorations and the whole shebang.  So I have a beef stew on the stove and our lovely tree is acclimating in the sun porch (Christmas cactus as he’ll be referred to, he is a prickly one) and I’m finally feeling in the holiday spirit.  I’ve been very thankful this season to have Gavin&Lily take off and actually become a real business and along with it the mini holiday rush of orders to fill and restocking my online retailers along with shows and my own store!  Its been a really really busy last few months and I think as of right now I can take a deep breath and enjoy the festivities of the season, hooray!

Hope everyone is enjoying the season!

And just so you know, I’ll still ship out priority for an additional $2.50 on any item in my Etsy shop meaning you should get it in time for Christmas, although I can’t guarantee anything at this point.   But everything my etsy right now are in stock items so they’ll ship within 24 hours.

Now, back to the business of holiday-ing…pass the eggnog.

Holiday Home Stretch December 16, 2007

Hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday season and is making fine progress with all of their handmade holiday shopping this year.  Admittedly, I still have quite a bit to do and will be taking advantage of many fellow Etsians last minute Priority Shipping options.

As for me, the date has now passed for free First Class Shipping to be guaranteed by Christmas.  Anything ordered from now till Tuesday the 18th can be shipped Priority Mail for an additional $2.50 (wait for a revised Paypal invoice if you’re purchasing through my Etsy shop).

Things are going really well for me on the two online stores that are now carrying the Gavin&Lily line!  Indie Fixx Shop is sold out of the White Seagull Necklace and has only one more Sakura Necklace as of this moment, but I will be in the studio today (since it looks like the weather will prevent me from getting up to the store) so we’ll be restocked there soon.  Stars & Infinite Darkness has 4 pieces represented at the moment.  I’m also planning to add more pieces there after the holiday’s.

Thank you all so much for making this a great and busy holiday season for me and for Gavin&Lily.  This holiday season represents the first as a full-fledged business and its so exciting and wonderful to have it so well-received!

Now back to your regularly scheduled holiday cheer!

Holiday wonderful-ness December 13, 2007

Thank you all so much for coming out this past weekend to the Bust Craftacular and Winter Holiday Sale. Both were so much fun and very successful events all around. For anyone who was at either show and is looking for a particular item you may have seen in person but don’t see in my Etsy shop, please email me at info at gavinandlily dot com and I can post a reserved listing for you in the shop.

A note about Holiday Orders:

I’ve been offering free First Class shipping in my Etsy shop through the end of the year. While I’m still offering that, the cutoff for holiday delivery on in-stock items is tomorrow, December 14th. Anything ordered after that day can still be shipped free First Class, but will not be guaranteed before Christmas. You are free to upgrade to Priority Shipping through December 18th for an additional $2.50 for delivery before Christmas. If you’d like this option, please put a note in the “message to seller” box and wait to complete your purchase until I send a revised PayPal invoice. I won’t be offering an Express Mail option unless you contact me before making your purchase on Etsy.

Also–The Peony Necklace will be available in Sterling Silver for $75. I am making a few today and will try to get pictures taken and up in the shop by the end of the day, but if this is something you’re interested in, please email me ASAP to let me know. They are pretty time consuming and I’d like to be sure you get yours in time for the holidays!

It was so nice meeting all of you last weekend and thanks for coming by to check out the site. After the New Year, gavinandlily.com should be going full ecommerce (woohoo!) but the blog will remain, hopefully with more regular updates.

Oh, and for anyone local (Hudson Valley region), come by my new store Birch Handmade, in Catskill, NY to see the line in person and check out all the other wonderful handmade goodness!

Its a super-crafty weekend! December 6, 2007

2 great events are coming up this weekend for all you holiday shoppers who are staying true to the Buy Handmade creed!

First off, as I mentioned previously, I’ll be at the Bust Craftacular in NYC Saturday at Metropolitan Pavillion.  I’ll be in booth B2 with my imaginary boyfriend.  Stop by and say hi!  Its a really fabulous event thats in a new, even bigger location this year.  I’ve been looking forward to this one all year!

Second, on Sunday, I’ll be back up in my neck of the woods doing a local Winter Gift Sale at the Hudson Valley Sudbury School.  Organized by the lovely Cindy Hoose, it should prove to be a wonderful event and I’m really excited to meet some other local crafters!  Since moving upstate I’ve connected with a few, but I know there are pockets of wonderful craftiness hanging out in these mountains and I’m very excited to see what’s out there.

So if you’re near either one of these events, come by and check me out!  If you’ve been thinking about picking up a piece of Gavin&Lily jewelry, nows the time!

CRAFTACULAAAAAAAAR! November 8, 2007

For the 2nd year in a row, I’ll be at Bust’s Craftacular holiday craft show! A total honor to be accepted, I’ll be sharing a booth with the fabulous Erika Kern of my imaginary boyfriend. Come and find us, we’d love to see you!

The details:

Saturday December 8th from 10AM-8PM

Metropolitan Pavilion

125 West 18th Street (between 6th and 7th Avenue) in New York City

Click Here for more info

Here for Google Map

The Metropolitan Pavilion is a new venue for the event. The Warsaw’s perogies will be sorely missed, but the new venue is big and bright and beautiful and centrally located in Manhattan which should add a whole new element of fabulousness to the event. Woohoo!

On a roll…

There’s so much exciting news from the Gavin&Lily camp!

First off, Birch Handmade is mere weeks (days?) away from opening. I’ve set an opening date of November 17, but head over to the Birch Blog for updates on that, if any

Second…Gavin&Lily is on Trunkt! A really fantastic resource for both indie designers and buyers, Trunkt is a juried site that allows indie designers to create a portfolio of their work and a way for buyers to contact them directly for wholesale inquiries. Its a true honor to be accepted to Trunkt, and I’m in really great company there. Go check it out, but be warned, your debit card might not be so happy with you in the morning (you can link out to buy all the items on the site directly from the designers too).

Third…Gavin&Lily will also be seen on Stars & Infinite Darkness! An amazingly cooler than cool online shop with the who’s who of indie clothing, jewelry and accessories designers, I’m admittedly humbled to be joining the fray. Look for me there in a couple of weeks, I’ll post an update when the goods are up.

And of course, the Etsy shop is still home base for any and all new goodness from Gavin&Lily!

So, the holiday season is looking like its poised to be big for Gavin&Lily! And I couldn’t be happier about it!

Pretty pretty peony October 11, 2007

For anyone that saw me at Crafty Bastards at the NYC Craft Mafia booth, you got to see all of the new fun enamel work I’ve been doing. I haven’t posted much on my Etsy, mainly because I sold out of almost everything at CB and because I’ve been very busy focusing on my store project. Anyway, that’s no excuse, so I went ahead and posted a few new things to my shop yesterday.

This Japanese-inspired peony necklace is hand-pierced from 24 gauge copper and enameled and hangs from an oxidized copper chain. It was a big hit at the show and marks a new direction I’m moving in that I’m super excited about.

More to come, stay tuned…

So here’s the scoop October 9, 2007

I’m opening my own store!!!  This is seriously exciting stuff for me for so many reasons.  I’m blogging the process of opening the place up, so without further adieu, here’s the link to

BIRCH HANDMADE 

I’ll still be blogging here about jewelry stuff and quite a bit is going on with that as well.  Stay tuned…

Somethings brewing… October 7, 2007

hoooty hoot

Originally uploaded by gavinandlily

here at Gavin&Lily central. We’re not going to say too much just yet, but its very, very exciting and truly a dream come true. And the culmination of the last 3 years of work. Anyway, these awesome little wise owls are my new best friends and are going to be my totems through this new project.
As soon as I know everything is a go, I will be posting the link to a new site, where all will be revealed………

Crafty Bastards was a success! October 1, 2007

Thank you DC for coming out to see me at Crafty Bastards yesterday! It was a beautiful day, an amazing show with incredibly friendly and helpful staff and organizers and the best sales day yet for Gavin&Lily handmade!

It was really a pleasure to meet so many wonderful people and I couldn’t be happier to see my little works of art go off to such great new homes.

I nearly sold out of everything I brought down, including a sizable amount of new enamel work and PMC pieces. That being said, I’m using tonight to catch up on some much needed sleep (20 hours of driving roundtrip Saturday and Sunday-yes, DC is really only 4.5 hours from NYC, its a long story) but will get back in the studio (yes, I really have one of those now) tomorrow to replenish my inventory. I’ll also be working on some new designs that were suggestions from people at the show, such creative people those DC-folks!

Thanks to the Washington City Paper and Liz, Sarah and Kim for putting together such an awesome show!

And of course, thanks to my NYC Craft Mafia mamasita’s for making the trip so much fun!

PS. If there was something you saw at Crafty Bastards and didn’t pick up, but truly can’t live without, email me at info (at) gavinandlily dot com and let me know what it is (even a vague description is good, I’m pretty friendly with my work and remember it well) and I’ll get it into my Etsy shop for you so we can get that to you right quick!