You've got to try flower arranging too!

Every year for our annual Christmas party, I order flowers. And every year I am completely disappointed regardless of what florist I choose. The arrangements are small...maybe 6 carnations, 2 mums and a red ball with some green stuff. My employees are way to sweet to complain, but I just feel like a cheap jerk when they see the arrangements. I've tried several florists, tried spending more money, but I'm never pleased. Why is it that I go to a grocery store and see a gorgeous bouquet for $14.99 loaded with flowers, but when I order them from a florist for $40.00 I get junk?

This year, I decided to stop being disappointed, skip trying yet another florist, and take these flower matters into my own hands. After a bit of research on the web about flower arranging, my husband Allen and I went to a place called Produce Junction (which is like a wholesaler open to the public) and loaded up a box with tons of gorgeous, colorful flowers. We then took them back to our warehouse and I took over the kitchen...and I might add I had an absolute blast making the arrangements! If you don't have a place like Produce Junction around you, consider using those pretty bouquets at the grocery store.

Here's some tips if you want to try making your own arrangements too. Start with medium height flowers ( I used mums and carnations). Each of my arrangements has about 10 of these. Next, put in your focal flowers that are taller and shorter than your medium height flowers (I used one white hydrangea, three pink roses and two purple statis). Then add your greens for filler ( I had ferns and some other pretty greens I don't know the name of). And finally, I filled in the "blanks" with baby's breath.

This year, the arrangements were colorful and lovely and best of all, loaded with gorgeous flowers. Another added bonus was these loaded with flowers arrangements were about 1/4 the price of the florists flowers. You may not need to make a bunch of arrangements, but consider trying flower arranging yourself next time you need an arrangement and skip the overpriced florists.

The Joys of Inventory

Saying the word "inventory" at eebeads is pretty much akin to using a four letter word. We all hate it...no doubt about it. But, it's gotta be done doesn't it? Believe it or not, there was a time when we didn't do inventory...

When I started eebeads, I didn't have any type of degree or education in business. I went to college and got an art degree with a teaching certificate. I taught high school one year and elementary the next and then moved from Wisconsin to Pennsylvania where eebeads was born. I had a huge love of beads and actually put myself partially through college by selling jewelry at art fairs...so eebeads was born.

Okay, back to the inventory part. So we're going along for about 2 years without doing inventory and a friend who owned several businesses said "You don't do inventory?". Well geez, never occurred to me! But it made perfect sense. Lots of the items in the database didn't match what was actually on the shelves. How could this happen? We enter in the data, we take out of the boxes....the stuff should match right? Nope! Human error up the wazoo.

So that's what we've been doing for the past two days even though we've been technically closed. Thank goodness we've got it down to a science these days and it only takes about a day and a half with a lunch of pizza on the last day. *sigh* Thank goodness it's over for the time being!

Happy Holidays from all of us at eebeads.com!

Why am I writing a blog?

Good question, what provoked me to write a blog about eebeads? You, the customer and general public! I want to communicate and find out what you're wondering about. I get a lot of interesting questions from customers and jewelry designers via email that I answer, but with a blog, you can post a comment and I can share the answers with everyone!

What is eebeads? We're an internet retailer that sells beads to the public. We are not wholesale and we don't have a store. Our specialty is selling smaller packages of beads (versus a gross or a strand) so you don't have to buy a lot, just what you need. We add new items every week and a new jewelry design you can make as well. All our jewelry designs are free to anyone.

Even though we're now closed for the holidays, I'll be coming in to do some work and checking email so I will be blogging. Feel free to email me a question/comment or post a comment below.

I look forward to blogging WITH you so send in those comments!