HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Happy New Year!! This is very belated.

I like to post pictures with my BLOG but haven't been inspired - all I've seen around us is snow snow snow. Haven't even wanted to venture out and about and it has looked the same since Thanksgiving! It is starting to melt a bit now which is nice.

We've been very busy so I thought I'd share what we've been up to.

Our Press Coverage hit at the end of November - right after our last shows and we were wonderfully busy processing Tree of Life jewelry orders through Dec 31st! It felt so good to process most orders the same day that they came in - the two of us were working like a well-oiled machine!! :) Thank you to all our new customers and existing ones!

It's good that orders died down because now we are working on some Celebrity Mom Gift Basket promotions - I'll let you know how that develops - and new PR efforts for Mother's day - it's really exciting.

We've come up with two new designs that we can't wait to get into the works (one from Mark, one from me) and we're laying out new one of a kind gold designs for our show season.

I just wrote my first educational article which I'll send you a link to once it's published (beginning of February). It felt really good to share and give back - I'm hoping those that read it go away from it feeling that they got information of real value.

My 3 year old Dell computer decided to get sick on me just before our holiday order rush - and it's taken until last week to get it fixed. (Geek Squad home service is the way to go!!) I couldn't go on-line much and couldn't make needed changes to our website - otherwise my computer was going to melt... then blow up! (I needed to replace the fan and heat sink.) Happy to say that it's running 12 hours a day now - non-stop and cool as a cucumber!

So relieved that my computer is well because it allowed me to FINALLY finish our gold data entry. I had done much of the work before the holiday and it just required putting all the parts together. I'm really proud of myself! I'm not a photographer or web-designer - or a computer person for that matter (that's why some things might look a little rough - in fact I have a long list of pictures I want to re-take) but I did it. Just a learning curve - as years pass it will become second nature. Here's all the gold: http://www.blackmountainjewelry.com/JewelryCollections_Art.html

I've become a little addicted to Face Book and reconnecting with people. If you'd like to become a Face Book friend you can find me there - Carla Vaughn-Mead or Black Mountain Jewelry Co.

That's the scoop. Hope your 2009 is off to a great start and that you have health, prosperity and happiness throughout the year!!