week 36 - mesh boutique...almost

for those of you who will be joining us this weekend in our newly developed living rooms/mesh boutiques, we can't wait for you to see all of the new and refreshed goods we have in store. as we have noted in many recent email blasts, blog entries, and facebook posts, we are getting geared up for a full weekend of mesh sales and holiday festivities. sherry and i are both hosting a mesh open house this weekend (check out our FB events for more details, if you haven't already). this monday's mesh production quickly turned into boutique merchandising in sherry's living room. sherry's husband tagging product, sherry coordinating displays, and me hanging t-shirts for the taking...rounded out of course by holiday tunes from bing crosby and the like! we are getting in to the holiday spirit over here at mesh. come visit with us in all of our glory on saturday and sunday from 10am to 2pm! looking forward to catching up over some peppermint coffee and mesh anniversary cookies (thanks to Cookie Cards in Palatine)!

on the table | every piece of current mesh inventory...including one furry medallion. yes, you heard me...one furry medallion...believe it when you see it in all of it's splendor this weekend!

week 35 - vocab 101

well, last week’s blog got me really thinking about the personality that mesh has become. even so much that my blackberry is a fan…it too recognizes the word mesh automatically when I email/text. sometimes i wonder what people think of us when we use the first two letters of each of our names (meshed together! ha!) as if it was a 3^rd business partner…well, I guess that is just what happens after 5 years!

so, tonight’s blog is mesh vocab 101…consisting of commonly used mesh-isms and what they really mean to the public.

let us know if you also have one!...we’d love to hear!

are we meshing tonight? this is a weekly question to confirm that monday night is still ‘on’ for production.

what a mesh! this is the statement melissa’s husband makes when he arrives home and we are in the midst of beading and have destroyed the dining room on a monday night.

do I have the mesh goods? this is the question when i can’t decide whose trunk has what product in it?

we need our mesh. this is what our friends at mia-sorella in barrington say when they are nearly out of mesh goods in their boutique. they have established quite the following for us in the burbs!

this is the ‘me’ in my ‘mesh’. this is how i introduce melissa to friends and family in my life who are well acquainted with mesh…but have never met the other half of the creative process!

today we are meshma. this is what we call ourselves when melissa’s husband is helping us with a task such as photography or carrying large bags down 3 flights of stairs. we add the first 2 letters of his last name onto ours…

mesh delight…well, you know what this is from last week’s blog.

is mesh buying this? before an early morning bead buy, this is what we ask ourselves at the cash register at starbucks when we go to pay for our chai latte and grande bold coffee.

-sherry

on the table |cookie cards inc. order for the mesh open houses december 4th/5th

week 34 - 'delights'

i love that we have unconsciously come up with mesh-isms over the years of beading together. you may or may not have heard sherry and i discuss our mesh 'delights'... some of you may even have a mesh 'delight' in your collection of our one-of-a-kind pieces. a 'delight' surfaces through the process of presentation that we follow on a typical production night.

as we sit across the table from each other making our one-of-a-kind necklaces, we typically catch up on lost time while we dive knee deep into our collection of beads. as the beads mound higher and higher on the center of the table, we lose track of what each other is making. when we near the end of a necklace, we do a quick try-on/hold-up of our unclasped necklace for each other; to confirm that we have not lost our minds, and that there is at least one other person in the world that would wear this piece. generally the reaction to these hold-ups is an immediate 'switch this bead with that bead' or 'this should lay a bit differently on your neck'. but then there are the less frequent reactions that do not require a bead movement or a color swap...they are simply the pieces that speak for themselves as soon as they have been strung onto wire. there is no other reaction than: 'now THAT is a delight!'. there are 'sherry delights' and 'melissa delights'...there are even delights named after the source of our inspiration for the necklace, such as a more recent 'johnathan adler delight'.

to further explain...our 'delights' are the necklaces that are authorized to leave the kitchen without the security of at least two people in the world that would dare to wear them :) they are simply authorized for a departure into the world of mesh, out of pure curiosity as to who will fall in love with them, other than the designer herself. our delights have inevitably become our favorite collection of necklaces we have ever made....thee most one-of-a-kind, unique, and imaginative mesh pieces. out of our 650 necklaces to date, there is likely a collection of 20 delights out there gaining compliments on a daily basis. pictured above: the original '2005 melissa delight'...send us a photo of you and your mesh necklace...and we will let you know if it is an official 'delight'!

-melissa

on the table | mounds of beads dying to become a part of a mesh delight!

week 33 - special delivery!

i was thrilled to receive a special delivery at work today, via royal mail. i don't know why, but that kind of mail makes my day...not only because it is 'royal', but also because the only thing that comes to me via royal mail is beads from our friends richard and rachelle in london! you see, richard and rachelle are globe trotters that always keep mesh in mind when they happen upon a bead shop during their travels...this time the beads were from athens, greece!

the variety of colors and textural artifacts were a true sensation at our mesh production table tonight...r & r never cease to amaze us with their picks. as unique and eclectic as some of these pieces may be, they somehow seamlessly work their way into a mesh necklace with great ease.

these mediterranean finds gave us great inspiration tonight, which we hope many of you will be able to check out at our event this thursday night.

we are always open to special deliveries...a few weeks ago my parents came back from a road trip to south dakota with a bag full of red river jasper...perfect for our fall/winter collection of one-of-a-kind necklaces!

thanks to all of our mesh fans who think of us when you happen upon stones, beads, trinkets, treasures that you know we can re-invent within one of our pieces.

on the table | greek treasures!

week 32 - happy birthday mesh !

yes, you read it correctly last week when melissa just happened to mention that mesh is turning 5 years old this month!

well, tonight we made our 650th necklace! hard to believe this feat sometimes after an innocent brunch meeting together in 2005. little did we know a spontaneous scheming session about our un-named business venture which would later be known as mesh!

a lot has happened in 5 years! we moved from only designing one-of-a-kind necklaces to purses, then bangles…to selling pretty much everything a girl could ever need! personally we’ve both gotten married, traveled the globe, and become great friends. spending every monday night together for years does that! i also have learned that melissa’s husband makes a mean peanut butter & jelly sandwich every monday night for work the next day…and i might add is a real enthusiast about his nightly ironing! (shout out - i’m thankful he puts up with us at their home weekly!)

mesh marks its birthday by the annual show we participate in at the merchandise mart called IIDA bizarre bazaar. it’s where mesh began! In honor of our birthday month, we will be celebrating by marking ALL mesh products $5 off for the entire month of November!

don’t assume we will be taking this birthday lying down! we have big plans for 2011. the monday night scheming has continued. look for some big news from us in the spring. but in the meantime, we are thankful to our loyal supporters and blog readers!

on the table | dreams for 2011

-sherry

p.s. i googled 'five' tonight. despite the findings including the jackson five, five guys burgers, and hawaii 5-0...i thought i would stick to these more literal images.