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 31 - readers

this post is dedicated to kathy and kelly...and all of our weekly readers. we deeply apologize for the short post last week, and hope to make up for it today. really, i can't believe how many of you are out there and depending on our monday night post to make your tuesday morning a sensation...okay, that may be a bit of an exaggeration, although i am truly impressed that we have readers at all...so thanks!

sherry and i have been off of our weekly beading nights, due to busy travel schedules over the past month or so. we see each other at our shows as we haul our goods out of our cars and into our venue for the evening. we have been meshing for so long now that we don't really have to see each other to run this side business of ours as a team. we are already coming up on our 5 year anniversary show, IIDA bizarre bazaar at the mart (november 11th, 5:30-8:30pm). i can't believe it has been that long already...this was our first show in november of 2005! yowsa, how time flies.

we are doing everything we can to inspire ourselves and keep everyone surrounding us intrigued. we have a spectacular new year of products around the corner and can't wait for you all to share in the excitement.

as i was beading our six-hundredth (or so) one-of-a-kind necklace tonight, i can't help but think of where they all are. i hope they are not in your dresser drawers waiting for a special occasion, because tuesday is an occasion enough to make a mesh statement...even if it is faceted glitz, offset by multi colored felted wool balls...work it mid-week!

on the table | over-stated combos

-melissa

week 25 - careers

as most of you know, sherry and i both have full time day jobs aside from our flourishing mesh business...i'm an interior designer working for an corporate interior architectural firm, and sherry is an interior designer working for a not-for-profit organization that happens to be changing the world one child at a time...slight extension to our mesh responsibilities, but we are of course managing with no sweat :) we have so much going on in our day to day lives and we rarely take the time anymore to simply catch up on what is happening outside of mesh. as we sat at the kitchen table tonight, creating our one-of-a-kind pieces of inspiration, we were discussing the recent responsibilities we are taking on, such as a radio interview that sherry is helping to coordinate tomorrow morning that will raise money for her girls in India, or the trip to shanghai that i have coming up for work in less that two weeks. we don't know when our lives became so busy, although we are very aware that we are both self-made fillers of time...we don't like to sit still, because when we are sitting still, we are not accomplishing much. i can't believe how far we have come with mesh while still making sense of our everyday careers. we can't wait to find out what's around the next corner of our journey!

-melissa

on the table | new supplemental bling and an anthro catalog full of endless inspiration...

week 22 - end of summer flea market finds

it happens every summer. august comes…and then goes way too fast. wait, summer is over? why did it go so fast? well, it happened this year again to me. even though we did tons of fun outings and events, there were still many things that we didn’t cross off our list.

flea markets. that is always on my list. although they are 'hit and miss,’ i love them. It’s the adventure of the hunt for the perfect piece of furniture or mesh trinket. this past saturday my husband and I went to the highwood street market on the north shore.

it was great. we even had a coupon to ensure a reasonable $2 entry fee. this offset my $4 hot dog. the festival was in a beautiful park area…so plenty of trees for shade on a hot day. it was just the right size also, only taking a few hours to see all the vendors.

one booth particularly held my attention. (no, not the one where the vendor’s dog was apparently biting other dogs). this woman had buckets and buckets of trinkets…watch parts, game pieces, old door hardware, vintage earrings….all things mesh! I was able to find some really neat hardware pieces and metal trinkets that you will soon see on our fall collection.

i’m convinced that these types of festivals and finds we discover at them make mesh the unique product that it is.

-sherry

on the table | acceptance letter to the oak park art fair on november 7th!!!

week 18 – it’s never too hot for style

the oddest thing happened this past week. melissa and i took part an awesome home | show in la grange. not to mention it was held on one of the hottest days of the summer…tipping a sweltering 94 degrees. (i think it was actually still that hot outside when we left at 10:00 pm….that’s how hot it was!)

as mesh was setting up for the show we laughed at ourselves as we set up a display of scarves…thinking “who is going to buy a scarf on the hottest day of the summer?” well, we convinced ourselves...they are ‘summer scarves’…lightweight and airy. and we had just gotten a new batch of large checkered patterns…very transitional for the summer/fall season. let’s try it. so we left them out on the table.

[insert drum-roll here]

we sold so many scarves on thursday night! I think it was our highest scarf sale night to date.

then i got to thinking….what is it about the summer scarf that is so attractive these days. we used to only wear them in the winter to keep warm or as an attempt to add a bright accent color our black wool coats. i personally own about 20…and think i continually need more.

these are the reasons we've decided we love summer scarves...get yours at the next mesh show!

1. you feel a little fancy wearing them.

2. can’t decide which necklace to wear…no worries, use a scarf.

3. cost is no issue! you can get great scarves for under $20.

4. get too warm? take it off and tie it to your purse bohemian style.

5. best defense against the pesky air conditioning vent at your favorite restaurant.

6. easiest way to show your creative personality through texture, color and pattern.

7. there are a gazillion ways to wear a scarf. a woman thursday showed me a pretzel tie. be creative.

8. one-size fits all. (how much do we love this ladies?)

9. all the hollywood stars are wearing them. does jessica look great or what?

10. it's another excuse to buy new winter scarves. you can’t wear summer scarves in the winter!

-sherry

on the table | the brightest chunky necklace i've ever made

week 16 - neck ache

i woke up sunday morning morning, sat up and immediately wondered “why does my neck ache?” yoga perhaps? i couldn’t be (shouldn’t be!) that sore as it had been 3 days since my last class. then I realized the pinching pain was from the massive amount of beads we were carrying in shoulder bags saturday morning at the bead show we attended to buy summer/fall mesh raw inventory.

don’t get me wrong, look at the beads we got!....it was worth the pain!

saturday morning, melissa and I attended one of the great quarterly gem and jewelry shows that comes to chicago. vendors are there from all over the world and have the best beads hands down…they have the beads we cannot typically get in any chicago bead stores even! there is every shape and size bead at this show. other than this event, we mainly get our big and chunky beads from our trusted new york vendors. we even met a woman from nepal this trip. she was carrying our favorite worsted wool beads which we typically order from portugal!

anyhow, this was our best ‘buy’ to date. all the beads we typically search for were right in front of us! we got such an amazing inventory of beads….so much so, that I didn’t even put them away when I got home. I laid every strand on my island counter. (my husband must be wondering by now when we will eat dinner at the counter again...sorry!) i went straight ahead and made a necklace (#590) from these great citron stones. they are that perfect yellow that is found everywhere in fashion right now. intermixed are light gray striations which make a perfect warm and cool color combination. this piece will transition right into fall.

we have three home|shows booked over the next 30 days and we're thrilled to unveil the new products.

-sherry

on the table - more beads than I ever thought possible to carry

week 12 - trinkets and treasures

everywhere i go i always have my eye out for anything i can put on a necklace. who says just beads go on necklaces? that’s crazy! does one type of topping go on ice cream? of course not. this is what makes us mesh! collectors of all trinkets and treasures…reviving them from their old life, into new pieces of art.

melissa and i created mesh during a brunch discussion at The Breakfast Club near my house. right between bites of french toast and crispy bacon, there it was...mesh was born. we quickly headed straight over to our favorite neighborhood salvage shop (http://www.salvageone.com/) to pick up a few trinkets. we found tons of old pieces of door hardware, hinges and keys to use on our necklaces. since then we started collecting all sorts of items…earrings from grandma’s jewelry box, keys from the sheds on my uncle's farm and broaches from the flea market.

over the last five years…these are the pieces that don’t stay in our possession very long. the combination of old and new, soft and hard, shiny and aged…that’s what people like. there is a story behind each piece. who’s door did this come off of? and just how many layers of paint are really on here?

just this morning i found a vendor on line that is sending me vintage watch faces. SENSATIONAL! look out for the next round of mesh pieces sporting these trinkets! this is what makes our pieces one-of-a-kind treasures.

on the table summer beads and bright colors

-sherry

week 8 - oceans

one tuesday, a couple months ago, melissa sent me a starbucks quote off the back of her morning chai tea. the timing was perfect as the night before (on a standard monday mesh night) i was whining about my repetitive 9-5 job and vocalizing a desire for more flexibility in my schedule and a more rewarding feeling at the end of the day.

the quote was something like… "if you don’t take your foot off the edge of the shore, you’ll never swim in the oceans”…

the typical me would have rolled my eyes and thought this was pretty sappy…but not this time. what it said to me was…make the change now! i listen to melissa’s advice. It is to the poignant and direct. she is typically right too.

i did it! so, here I am with one brand new career that i am passionate about, more time for mesh creativity and no commute on chicago’s eisenhower. i accepted a full time position with a not-for-profit that I had been volunteering with for the last four years. one of our focus areas is orphan care and the fight against child trafficking in India. i have fallen in love with the country and especially my girls at the orphanage, after traveling there the last few years.

so i’ve found that perfect combination….the flexibility and the passion! and no, I am not sitting home eating bon-bons (you know who you are accusing me of this…)…it’s a full time position and I have tons to do!!

leaving the interior design industry was a little scary at the time, but now I get my creative ‘fix’ from mesh…so it’s a perfect fit!

as frightening as it is to take your foot off the edge of the shore…speaking from experience… it feels good in the ocean!


on the table bauble necklaces for barrington boutique

-sherry

ps...that is me...in india

week 3 - spring bling!

The time is here again for Spring Bling @ Izzy! Spring Bling has been our annual spring sale for the past 3 years, and we hope to see you there this year! The event will be held on Thursday, April 22nd in the Izzy showroom, on the 11th floor of the Merchandise Mart. This event is always hosted by the wonderful mesh supporters at Izzy furniture and Tandus carpet. There will be a total of 10 vendors at this year's Spring Bling, showcasing a variety of products. Come check it out...free of charge!

mesh will be debuting a NEW variety of products ranging from rings, scarves, and hand bags; aside from our ever so inspiring one-of-a-kind necklace creations. We can't wait to display our Spring 2010 inventory together, creating 'mesh picks' for the season. Here is a sneak peek...

You can't make it to Spring Bling? We'll bring the show to you! Please let us know if you and a group of your friends are at all interested in having us bring our latest and greatest inventory into your home for a trunk show. We are ready and more than willing to show off all of our new goods!

Happy Spring!

-mesh