Kuukivi jewelry now available thru Succulentwife.com

I am excited to announce that Kuukivi designs are now available thru The Succulent Wife . The Succulent Wife promotes women artists who wish to convert their creative passions into income-producing enterprises. Anne-Marie Kovacs, founder of The Succulent Wife is one of very diligent people I have met. I like her tagline for the company "An artist-featured gift company".

She has a great collection of gift items including jewelry. I know there are quite a few websites out there which are focused on finding the perfect gift for anyone but this is one of the few websites where you feel there is a personal touch in the items she selected. And I am very happy Kuukivi is part of that family too now:)

I have been keeping my head down and work on the Summer collection to get it out by mid-March and online by end of 3rd week or so. So, blogging has been neglected a bit again but ofcourse I have to share the good news

On another note, got a new SLR camera and have a small help session tomorrow(I love Wolf camera folks...I got the camera for a great price and they help with technical stuff too) setting up white balance and will try out pictures this weekend and post some of the upcomign designs:)

woes of shopping cart:(

Well, for the first time, signed up for an online trunk show with SheFinds thinking now that I am back in US, I should start getting the name out more and build internet sales. Well, with moving just about a month ago and with the flu seasons and what nots and overconfidence that every shopping cart will have a feature to offer discount codes, I completely forgot about checking into the shopping cart I use if they actually do offer the feature. And ofcourse in the last second possible realized that it doesn't!!. Literally the only option available now is to change the shopping cart of the website! While its not a bad idea to do that, I can't do it in a day or two...takes a couple of weeks in development and then testing before putting it on a live site!!!. I got sooo royally screwed (pardon my french).

I am hoping the customers wont' get completely put off by this and send me an email with the order # and the discount code so I can promptly give them the discount. To show my appreciation for being understanding and patient, I am sending a gift certificate for $20 for any future purchases (Yes, the current shopping cart does take gift certificates:)).

I reallly want to get the spring/summer collection and the wedding collection out on time as planned (towards end of March) so decided against my better judgement to leave the shoppign cart as is and take it up a couple of months later.

Calling all designers...for D4A's first auction of 2008

It's D4A's first auction of the year!.
When: March 27
Whom: The South Sudanese Center
Cause: Build wells in Sudan to provide drinking waterBenefit: apart from that great feeling of being part of the great cause, your company's name will get more audience, your logo and link to your website will be placed in D4A website, list of companies with a small blurb will be published in D4A blog.

The last auction in Oct 2007 was a huge success and managed to raise enough funds for turnabout pump which is bringing safe water to a school of over 1,200 in Uganda. This time there are even more designers participating but we can use more designers to raise even more money to help with the cause.

It doesn't need to be your hottest design. Even designs from the last holiday season would be a great contribution.
Please send an email to April@aprilstardavis.com or me (sheela@kuukivi.com) to sign up.

We are trying to get more press for the event too. And there is a good possiblity of having some celebrities attendign the event!

wintery wedding necklace unveiled

I know I blogged about this beautiful Wedding necklace I was custom designing for a friend in Tampere, Finland. Well, that was the last piece I worked there before moving back to California. well, design was done before but altering the length and add a beautiful back to match the wedding dress got done last.

Since its a winter wedding, the necklace has lot of moonstones to represent snowy white ice with a long almost 2cm long moonstone drop in the center. small balls with tiny crystals are added to give that extra sparkle just like the snow flakes in sunlight. All of these handwrapped to a tiny curved chain.

And introducing Kuukivi signature back for wedding necklaces...Especially with a wedding dress with low back, small pearls each individually handwrapped and connected to any wedding necklace design, it will give a classic look. Ofcourse just 4 blue sapphire beads just around the clasp takes care of that little"something blue" ...

unfortunately there wasn't enough time there to find professional photographer to get this pictured so just blogging it with pictures taken from my tiny digital camera.

Kuukivi wedding designs will be unveiled end of March....

Back on blogging

sorry about the looong break. Moved back to California, took some time to set up everything including internet, survived yet another attack of flu and finally all ready to go....Flight with a toddler was quite an experience but little Manu was a great trooper..just wanted to play and not sleep:)

Had a good trunk show today, first one after returning. One of my friends arranged it and it was fun meeting new customers, watching reactions. It was good testing ground for new designs and the one drop career women collection that I am gettign geared up to release next month. Thank you Savita.

I think I can add a few new designs to the website this week but need to get the rest photographed soon. For eg: This is the first design that got sold today and a potential order for another one of these in Sterling Silver in summer from the same customer. When she tried out the necklace, it just looked beautiful, gorgeous all rolled into one on her.

But the picture shows one of the stones not in proper place and chain not exactly how it shoudl be and hence not on the website yet. While I was thinking of sticking to 2 layers max in a necklace, customers today told me they really like this design and would like to see more of these.....I love to hear feedback like that. Same customer wanted custom designed earrings to go with the necklace. We designed on the spot together and I think they will go perfect with this gorgeous necklace.