Oh how I love designing. Tonight I am alone in my greenhouse studio on Kauai. Dan has left for the NY Stationery Show. The dogs are playing with ribbons strewn on the floor and I don’t care. I need to come up with a couple more new Christmas designs. I want to make Holiday Surprise balls.

 The rain is softly hitting the corrugated roof and all is well.

 My mother used to say that if you have good ingredients when you cook, you can’t go wrong. Well I agree with that philosophy. If you start out with beautiful trim and embellishments, you just have to find the right combination and voila!

 Well, I started playing with some German gold dresdyn that are made on antiquated machines from the 1880s. Some of the machines are breaking down and some styles will be no more. They are so beautiful. You can never re make them in China- never.

 They are delicious embossed shiny gold gems from Germany. Putting together combinations of these beauties until it feels just Ahhhh… so. Perfection.

 I finalize the BOM ( bill of material),  thinking about the cost of each part and the time an artisan will spend in production. All of this is so important to come up with a final product.  

Here is a sneak preview of what I came up with tonight.   They will be polished and prettier when they are in final production.

And sometimes they never get to production. I show it to my staff in the morning  and they give a thumbs up or down.

 Thanks.