Wednesday, August 12, 2009

MIA

So I went MIA for a quite some time..

What a week last week.. So I went to my parents house on Thursday.. Did A LOT of work I thought.. was all proud of myself, was on my way home, going to show my husband all the work I had accomplished.. and then...

5 minutes before I get home, I get in an accident... ended up t-boning some girl who tried to turn left in front of me to go to Burger King.. so, I ended up hitting her, not purposely of course.. slammed my brakes.. and then it resulted in both vehicles being total losses..

So then my weekend was pretty much shot.. Was at the emergency room Thursday until 4am Friday.. Friday I did go to my grandma's for pizza and her birthday though..was there all day, then Saturday all of the tenseness set in to my neck and back... so then the weekend, I pretty much lounged.. all weekend lol.

I was a great movie watcher on Saturday! I watched Legally Blond, Legally Blond II, AND Twilight.. I also finished reading Twilight yesterday which I am very proud of myself for doing.. Will continue on to read New Moon soon.. maybe start reading it tonight, we will see..

But in conclusion.. I was out of my little cycle of doing things.. and am slowly getting back into the swing of things..

I also need to make more items because there is a Bazaar in October that I would like to attend, it is only a few blocks from my house, and only $30 for a table, so I think it is a good move to try and get into that bazaar!

Until Next Time... Happy Shopping! :)

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

New Things To Come!

Well A&K Gift Gallery has had some new postings almost daily of items which include pins, tissue holders, and Cabbage Patch Newborn outfits.

Soon to come - some Halloween items! :) yay! I will be going out to my parents house soon to use some tools they have out there.. and then, there will be some little ghosts listed! :)

If you want to see what else I'm working on, check out my other blog!

Until Then,
Happy Shopping!

Saturday, August 1, 2009

Sold my first item in my Etsy Store!

Pretty excited, opened my store on Etsy exactly 1 week ago, and I just had my first order! It's being sent out to the United Kingdom! :)

I was really excited.. if you couldn't tell :). My customer bought one of my embroidered tissue holders! :)


There's still plenty more if you need one before the weather starts to get cold and nose's start to get runny! :)

Friday, July 31, 2009

My Intro

Well this will be a very LONG blog post.. but if you want to know about the artist this is the blog post to read!

My story... It all began on June 11, 1987.. the day I was born! LoL.

Well I can't remember the day I was born, but I can remember a lot of my child hood, which is pretty much my crafting background.

When I was growing up, back when you had nap time, always it seemed when the Price is Right was on, and then my mom would turn on golf because it was boring and usually made us go to sleep... that's how long ago.. I remember my mom working on crafts all the time. I grew up in the country, with 3 brothers.. at this time though, only 2. Zack came later on. So anyways, at this time, in the country, my mom stayed at home with us kids. She made crafts all the time, and on the weekends my parents would go to craft shows. My mom was into sewing, my dad worked with wood.

So many things were made in this house.. doll clothes, bears, sheep, tissue box sheep cozies, anything you could think of that could be sewn. In the garage... bird houses, bird feeders, lawn ornaments.

My brothers and I helped where we could, not often could we help with the sewing but when my dad was building, we were out there drilling holes in the front of the bird feeders, sanding feet to cat lawn ornaments that had a feather in the mouth saying "what bird?".. things like that...

This was my happy, content, ful-filling childhood experiences.

When I was 6 my brothers and I joined a 4-H group, and then a couple years later my parents decided to have their own 4-H group. Through all the years in 4-H we had animals, horses, and made crafts. We made wood crafts, fabric crafts, any kind of craft you could think of.

Many years of my life was spent making crafts as you can see. When I was 15 I started my first job, good ol' McD's! lol. Gradually I got out of crafts through those years. During high school I took some business classes, attended Bay Arenac ISD Career Center, took the Business Information Processing class, was an officer in Business Professionals of America both years, 1st as the Secretary, then my senior year as Vice President. I competed in the BPA Regional and State competitions for Prepared Speech 2 years, Global Marketing 1 year, and Advanced Office Systems & Procedures 1 year.

When I graduated in 2005, I then attended a community college in the Fall. I planned to be an Accountant. Started out with 7 different classes, attending 2 classes a night, 4 nights a week, after work. Big mistake! lol. Talk about an overload. Accounting, Economics, Math, Step Aerobics, Lifelong Wellness, Desktop Publishing, and some other class.. it was a long semester.. When I started college, I didnt receive any financial aid, so my mom, knowing I was interested in business and such, decided we would start a partnership. A&K Gift Gallery was born! I started by having this HUGE home party. Which actually consisted of 3 hosts, and was held in a banquet hall. I sold Home Decorating items.

In the fall of 2008, my mom shows me this tv show, where they showed a Felting Machine. I was in love... so then, I went out and bought one.. needless to say, I unfortunately did not use it much yet.. HOWEVER, a week later, after buying this machine my mom introduced me to single needle felting. I then found my calling. It was the one thing I loved to do.. which introduced me back into the craft world. I started making 3D sculptures, and from then kept adding to my collection. I started selling items on eBay and was REALLY excited when I got my first sale. I named by business A.D.Designs. We then decided, A&K Gift Gallery, would no longer sell home decorating items. No more manufactured items for us. My mom already had her business, T&K Country Treasures and now that I found my niche, we could sell ONLY handmade items.

A.D.Designs - One-Of-A-Kind Needle Felting Sculptures. I hope to one day add on and start making OOAK designs with my felting machine. Purses, Bags, Pillows, etc. But for now, It's single needle felted sculptures.

One day, I needed some beads for eyes for a needle felting sculpture. My mom and I went into the bead shop and this lady told us about how she loved Etsy and how much she didn't like eBay so her and another person made things and sold them all on Etsy. My mom and I decided to check it out. I found my eBay store wasn't worth keeping open for as many products as I had, it wouldn't be profitable. So I then opened an Etsy store. OOAKbyADDesigns had joined the Etsy Community!

My mom joined Etsy under T&K Country Treasures and had success not long after!

I then opened up A&K Gift Gallery on Etsy as well, for all the things I made that didn't fit into my Needle Felting theme under OOAKbyADDesigns.

Just yesterday, I also had my grandma join Etsy! Puppets by Margie! She has been making and selling her puppets for over 40 years now! She is very please with Etsy and was happy to see how many views she already had this morning, and even had an item hearted!

But anyways, that leads us to now...

While all of the eBay and Etsy happenings were happening.. I recently was married, on May 30, 2009. Left my Insurance Agent position at a small agency in Auburn, and now work from home full time. :)

So, if you made it this far in the blog post, thank you for staying and reading it all! I know it is quite scattered and VERY gramatically incorrect... however it took about 4 different sittings to finish the first blog post! For now on, the rest will be shorter! lol.

Until Then, Happy Shopping!

~Alicia Marie~

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

A&K Gift Gallery is back online!!!

Just a quick update.. I plan on updating my blog more! Just got everything set I think with resetting up A&K Gift Gallery.. been pretty busy between business and trying to make my apartment look like a home, (still after 2 months! lol)

I just wanted to let all of our customers know, A&K Gift Gallery has opened it's online doors again! You can find our store on Etsy!

http://www.akgiftgallery.etsy.com

More to come tomorrow, but its past midnight, and I have a long to-do list tomorrow! So Until Then.. Happy Shopping! :)

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Welcome to the A&K Gift Gallery Blog!

Good Morning everyone! My name is Alicia, co-owner and sales rep of A&K Gift Gallery. If you are reading this I am sure you have viewed our website by now. I hope you found everything you were looking for!

I have created this blog to keep everyone up to date with anything new or current going on with A&K Gift Gallery. Here you will find posts about new products, promotions, ideas, and whatever else may come to mind :).

Thank you for being a customer of A&K Gift Gallery! We hope to hear from you soon.

-Alicia M. Groulx