7th Anniversary Moment 5: Eat, sleep, make jewelry, repeat.

Moment 5: So this plan Betsy had to make jewelry is taking off. Like, really taking off. She and Will, along with the help of friends, worked their booties off in the spring of 2011 to finish building out our current retail space. They moved b&i HQ to NW Thurman St. and in August 2011, officially became brick & mortar shop owners. And then came more and more jewelry orders (yay!).

We had to give the jewelry a moment to shine, literally and figuratively, in this project. It is after all, what we do best. I'm no business expert, but I think a lot of really great ideas falter because they take off quickly, but there's no method to the madness of keeping up with demand. Betsy, Will, and production are constantly evaluating their efficiency and making changes, if necessary, to improve processes and cut lead times so we are able to give the people what they want. The photos we gave Alyson, the artist for this moment, depict maker life around here. Some of them were the production team having fun, some of them showed them heads down focused on work. But what she ultimately chose to draw from was an image of a large order of Southern Lights necklaces from an online retailer, one that involved a lot of repetitious activity and a lot of time to finish. Artist: Alyson Provax xo Anna ***Song of the Moment: Over & Over by Hot Chip***