Hello, Iceland >> France >> Italy!

MESSAGE ALERT: We’re away travelling for new pictures and a brand new collection! We’ve kept our shop open and are continuing to take orders while away! But please note that all orders placed between June 11th and July 4th will be processed and shipped the week of July 6th. This means that no rush orders can be processed during this time period and our turnaround time will be a tad bit longer than our standard 2 weeks. :)

If you’d prefer to place your order when we return from our trip, we’ll be back on Canadian soil on July 4th with a whole new collection. Be sure to check back! :)

Thanks so much and we’ll be right back!

I’m a little bit late to the game here since the show ended almost two weeks ago. I’ve just been swamped between getting the fine tuning done on this website, to wrapping up the MBA program, particularly our thesis/capstone project, to processing and fulfilling custom orders from the show!

The show was a tremendous success. We couldn’t be happier with the results and it was by far one of the most rewarding experiences yet. Seeing customers connect with our product the way we’d hoped, was just the best feeling in the world. No words can describe.

Our booth that we worked extremely hard on received an honourable mention from the One of a Kind team, so that’s definitely worth a pat on the back! I’ve attached some photos below for your viewing pleasure (excuse the bad lighting that the Direct Energy Centre is responsible for). :) We also hired Studio95 (the same guys who produced our wedding video) to film the booth, so we have a little One of a Kind short story asset for keeps. We’re hoping to publish the video over the next 6 weeks.

We had many custom orders to fulfill after the show, which kept us quite busy but there is no better type of “busy” than this! We ended up hand-delivering all custom orders right to our customers’ doors. I for one have always wanted to do that. :)

We are thinking about participating in the Christmas show in a bigger booth space, so that’s definitely in our radar and we’ll keep you posted on that note. :)

That’s it, that’s all for now! xo

I am so excited to announce the official launch of the new Charlene Precious Co. branding and fully loaded e-commerce website. We’ve been very hard at work since November and there is nothing more rewarding than seeing the fruits of your labour. It took as long as it did because we worked and worked and worked to make sure that every I was dotted and every T crossed. The devil is in the details! But alas, here we are!

Before I talk about anything else, I have to give credit where credit is due. This website that is both intense beauty and brains was brought to life by Carissa Bean from Designing Fresh. After working with her, I will never work with another designer and developer. She works crazy hard for you and is committed to bringing your vision to life. She is immensely skilled, talented, smart, and patient with a constant can-do attitude. Above all else, she truly delivers on exceptional customer service and everything she promises to her clients. I have never had such a smooth and pleasant experience executing a web project with this level of complexity. I highly recommend this world class designer and developer when you’re ready to build your dream space on the web. You won’t regret it. I can’t thank you enough, Carissa. You ARE a superstar.

Now, the website itself! If I were to be completely honest, it’s probably going to be a work in progress forever, so let’s call this Phase 1. :) There is still so much to the vision and so many more things we want to build out, but it’s going to take time, so time is our friend.

Having said that, here’s Phase 1, which we are super proud of. There are a few key areas on the site: the e-commerce shop, the blog, the portfolio, and the ideas in progress. But in and around these areas, are literally layers and layers of goodies, so peruse away and enjoy the new look (and embrace all the details)! :) Our Etsy shop will remain open for those who love shopping on Etsy, but note that our very own shop right here is now up and running with 100% secure checkout! We’ve made everything as intuitive and user friendly as possible, so we hope it’s a pleasant shopping experience! However, you are the customer and only you can be the judge of your shopping experience with us! And because your feedback matters tremendously, we want to hear from you! If you come across any hiccups or have any comments or suggestions, we are all ears. Please contact us here or email us directly at hello@charleneprecious.com. :)

The branding! If I have not already previously shared our mission statement, here it is! We formulated our mission statement last spring and it has been carrying us over the past year. There is nothing more important than a clear mission/purpose to guide everything you do for your business. :)

Our mission is to bring you a moment of warmth and happiness through images that evoke sweet nostalgia reminding you of a beautiful time, or a sense of connectedness and bond to a friend or loved one.

We thought, what better way to capture this than a lovely ferris wheel along with our tagline, Adrift In A Sweet Rewind. It just all snapped perfectly together like puzzle pieces waiting to be connected – it was as perfect of a match as peanut butter and jelly! And of course, as a marketer, this was by far my favourite part of the journey.

With that, I’ll leave you to peruse! I’ll be back to share our experience at the One of a Kind Show in our next post, so stay tuned!!

Oh how quickly the weeks pass! Not that life wasn’t exciting before but between now and July, there is so much going on and I’m squirming with excitement for everything.

I’ve previously mentioned that this entire website is getting made over (by a professional designer and developer, not DIY :)). That was back in November when the project commenced. We are now 4 months in and it’s almost ready to launch in (cross your fingers) two weeks’ time!!! I’m sooooo excited!!! Please be sure to check back often because we are at the home stretch and the brand spanking new site will be unveiled really soon!

Next, there’s the One of a Kind Show in two weeks’ time as well. Everything is coming together and most of my anxiety has subsided and now I’m just overwhelmed with excitement! If you have not yet purchased your tickets, discounted ones are available here. I really hope you can make it out! :)

The MBA is almost done – also at the home stretch. There’s about a month left to go and then officially graduating from the program – that’s undoubtedly extremely exciting!!

Our honeymoon trip is half-booked. We are picking and choosing the most beautiful pockets in Iceland, France, and Italy, and I can’t wait to bring back THOUSANDS of new photographs. I feel like I’ve been so busy running the business side of things for the last 8 months that I haven’t been able to go out and take new photographs! But this 3-week trip is here to make up for all of it. I’ll get into the details of the trip in another post. :)

In essence, I’m still here and trying to blog at least once every two weeks. Here’s some countryside love.

I thought I’d take some time to dedicate a proper blog post to the One of a Kind Show 2015 given how wonderful it truly is and of course, the amount of time, energy, and resources it is taking me to get ready for it as a first-time exhibitor. By virtue of these, it deserves more than just a few words!

For those who have never been to the One of a Kind Show 2015 or don’t know about it, it is considered the flagship destination to shop for handmade goods (with a level of exclusivity) and is the most established and attended show of its kind in North America. This is the destination to shop from hundreds of artisans, makers, and designers across the country and this Spring, from Wednesday, March 25^th to Sunday, March 29^th, at the Direct Energy Centre, I am honoured to be joining this fantastic community as an exhibitor. This is my first juried show (one that’s the size of a mammoth in my eyes) and I’m feeling mostly excited sprinkled with a little bit of edginess – emotions which are expected when taking on a big hairy project, of course.

What I love about the show is that it cultivates the skills, workmanship, and talents of artists across Canada. The values upon which the show is founded truly strikes a chord; they care about providing artists with a credible platform to present their unique and original crafts and to reach a special and sizable group of loyal consumers (over 60,000), who appreciate handmade goods like no other. As such, the show becomes an invaluable opportunity to take an artisan’s business to the next level.

I attended the Christmas show this past December and the most wonderful realization was that every dollar I spent on any given handmade item, albeit pricey at times, goes into a hardworking artisan’s pocket and allows them to continue pursuing their passion and creating beautiful things right in our own backyard. I remembered just how much I gawked at every shop, soaking in every detail, scanning products in sheer wonder, and deeply appreciative of the talent and creativity all around me.

Products (in order) by The Imagination Spot, Ed Colberg, Two Cent Sparrow, Fionna Hanna, Bookhou, Tanya Love, Stitch & Spoke, Little Bellwoods, Route 401

It’s less about greed, capitalism, and consumerism when our dollars aren’t simply going to millionaires and billionaires who often (not always) rely on questionable labour practices and inadequate wages to faceless workers in developing countries. There’s simply an air of magic and delight when it comes to supporting a Canadian artist-entrepreneur and giving a unique, handmade gift to a friend or loved one. This is more about embracing homegrown skill and talent than anything else and it is really no different than supporting local entrepreneurs and startups, although sadly, I realize that artisans aren’t often immediately seen as entrepreneurs – a false perception that must change!

My husband and I are truly so excited to be a part of the show this Spring and represent my nostalgic art in the flesh. It is a big step for us to build this temporary storefront from virtually nothing! We’ve been very hard at work and this is easily one of the most resource-intensive commitments, yet we know it will be among the most rewarding.

If you have not yet purchased your tickets for the One of a Kind Show 2015 in Toronto, you can absolutely do so through my exhibitor link right here and enjoy a little discount. If you do join the handmade fun, which I truly hope you do, please be sure to swing by and say hello! We’ll be in booth #A38! If you’d like to pre-browse all the goodies, the shop is always open! Enjoy and ciao for now! :)

My friend Sarah and I took it upon ourselves to savour Autumn’s little gifts with a small picture-taking road trip. I haven’t done this in a while and by “this” I mean going some place beautiful to take pictures with a friend who loves photography as much as I do. And I pretty much always forget how refreshing and therapeutic it is. Today was quite literally the perfect Fall day, too. The sky was blue with just enough puffy white clouds and the temperature called for just a light sweater. I think I’m going for a second round of this tomorrow morning because another beautiful day awaits. Sometimes you just have to break away from the chaos that is your chores, to-do lists, action plans, and just go to your happy place for a boost that you didn’t even know you needed. This is actually our happy place, which I suppose would make us quite simple beings at the core. Small things like this make us very happy.

There are several more pictures to share but I have to tackle these in doses or I’d be here for countless hours and not get anything else done, which is not the right idea. Case in point – I have my book open in front of me and it is taking me two hours to get through content that should really only take an hour, so that’s my cue to shut this down and focus. :)

I want to blog about our wedding before too much time passes. September 5, 2014: Our barn / farm wedding came together beautifully. It was honestly the absolute best day ever and I am so happy to be married to the love of my life. Chris is the most perfect person in the world for me and our day was filled with the sweetest memories. Words cannot express the overwhelming joy and warmth that is brought by friends, loved ones, and family coming together to celebrate your day. We were extra overjoyed because the weatherman was calling for rain the whole week leading up to our wedding day. We had planned an outdoor ceremony on a hill and rain would literally have been the worst thing that could happen. We didn’t even make a Plan B because rain was simply not an option. We prayed and prayed and prayed tirelessly. And then came the greatest day. Clear blue skies and although very hot, the heat was negated by a lot of wind, and our ceremony carried on outdoors as planned. The weather continued to stay awesome and the rain held out until a couple of hours after the reception had started inside the barn. Then it came. It was some serious rain with some crazy wind, we thought the barn would take us to Oz. :) But all of our stars aligned and prayers were answered as always. Our God is so good to us. My advice to those debating an outdoor-ish wedding, just do it! Greater risk, greater reward. :)

We all ate delicious food, danced plenty, sang sweet songs, spoke from the heart, played games, gave hugs, gave kisses, said I love yous, held hands, laughed a whole bunch, cried a wee bit, made promises, felt more love than ever, and it has all become a beautiful memory. I’m so grateful for our parents, wedding party, and talented vendors who helped make our dream and vision come together. I really hated most of the planning process (I don’t have patience for event planning) but it was undoubtedly ALL WORTH IT in the end. Would I do it all again? Yes. :) The wedding day was that much fun that I’d go through the dreaded planning process again to re-live the day.

So, despite the overload of awesomeness, no one tells you about post-wedding blues until you find out for yourself! I didn’t even know that the darn thing existed. I was overwhelmed with pure happiness for a few days when we were on our minimoon at Ste. Anne’s Spa and then BAM! I transitioned to this happy-sad state, if that makes any sense. Like sweet sorrow almost, which came just by suddenly realizing that the most perfect and amazing day has come and gone!!! What an insane realization. And then despite how amazing the day was, I started to overthink every detail of the day and the little things I had missed as a result of not being on my A game and deciding to let our wedding day take me away completely. How stupid does that even sound? (Lol). But I’m happy to say that two weeks later, I’ve beat both the post-wedding blues and overthinking the details. It takes a bit of time for us mildly crazy people. The cure? Talking it all out, blogging, and editing imperfect pictures curated from the cameras of family and friends. We won’t be seeing our professional photos and videos for another 2-3 months – that really hurts me to think about, lol. But I will share when they’re ready!

So, here are a few imperfectly perfect pictures we can call our own, thanks to all of our picture-taking guests!! I’ve only posted a few on this blog because I don’t want this post to overpower all my other posts (even though it kind of already has, seeing as I’ve rambled on for a few paragraphs now). Instead, I’ve provided a link to our wedding blog where more of the photos can be seen: click here. :) I also think I’m going to preserve our wedding website and keep it alive for a while. I’m a memory-monster if you can’t already tell.

Anyway, what an experience to remember. Love it!!! #OntoTheNextThing!

I had my bachelorette party yesterday and of all the surge of emotions I am feeling today, gratefulness is the biggest of them all. I am so grateful for the remarkable people in my life.

My Maid of Honour Laisie is just amazing and I love her to pieces. She’s a sister from another mother. Thank you so much for all your impeccable planning + everything else. If I were to list them all, this post would never end. I’m so lucky to have you as my MOH – you are actually the best. My bridesmaid Sarah is not a makeup artist by trade but definitely might as well be one considering her raw talent in making others look beautiful. Thank you so much for painting on my face and for bringing so much life to the party. My bridesmaid Andrea brought me to my first hardcore house music club and while I had no idea how to dance to the music, it’s surely high on storytelling value and a hilarious addition to my list of Firsts. Thank you for flawlessly pouring an ice bucket over my head and doing the #icebucketchallenge with me last night. My bridesmaid and baby sister Charmane is simply the sweetest girl around, supportive and present no matter what.

The day began at the spa at the Ritz Carlton, and then a hoedown at Rock ‘n’ Horse Saloon, and then dancing at Uniun Night Club. Oh and then my #icebucketchallenge in our hotel room. I’ve made my donation at ALS.ca and you should, too. I think it’s FANTASTIC that this has gone as viral as it has. And for all you naysayers, your negativity is unwelcome and you should read this!

Enjoy the trip down memory lane! 11 days until the wedding!!!

And my #icebucketchallenge video. :)