Our New Store!

June 26, 2013

One day I was not even thinking about opening a store. The next day I was. That was 3 months ago. Really it was a happy accident. I had gone the wrong way at the light and I pulled in to turn around – but I was talking on the phone with someone (Kristen S. it was you!) so I just stopped in front of the store to finish my conversation. When I got off the phone I just found myself calling the number and the landlord was right there and I figured it couldn’t hurt to take a look and ask a few questions. Plus, Jen (my studio mate) and I had just talked about my looking for a plan B should we need to move out….

A store of our own. Not something that had EVER been on my radar in the early days of Heart and Stone. And now here we are. There is no turning back now. The lease is signed and the move to 269 West Main Street is complete.

The workshop is almost all set back up as of a few days ago so we are up and running and now getting caught up on all of our orders. sigh of relief!

We have so much to do in terms of the building the store, gallery and party area that the word overwhelmed doesn’t even come close to how I feel at the moment. Yes, in our new space we will not only have our workshop & the Heart & Stone Collection on display…We’ll also planning a gallery of work by local artists and an area for “Precious Metal Parties.” It will be a make your own experience for small groups. Much more on all this to come….

This will be the Gallery area. We plan to carry other jewelry, cool gifts and original works of art on the walls.

This will be area for our precious metal parties. I imagine a big round table back here.

Everyone keeps asking when we are going to open and the answer is usually something like “I have no idea” or “as soon as we can”…I don’t want to rush to make decisions. I want to do this thoughtfully. I want to enjoy it….

So, we decided to block off the Gallery & Party Area for now and on July 13th* we plan to open the store to showcase the full Heart & Stone Collection! We’ll have lots of samples of all the different charms laid out for you to try different combinations and examples of all the fonts and layout options. You can see our assortment of natural gems and even pick out your own stone. You’ll be able try the different chain styles and lengths. My favorite thing about the collection is the “add-ability”. I love that people come back and add a charm or two at a time. There is usually a story to go with them:) Hours are still TBD but we’ll start with something like 11-5:30 Tues – Sat*

*subject to change

We’ve done a lot so far. The workshop is set up enough so we can work but we still need to build some kind of walls around it. Our plan is to somehow face bookcases to create walls.

I found these awesome cases in Ptown a few months ago which were a big investment but they are so cool. They all lock and have beautiful copper lights inside.

Handcrafted some years ago for a store in Provincetown they apparently moved from place to place as stores there are always opening, closing or moving to another part of the street. The guy I got them from, Hank, had a store there that sold estate jewelry for years. Super nice guy! He had gone around and re-purchased all the pieces from the original store they were build for. He took great care and refinished most of them. He was only willing to sell them as group. It was important to him they all stay together. I love that they have been so loved and have had an interesting life!

We now have a whole bunch of cases to fill…

Just have to put in this shot of Provincetown. It truly is sooo pretty there!

We have slowly been scouring Craigslist, Restore and Yard Sales looking for those perfect pieces to help fixture & furnish the store.

We still have so much to do…We need signage, walls, gallery rails. Seating & Tools for the Party Area. And new computer hardware. Oy. With the expenses of the new website and the move so far we are stretched thin. I’ve been thinking about doing a Kickstarter campaign to help us fund the rest of the build out so I think now would be a good time to pull the trigger on that. (but that is a whole other post!).

Our plan is have Grand Opening in September where we can open all of Heart and Stone!

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