Silver Hills Gems and their doings this week. We have just listed the most exquisite gemstone beads. There are carved Tibetan agate beads with loads of character. I just had 4 strings of the large chunky beads and by the time you read this they might be sold out already.
We then listed black crackle agate. This is a new find for me and I just love the aesthetics. I can see the stunning jewellery that will be made by this fine black agate. There are ovals and square beads.
I then have a delightful mixed string that can be broken up and used individually. There are citrine, amethyst and green garnet in this lot. They are fresh and vibrant. I recommend this bead.
I also listed garnet roundels with lots of visual impact and tigers eye and superb multi-coloured tourmaline roundel in a larger size. I am sure my customers will love the tourmaline. I can not see that these will be in the shop a long time.
For the rock lovers we have listed some larger spirit quartz pieces. I decided to sell these at cost. Go and see the sizes and prices. You will not see such a deal quickly again. I have had some of this quartz in my backyard for almost 5 months. They came straight from the mine and we just had to clean them but allas no time! Is this not a common problem for all of us. Because they have been here so long I decided to sell them at cost.
I am just waiting for our new shipment to be delivered. We tried a new way of sending the goods and it is turning out to be a bit of a headache. I plan to phone again today and get more detail on where the container is. It was loaded on the ship on the 5th of February and that is the last I have heard about it. Sending goods can be stressful.
We had our draw in the shop on Sunday for the globe competition and we had a winner from Pretoria, Annetjie Landman. Congratulations Annetjie we hope that this conversation piece will be enjoyed for years to come. She was so surprised when I called her. She told me that it is was her Birthday on Tuesday. What a fine R3000 birthday gift. We plan to run a new competition soon. The rules of the competition is like this. Buy for R300 or more in our shop and qualify to enter. Write your name and cellphone number on the back of the slip and you have just entered our competition.
We are making small changes in the website. I have added a further postage method. It is an overnight door to door service to anywhere except Cape Province. But you have to pay before 12 o'clock to get this premium delivery service. I have also changed the wording on the Priority Mail. It is a 2 day service. It gets delivered to the Post Office on the day that you have paid. It is then picked up the next morning at our Post Office and only delivered to you or your Post Office the day after that. Thus 2 days!
I am building Silver Hills Gems as a boutique supplier who always delivers on quality and service. We are not the biggest. I have had several request for people who wanted to open new shops and have asked us why we do not have enough stock for them to stock their new shop. Let me tell you how much investment it takes to stock a business like ours. This time I bought 5 cubic meters of beads and findings with a large capital investment. I have a diverse client base and need to buy something for everyone. You can not just stock 2 types of sweets when you have a candy store. As soon as we list these quality items my regular customers start buying and the stock needs to be resupplied again. We have had fantastic growth. In the last year alone we grew by almost 40%. This is proof to me of our continuous strive to deliver quality at a fair price. People shop around and once they start buying from us they always come back to us.
I will be at the SARCDA show next week with the remainder of our Kidz Storage Solution range. We plan to sell these out because we do not want to stock this range again. There will be some great bargains available. We also plan to take some findings to the show. This show is only open to the trade. Oh yes, we will be doing display cases as well this show. These will be on order only. I am testing the market to see the demand. The cases we have are acrylic cases with a rotating pillar and their own lights. I will list them on the website soon. If you have your own shop or business you can visit the show. A broad range of items are displayed for trade buyers. The website is www.sarcda.co.za for more information.
As mentioned above, we are listing spirit quartz. Here is more info on this uniquely South African quartz.
In February 2002 there was a Find of Amethyst like NO OTHER - from Boekenhouthoek +/- 100km north north east of Pretoria in Mphumalanga South Africa. (Nowhere near the Magaliesberg where it was claimed to have been found).
These magical crystals with a distinctive purple colour have a special name among the local African people, who call it 'SPIRIT QUARTZ'. This name is taken from an alcohol based cleaning agent called METHOLATED SPIRITS that is widely used here in South Africa. It's colour a pretty lilac resembling that of SPIRIT QUARTZ.
Here are some information from the website http://www.bestcrystals.com/SpiritQ.htm for those who believe in the metaphysical powers of crystals. I do not subscribe to all that is said here and just placed it here to show all of you what others see in stones. Gerdus
Blessing to you all
Gerdus
www.bronnrocks.com/catalog