We’ve got a lot of happenings on the horizon!   In November alone, here’s the lineup:

Make Piece at Vivo

Vivo Annapolis!

234 Main Street, Annapolis.

Opening Day – Nov. 19.

Grand Opening – Nov. 21,  4pm to 7 pm.

Other special events to follow — Watch this space!

Make Piece -- 'One of the Best' in Greater Washington

Catalogue for Philanthropy Honor

On Nov. 16, Make Piece will receive a special ‘Enterprise Award’ from the Catalogue for Philanthropy for making creative use of our 2008-09 designation as ‘one of the best’ small charities in the Washington Region.  This award carries a monetary gift which will help fund our operations.  Thank you to the Catalogue family yet again!

Chevy Chase House Party

Have a glass of wine and peruse our pretties, Nov. 19, evening, at a private home of one of our Board members.  Contact us at info@makepiece.org if you’d like an invitation!

Party at Perry (Part 1.)

Nov. 20. in the Perry School Conference Room, from 1 pm to 8pm.  Join us for some beverages, tid bits, elegant jewelry, and other fun happenings!

Woman’s Club of Chevy Chase- Designers Jewelry Show

Meet Us at WCCC

Come join the fun — Nov. 22  11 am to 5 pm

Part of the proceeds go to support the WCCC and of course your patronage of the Make Piece booth will help our organization, as well as the livelihood of our talented graduates and students.

And this isn’t all we’ve got up our sleeves — watch this space for MORE!

Miss Naomi hit an ‘out of the park’ homer last Saturday night on behalf of the Perry School.  She has been serving as a Perry School Board member, representing Make Piece as a Perry School tenant.  In addition to her periodic fish fry fundraisers for Perry (check it out),

Miss Naomi Does Fish!

she donated a gorgeous keishi pearl necklace to be auctioned at Perry School’s Tenth Anniversary Gala last Saturday night.

And she does 'jools' too!

Two gentlemen, both determined to win the piece, bid the necklace up to $800 before one of them bowed out!  Miss Naomi was thrilled, as were we when we learned of it.  Miss Naomi phoned Maureen at 8:30 Sunday morning to tell her the good news, predicting that Make Piece, where Miss Naomi learned her jewelry skills, would be receiving lots of calls from impressed gala-goers.  Miss Naomi — thanks for all you do for everyone in and around Perry!

We’ll be there with our pretties Nov. 1, 11 am to 4 pm, along with other arts and craft artisans. Bannockburn Clubhouse, 6314 Bannockburn Drive, Bethesda, MD 20817. Come join us!

Are you ready for the DC Green Festival Saturday Oct. 10 from 10 am – 7 pm? We are!  We will be selling our beautiful jewelry at this year’s Green Festival, “where you’ll enjoy more than 125 renowned speakers and 350 green businesses, great how-to workshops, green films, a Fair Trade pavilion, yoga classes, organic beer, delicious organic cuisine and live music.”

Come see us in booth 415, in front of the “Community Focus” area!  Also, ask us about special discounts available only to our facebook fans.

For more info visit:

http://www.greenfestivals.org/washington-dc/

The folks at DC Fashion Week have now posted the professional photos of the models who sported our Make Piece baubles on the runway last weekend!

Check out these looks & click here for the ‘mother load’.  Thanks to everyone who created, selected, and displayed our lovelies.  Job well done!

The Amber Look

Coral, Carnelian and Fresh Water Pearls

We're Doing GREAT pearls!

Swing Those Chains!

Gorgeous Triple Quartz Necklace

Remember our model with 'tude??

There were many, many more.  Go visit the Fashion Week site and check them out!

The organizers of Fashion Fights Poverty invited Make Piece to show our wares and educate the guests at FFP’s Eco/Ethical Fashion forum last night.  We were delighted to attend, pass out our pretty postcards, and answer questions about our mission and our role in exemplifying ethical fashion.

The forum included a wide array of perspectives on topics such as the role of international law and government in setting standards for fashion and consumer ethics, the challenges (and successes) in the emerging fair trade jewelry industry, fashion’s carbon footprint, and the consumer’s role in creating and sustaining a market for ethical goods.   Read more about it http://www.fashionfightspoverty.org/events/events_redefine.html.  Here is the link to footage from the forum http://www.youtube.com/user/fashionfightspoverty.

OK, here are SOME of the pix.  (We’ll get some of the professionally shot photos later on and we promise to share.)

It was a lot of hard work but the event turned out wonderfully!  Make Piece is the first and only jewelry designer to ever walk in DC Fashion Week!

Fifteen glam models, all dressed in black, will strut tonight at the French Embassy, draped in layers of Make Piece jewelry. Myra and Lisa — with assists from Lindsey and me — were hard at work all Friday afternoon preparing the fifteen ‘looks’. Though all of our jewelry is beautiful all by itself, Myra was fabulous in pairing and layering it to create the big look needed for the show. I love the ideas she came up with and we’re gonna have to start incorporating that type of fun into our thinking regularly. Come see what I mean tonight — 6 p.m. at the Embassy. Pix to follow, after the show.

where it's happening

Thank You, Denison Volunteers!

Miss Lisa joined me bright and early Saturday morning at the office to welcome 14 enthusiastic volunteers from Denison University.  We were their 4th stop on a 5 organization social service odyssey.  We quickly tasked them with a big chore:  a do-over of our tiny office.

Fresh Paint. A group of us hustled over to our neighborhood Ace Hardware, snagged some lovely paint (you can see it there in the background), some rollers, pans, a drop cloth or two and hustled back.

Reorganizing Our Footprint.  In the meantime, others had been noodling over how to rearrange our furniture to open up a little more floor space.   We pulled what seemed like tons of ’stuff’ away from the walls, both in our half of the room and in Miss Naomi’s Food Corner, and a handful started painting while another group attacked the tangle of electronics and cords.

Assessing the Website and Photo Collection. Down the hall in the conference room, yet another group took on the challenge of looking over our website, makepiece.org, and giving us their thoughts on improvements.  They also took a crack at comparing our flickr photo portfolio with the many photos on our office computers to see what might be missing.

Then Off to Help Yet Another Charity. Shortly after noon, the frenzy slowed to a trickle and the group began leaving for the next assignment.  We didn’t get it all done, but we made a big dent in the job and I’m sure we’ll get it finished over the next week.

Thanks to each and every one of our enthusiastic helpers.  We hope you have a wonderful school year — our year will be better for having had your cheerful services!