In Love with SAG fashion

In case you missed it, the 17th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards aired last night with Black Swan, The Fighter and the King's Speech leading the way in film awards. The little black dress was a token staple on the red carpet, but some love was in the air as stars like Katrina Bowden, Julianna Margulies, Jennifer Lawrence, and Angie Harmon embraced the spirit of Valentine's day with daring reds, feisty fuscia and pale pink.

A great way to accesorize a bright colored dress is with a simple piece of silver jewelry. For your Valentine's date, we have our new solid heart charm bracelet embellished with a siam Swarovski crystal that you can personalize for FREE with a one letter monogram on the front! GloriaDuchin.com

Tickled Pink

What better way to chase away winter blues than with vibrant, confident, flirty, honeysuckle pink? Recently named Pantone's 2011 "it" color of the year, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute, Leatrice Eiseman says, "The intensity of this festive reddish pink allures and engages."

The Pantone website has suggestions for wearing it, decorating with it and even charging in pink. If you just want to add a dab of honeysuckle to your life, I suggest carrying it on your keys with our silvertone pink "kiss" lips keyring. Add a charm and you can personalize it with your name.

Looking for more pink? This article has sixteen more ways you can brighten your life.

Factory Closeout Store

For the first time in our 30+ year history, we are opening our doors to the public, selling some of our closeout ornamets at up to 50% discounts. The store opens this weekend, Saturday October 30, and will be open every weekend from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. through December 19th.

Featured are just two of the ornaments we are selling, but we have hundreds of designs including: Baby's First Christmas ornaments, Our First Christmas ornaments, Teacher ornaments, photo ornaments, angel ornaments in bronze, genuine pewter, champagne gold and silvertone. All of them made in Rhode Island. Some of the items retail for less than $1.

If you happen to be in the New England area or are planning a trip here for the holidays, we would be delighted to see you. You can print out the coupon below and bring it with you for a free candy cane ornament.

Gift with Purchase

This fall we partnered with CVS to create a gift with purchase program for their beauty department. A colleague of ours recently forwarded us an article about the program from Women's Wear Daily, a leading fashion, beauty and retail publication.

In the article, Cheryl Mahoney, vice president of beauty for CVS said, "We spent a lot of time thinking about the fall event, and did some consumer research to tell us what customers wanted. We found that she would respond to a gift-with-purchase."

The charms (star and lipstick featured below) were offered free to customers who spent $15 or more on beauty products.

Readers, do you agree? Does a gift-with-purchase entice you to buy or are you more driven by discounts such as buy-one, get-one free?

Flames of Hope

Saturday October 9, is the annual Gloria Gemma Flames of Hope, Breast Cancer fundrasier. The entire city of Providence will be dressed in pink for a 5K walk downtown with booths, food, entertainment and a special water fire.

We have designed a new line of breast cancer awareness keyrings especially for the event: ornaments, keyrings and pins that can be purchased at the ER Card booth for $10 and under. With each purchase, we will donate $1 to the Gloria Gemma Foundation to help futher awareness and prevention of breast cancer.

If you are in the area, stop by and show your support in the fight against breast cancer.

Silvertone breast cancer charms keyring, pink epoxy shoe ornament with ribbon charm, Hope pewter bracelet with ribbon charm.

Viva Las Vegas!

Las Vegas is the glitz and glam oasis in the middle of a barren desert. Together, the two offer bold colors, sequins, muted naturals and radiant sunsets. These two opposites converge to make Las Vegas one of the top getaway destinations, and the people who go there celebrate all the beauty Vegas has to offer with varying fashions.

Each hotel and casino in Las Vegas strives to be the brightest and boldest with artistic displays, shows and attractions. To the right is a photo of a gorgeous waterfall in the new City Center at the Wynn Hotel.

During the day, dress is casual: shorts and t-shirts to remain comfortable while walking the strip in the desert heat.

At night, the dress becomes more ecclectic. You'll still see some lingering casual-wear, but it's paired with suits and cocktail dresses. Solid colors are more prevalent than patterns or prints, and the "Little Black Dress" is so common, it's almost the Las Vegas uniform.

If you want a taste of Vegas without booking a trip, take a sneak peak at our new crystal martini keyring. Set with pink crystal stones in varying cuts, colors and sizes, this silvertone keyring even comes accented with two crystal cherries.



Trend information gathered by Ted Smalletz.

Here Comes the Bride

This past weekend marked the end of summer, but not the end of the wedding season. According to the BrideTide blog, June is still the most popular wedding month but it's followed closely by August and September, stretching into October. For all of those 2011 Brides-to-be, their wedding journey has just begun.

Last month, the country celebrated the wedding of former-first-daughter, Chelsea Clinton, to her longtime love, Marc Mezvinsky. The cake, featured here, was made by Maarten Steenman of La Tulipe Desserts in Mount Kisco, NY. It was a 4ft tall confectionary dream made with 360 organic eggs, 50 pounds of sugar and 1,000 sugar flowers. The 500 pound cake was assembled in a single 48-hour shift.

If you're looking for elegance on a smaller scale (and a more affordable budget) take a look at our silvertone wedding cake keepsake. Makes a great favor or table decoration and weighs less than a pound.