dolma jewelry

Mrs. Julie Smith wearing dolma’s New Gaza necklace for her wedding day. What a beautiful bride!

Melanie Pink, owner of Le Bonne Fleur, is a fellow featured vendor at Bridal Bar Atlanta.

For her wedding day, she used lots of Bridal Bar, Atlanta-based vendors like David Murray Wedding, Paper Daisies, and dolma! Not only did she wear our Uptown necklace for the ceremony and reception-but we caught her wearing it the whole weekend!

Check out her beautiful destination wedding! And, if you’re wondering “Who Designs the Designers Flowers?” Read Melanie’s blog.

May 15th, 2010. 10am. Atlanta, GA.

North Atlanta graduate Ashley Logsdon (C’03) returns to her high school to address the graduating seniors.

Read her speech below:

Congratulations to North Atlanta High School’s graduating class of 2010.

Seven years ago, I was in your seat. I think I was actually in the section to my right, in a middle seat in a middle row.  I remember the excitement I felt, knowing I’d be moving onto a new chapter of my life, but as I listened to our speaker that morning, I realized that: I really should have had more coffee. You see, after a year of IB Chemistry, staying up until 2 or 3 in the morning to study-and then getting up at 6 to make it to tutoring before class… I had developed quite the caffeine habit.  But I’d also devised a way to balance my full coffee mug in my book bag so that I could sneak it in and finish it on my way to first period.

Now, I can’t say that the coffee sneak in skill has really come in handy.  But, if you’ve ever taken a chemistry class here at North Atlanta, you understand that success is contingent upon how hard you are willing to work.

Your education from North Atlanta is going to serve you well. It’s going to set you apart from most. I know this, because I could have never accomplished all that I have without my education.

In May of 2007, I had enough money to buy a round trip ticket to China, and a handful of pearls.

Never having pierced my ears, I was going to be a jewelry designer.

Never having a job for more than 2 months, I was going to start my own business.

And, at 22 years old, I would be the CEO.

Young, inexperienced, with little start-up capital, I was an unlikely candidate for success.

My family, mentors and neighbors advised me against starting a business. They said to me, “Ashley, you have a bachelor of Arts in Economics from a prestigious liberal arts college. You speak Spanish. You speak Chinese. You graduated top of your class from one of the finest high schools in Atlanta. Your whole life, you’ve been reading, writing, studying, analyzing, memorizing… why throw away your education… and start your own business?

I understood that an education was the most important part of a resume. But after I went to China, I didn’t want to have a resume. I wanted to have my own business. And I thought I could do it. I felt prepared. I could use my understanding of economics to figure out a business plan. I would use my Chinese to buy and import the pearls, and I would apply what I had learned selling jeans at a clothing store in the mall to the creation of a sales strategy. And it worked!

But this idea, this business, was never planned. I went to China to differentiate myself. I wanted to do something extraordinary. I was an unlikely candidate to be accepted into the abroad program. I was an economics major, and would receive no credit for my time abroad. But, I had so many credits from the IB courses I’d completed at North Atlanta, I could afford to substitute them for a semester of college credit.

I had no idea that going to China would lead me to the pearl markets, to find my passion. When I first set eyes on those pearls, something changed in me. They were such a precious, delicate, miracle of nature. I had to share them with everyone I knew.

If you’re not familiar with the way a pearl forms, it is pretty amazing. When a grain of sand, or any kind of irritant makes its way into an oyster, the oyster secrets what is called nacre, to coat the irritant. Over time, you have a pearl. What a metaphor for the human experience: such a special gift, born from crisis. There is an ancient Chinese Proverb that states: Crisis Equals Opportunity.  Just like a pearl.

And in these chaotic economic times, I’ve had to create a lot of opportunity to keep my small business afloat. I’ve had to work really hard to boast that we were up 20% in 2009. But do you know what is the hardest thing to do? In any economy? Pass a Latin American History Exam from Mr. Yeargin.

You can’t let the obstacles (that everybody else thinks are real) get in your way. While I was in China, I spent two weeks in Tibet. I don’t speak Tibetan, and they don’t speak English, but we both spoke enough Mandarin to communicate. My time in Tibet was life changing. I was involved with a research project that would determine the current effects that the Chinese were having on Tibetan culture, and predict what would happen after the train.

A that time, the Chinese were building a train that would stretch from Tibet’s capital, Lhasa, to Beijing. Tibet is a region that for all of history has remained mostly untouched. I was one of the last people to experience Tibet before the train.

In Tibet, I traveled in an old bus, at rapid speeds, over high cliffs with one-way dirt roads, with no safety rails… are you thinking what I was thinking? That I was an unlikely candidate to survive the trip?

We traveled from Lhasa, West until we could see Mt. Everest. En route, we stopped at every city to interview monks and school children. I became close to the bus driver, Basam. Basam’s name in Tibetan was Friday-he explained to me that it was typical to name a Tibetan child after the day of the week on which they were born. He gave me a Tibetan name. He called me Samkidolma. Samkidolma is one of several goddesses of foresight. She has seven eyes: one on her forehead, two on the palms of her hands, two on the bottoms of her feet, and, of course, the regular two.

When I was thinking of a name for my business, I could not use my Chinese name, Luo Dan. Luo Dan is impossible to pronounce.  I’m also pretty sure that I share the name Luo Dan with Leonardo Davinci. My Chinese teacher giving me the name Luo Dan is comparable to me telling an exchange student here in the US that he should call himself “Stephen Spielberg”.

So, I took my Tibetan name, Samkidolma, and shortened it to dolma: much easier. Unfortunately, I still have to share my company name. I found out quickly after incorporation that dolmas, in Greek, are a stuffed grape leaf-and dolma is also a Polish term for stuffed bread.

Recently, my dolma was on CNN. The most prestigious name in news highlighted my company as one of the few thriving businesses in this wretched economy. We had over 50,000 hits on our website after just 3 minutes on CNN. But who knew that CNN would replay that segment whenever there was downtime on the air? And that they would post it to their newsroom blog. And that other news stations would pick it up. My father called me one day and said that a coworker mentioned seeing him on TV-and my dad said, “Oh, right! CNN!” And the coworker said, “No, Telemundo!” And then the calls started coming in. All in Spanish. A man in Nicaragua wants to start his own dolma franchise. How perfect is it that I speak Spanish? So now, I’m importing pearls in Chinese, and exporting them in Spanish!

This unlikely candidate, with a foolish dream, is now using her education to the fullest, coupling it with her passion, and as a result, has never dreaded a Monday.

Congratulations. You all are unlikely candidates for the unbelievable things you’ll want to achieve.  You don’t know where your life is going to lead you; and you don’t know how great you are going to be. My advise to you is to use your education, differentiate yourself, remember that crisis equals opportunity, and keep your eyes open wide-all 7 of them.

I’ll leave you with a familiar quote from Henry David Thoreau:

If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with success unexpected in common hours.

Bee-utiful!

The Honey Bee is my latest find. This inspiring boutique is located on the busy Atlanta Rd in Smyrna, GA: but from inside you would never know. Like walking into your best friend’s closet, the moment you’re inside, it’s hard to leave.

I’ve always been greeted by one of the friendly owners; who I usually mistake for shoppers themselves: chit chatting, trying on their latest finds, all smiles, these women create a causal shopping experience that makes you feel like you could stay ’till close and they’d probably offer you a glass of wine.

You won't get "stung" at the check out counter!

And as if the atmosphere itself isn’t inspirational enough: the boutique opened its doors only 6 months ago-a pretty brave undertaking in this economic climate. And while I’m on the haggard, gloomy topic of the economy: you won’t get “stung” by their prices. Graciously priced, must-have clothes and jewels make the check out counter pictured above a very happy station.

2968 Altanta Rd Smyrna, GA 30080

If you haven’t experienced The Honey Bee, set aside an afternoon, or just drop in on your way somewhere boring… it’ll make your day! And yes, we’re proud to say that they now carry dolma!

Ashley

News anchor Brenda Wood was honored by dolma’s favorite charity, Beauty Becomes You, last month at the annual Elegant Ladies Hat Luncheon. Brenda was given dolma’s “Generations” necklace, now coined by BBYF as their signature piece. Brenda wore the necklace that evening at the 7:00 news.

The generations necklace can be viewed and purchased after 5/25/2010 at www.dolmapearl.com

Pre-order your generations necklace by emailing info@dolmapearl.com

Ashley

Elegant Attic’s new website is “the bomb dot com” www.elegantattic.com. It’s so beautiful! A true reflection of the feel you get as you pull around the side of the building and park near the gardens. Kudos to our dol-mates!

You can always find dolma jewelry at Elegant Attic, or you can buy it on their website! They are currently carrying pieces that headquarters reports out of stock!

Check out Elegant Attic during “Alive After 5″ (the third Thursday of every month), when the entire historic Roswell district opens their doors and stays open after hours. Live music, food, and lots of excuses to shop ’till you drop.

Ashley

Day 4 in China was almost completely ours. Our vendors needed time to make samples for me to see, so Shannon and I spent the morning going over our orders and deciding what pieces we needed to add to fill in a few gaps. This season I really wanted to bump up our Baby line and our Oola line for the tweens-so we focused on making sure we had plenty of new options.

Look at the cute uniforms at Pizza Hut in Shanghai!

Next on the agenda: get some clothes made! We both had a few ideas of some pieces we wanted to create-and after ooh-ing and ahh-ing over hundreds of fabric options were able to narrow our choices down to a few, must-have swatches. We then began the creation portion, with measuring, tweaking, and changing our minds. Then, the bargaining-which is so annoying when you really have no idea what you should be paying … but I think I did OK, though I did have to walk away twice.

Then, we stopped in to check on some pieces with one of my vendors… and suddenly realized it was 9:00pm, and we were starving and tired. We gave our cab driver the address to a restaurant, but he dropped us off at the wrong spot-after walking 8 blocks in the wind and rain we gave up and dashed into a Pizza Hut.

Me, in all my hotel-gifted gear... out of the rain and into the Pizza Hut!

Me, sporting one of my favorite new earrings!

Day 3 started around 6:30 am. I woke up, anxious to read the Shanghai Daily. This may sound odd, but starting my day with copious amounts of green tea and reading the entire English newspaper is a part of my day here that I just can’t skip. It is written by Chinese people in British English, with titles like: “Granny DJ Spins Hits”; “Teacher Pricked Pupils”; ”Freak Wave kills 2″; ”She saved a burn victim, but at a cost”; and, the title that is so fabulous it trumps any title I could ever create for this blog, so I’ve given in and copy-pasted: “Help will arrive within 5 minutes if anyone falls into the HuangPu River”. In other News, the Daily reported on Mao’s grandson’s self promotion due to “the people’s love of his grandfather”. Also, in attempts to clean the HuangPu River for the World Expo, “[the government] has asked 82 of the 280 businesses producing dangerous chemical products to relocate [their pollutants] to an industrial park across the city”.

I can’t get enough. The Daily is like a good movie-funny, informative, and controversial enough to make you blush.

I have to try everything on!

Shannon enjoying some green tea before our foot massage!

After 8 hours, Shannon is ready to go! But she's hanging in there.

Li Ming Ming, pricing our designs!

After lunch, and an eight-hour design and creation session with one of my vendors, we head to a Mexican place we found in the City Weekend Magazine-a publication for foreigners with tons of recommendations for food, nightlife, entertainment, etc. It’s packed, and we have no reservation, so Shannon and I order Passion Fruit Margaritas and sit at the bar until they can squeeze us in. The Margaritas were recommended to us by 2 women we met from Chicago and Paris, who are here in Shanghai looking for teaching jobs. We were seated next to a Scottish woman and Italian man on a 2nd date, who were quite friendly and recommended the Macho Nachos. We had great fun with the woman, who was obviously elated to not be alone on this date-she even commented that she thought he was only dating her to learn English, and told him she charged 600 RMB an hour for her services.

One of many earrings that we ARE NOT using! This one is just terrible! My mission: to design a custom earring for a bride... mission not accomplished, yet!

She gave us her card to keep in touch, and we grabbed a cab and headed to the hotel. 

Ashley

Shanghai: At Night, in the Rain!

When I booked tickets for my sister and myself about 2 weeks ago, I was quite constrained by price and availability, as I’m sure you can imagine. The only flight I could find under $1700  (a coach ticket is typically $800-$1200) was at a slightly inconvenient time, with slightly inconvenient seating.

It all seems fine when you order the ticket, until you actually have to DO what you’ve signed up for. And keep in mind, when you’re bargain-hunting for international plane flights at the last minute, you’ve looked at about 10,000 different lay-overs, connections, fees, seating assignments… and at the moment you click “confirm”, you’re so confused and exhausted you could have a 1o hour, overnight layover in Buenos Aires and not even notice.

So, yesterday morning, our flight from Atlanta to Newark left at 6:45am, which meant we had to leave the house at 4:45. My sister, Shannon, and I elected to stay up the entire night-not because we wanted to sleep on the plane but because we didn’t start packing until 11pm the night before.

So, we make it to Newark just fine. I slept the entire way, which is great.

We have a 2 hour layover in Newark, and I’m on the phone handling last-minute business items, and making sure my phone is set for international use, that my Credit Card companies know I’ll be out of town… the normal, layover procedure.

Our Meal at my Favorite Restaurant: Mei Long Zhen!

Then it happens. My phone starts beeping. Which means it is low on batteries.

I scan the entire gate area, and find a plug next to an unused desk. The next thing I know I’m on the plane, helping fellow passengers put up their luggage, settling into my middle seat, and I hear “The doors to the plane have now been closed, please discontinue use of your cell phones…”

OH NO. My cell phone is still plugged into the wall.

I hop out of my seat, run to a flight attendant and tell her what I’ve done. I may have over-exaggerated the necessity of the phone for my survival in China… but desperate times call for desperate measures; and before I know it, there are 2 other flight attendants and one very attractive pilot ready to open the door, radio Control, and let me run in to grab my phone.

But Control makes a call to the gate, and my phone is no longer there. So I have to go back to my middle seat, in the middle row. Shannon and I had tried unsuccessfully to guilt all our surrounding, aisle and window seat passengers into switching with one of us, but when it comes to 15 hours in a small space-chivalry is dead. Understandably.

One poor guy got roped into switching his emergency exit, aisle seat for a middle seat behind me because he had the seat next to 2 parents who strategically placed their child in the middle seat ticket 10 rows back. The man had no choice. He had to let the baby have his seat. Talk about devastation.

I've never seen this before! The Chinese LOCK UP their umbrellas!

The flight is for some reason incredibly comfortable and I’m able to sleep a good 8 of the 15 hours. Shannon mentioned (because she did not sleep a wink the entire flight) that I was dead asleep, probably snoring, and my head was flopping from the shoulder of the girl on my right to the arm of the older man on the left. All I can say is: maybe they’ll think twice next time about not switching seats. I should mention that for the 7 hours I was awake Shannon and I were talking over the people in between us and passing food back and forth. 

At some point in the flight I wake up, and meet a man in line for the bathroom and tell him my phone predicament. He proceeds to convince me that my entire identity is somehow on that phone-bank accounts, credit card information, social security number… he says I can consider my identity stolen; my accounts at best will be frozen, and that means I’ll have no money to get out of the airport, much less buy pearls.

Upon arrival in China, Shannon and I have no information to offer as to our return flight, the address of our hotel, or any of the questions they ask on the arrival card.

We hop into a cab that has newspapers suspiciously covering the back seat, and about 5 minutes into the 45 minute ride realize that it’s sopping wet underneath the newspaper. I ask the cab driver why it’s so wet, and he says he left his windows down during a recent downpour.

So… wet, cold and pretty disoriented, Shannon and I fall out of the cab at the hotel.

But my familiar bellhop greets us with a smile, the check-in counter remembers my reservation, and we are lead to our fabulous room with bottled water and chocolates on the pillow. I check Shannon’s voicemail and my phone is safe and sound in security at Newark. 

We unpack, rest a few minutes, and head to my very favorite restaurant in all of China, MeiLong Zhen, for a feast of braised eggplant, fried noodles, tofu, bean curd pancakes, and Tsing Tao.

Shannon at MeiLong Zhen Restaurant

Delicious Beancued Pancakes

We head back to the hotel, showered… and I am now waking up at 5am in my robe, with my hair in a towel- I must have fallen asleep walking from the shower to my bed.

I can’t wait to receive our edition of Shanghai Daily, sit at breakfast and drink green tea, and then head out to start designing dolma’s new collection!

Zai jian, for now!

Ashley