Boutique Visit #18.

PROM TIME!

Okay, okay. I know visit time is visit time, but it's PROM TIME! And I purchased my dress from the shop and I am extremely pleased to say that all of my alterations are completed and I am soo thrilled that my dress is soo lovely :) Black and white is TRULY a shocker to most people for me becuase I'm usually soo flashy but as you can see, the dress has a bit of flashiness of its own. Okay, so as far as the actual visit. It was a bit, slow. Not really any customers but a few people coming in for alterations and things of that nature. But, unfortunately, that's how merchandising works sometimes. You have to take the good with the bad sometimes you know.♥

Shops Shoppers & Shopping. (Proof)

I plan on going to Cherry Hill Mall to interview a few shoppers about how they get 'Lured In'. :) I want to ask shoppers about certain trends and how they feel about them and if they feel more pressured to get them at malls. I want to also find out if these shoppers pay attentionm to certain advertisments that the malls display and if they really pay attention to the colors and/or texts that are used to create them. I am aware that many people actually enter a shop, store or basically any place of business because of their appearance and how they attract the consumers attention. Lastly, I want to figure out if these shoppers get as excited as I do when it comes to the word SALE! I am in the process of writing a letter to the mall manager and plan on making a visit soon to complete my mission! I'll keep you all posted♥

Smile, Wave, Be Yourself! (Choice)♥

''Congratulations Cierra, we're calling to inform you that you've been aceepted to become a canidate for this years pageant!" I was thrilled to find out the great news. I had gotten a letter in the mail a couple weeks ago informing me about an interest in my involvement with this years 2010 South Jersey Teen Pageant. I attended the important meeting Sunday afternoon at the Cherry Hill Marriott Hotel to get enlightened a little more about the whole set up. I went well with the interview and listened to everything they mentioned about the previous success the pageant had gained over past years. I am excited for the whole experience. I used to get involoved with pageants when I was younger, winning Little Miss Las Amigas and Miss Congeniality while living in North Carolina. After letting years go by, I'm sure I'll need a little training, which I am looking forward to. I am beginning to search for sponsors and exposing my running in the competition. Hopefully everything goes well, wish me luck!♥

Boutique Adventure #17.

Summer's light is shinning down on Beaute' Ange' Boutique and the new fashions covering the walls are living proof. I decided to take a step out of my 'norm' Friday visits to the the shop and took a nice Saturday to do my visit. Like I mentioned earlier, the store has gotten new inventory and the customers have definitely begun to notice. Feeding my interest in merchandising, I clothed a few of the mannequins and displays today to appeal to our customers in our main window. The pink decor and unique display of craftsmanship the store presents is right up my alley. Glad everything went well with the displays, and I can't wait to see all of the reactions we get from our upcoming customers. Summer time success, here we come! Loaded with new trends, styles and fashions!♥ 

Facebook! (Choice)

                      IT'S ADDICTING!

Mix  that with my severe case of procrastination and you've got a HUGE problem on your hands. Along with grabbing a snack, texting, listening to music or watching tv, getting on Facebook is what teens tend to do as soon as they get home from school, work or extra curricular activites. Not including the habit of sneaking a peak at new updates in class or in between bell schedules in those overly crowded hallways at school. "As of summer 2007, there are over thirty million users, with 150,000 new users signing up daily. One study shows that over 85 percent of college students use Facebook. Over half of Facebook users log in daily. What is it about Facebook that is so appealing to teens and young adults". (http://www.pamf.org/teen/parents/emotions/facebook.html). It simply started out as basically a reuniting ground for alumni, friends and family that were once 'long lost' i guess you can say. And then the word would spread, about this new website. Myspace, watch out! It began to take over. It got more and more popular and you could hear the chatter and rave about the site. It is so accurate with its updates, pic comments, status likes and fan pages. You can truly catch yourself staring at a screen for hours at a time. Trust me, I've became a victim and I'm sure YOU have too!♥

BTW, add me! :) http://www.facebook.com/cprettyyy

Are YOU Lured In? (Proof of Project Video.)

It's coming around that time to get all the perks together for my ending presentation. After the huge mix up with all my M.I.D (missing in draft) blogs, the confusion has ceased and my work is back on the road! :) I had an idea to go to the Cherry Hill Mall to interview a few shoppers on their 'Shopping Experience' I guess you can say. I want to ask them questions that focus more on how they feel about the malls overall message that it may send. For example, if they like it's advertisements and displays, or does a sale excite them to buy more. I ran the idea by Mr. Abrams and he assured me that with the help of a letter to the manager of the mall itself and actually performing the interviews on video, I'd clearly be on the road to success with a lovely shopping eye opener. Here's a sneak peak of a little session of what I asked Mr. Abrams himself, check it out.

                                                         

So there's a little peak of what's in store. The interviews will include a couple more of our Lindenwoldians, (staff members and students), along with the shoppers, of course.♥  

New Inventory is Here! (Boutique Adventure #16.)

So like I said in one of the earlier posts, the prom season is winding down and the traffic in the store is slowing up a little bit. Guess what that means? CASUAL WEAR TIME! We got in quite a bit of new inventory and the racks are starting to look more and more like a mixture of glitzy glammy prom time and everyday casual. I helped stock new things onto the racks downstairs. I also helped arranged a few new accessories we got in. Rings, purses, necklaces and bracelets. COUGH COUGH, ladieessssss. :) People are starting to pay more and more attention to the 'other side' of Beaute' Ange' Boutique and I have grown excited for the exposure. Although both Joann and Anthony are used to seeing the changes and the prom time spurts and things of that nature, I'm still a tad in awe to see the transformation of it all. Guess after being around a store full of dresses you get a bit attached. It's going to get a bit hard to say goodbye. (tear). Okay, Okay. So enough with being sentimental, on a good note, all of my alterations have been completed and finished by one of our highly talented seamstresses, Ms. Maria (I just grew a major block on what her last name is, sorry :/). She took my size 8 dress down to a 6. I still need the hip part taken in a bit but she and Momi refuse to let me make it smaller :'( laugh-out-loud so I guess what's done will just have to do. Soo glad I tried it on again today and can't wait to show it off at prom!♥ 

Preparation. The End is Near. (Choice)

The school year is winding down. Teachers are starting to show their students movies in contrast to teaching new work. I'm sure they're using this time to create their finals. Seniors are starting to really catch a good case of Senioritis now that the year is winding down. And the freshmen, boy are they just ready to be Sophs., they're so close they can feel it. The Juniors can almost taste the power. The wonderful SENIOR power that is! And the Sophs., well their just in the middle I guess. Everyone is preparing though, preparing for finals, the prom, the summer, senior project seminar presentations (cough cough!), there's preparation for everything. There's preparation for preparation. Did you know that!? It's crazy. But it needs to get done, we prepare to succeed and everyone know's success is greatness. So at the moment, I've been preparing for my presentation. I've been working on my outline and hopefully it goes as well as I'm planning it to. I've done a couple of run throughs of how I think it should be to see my time frame and where it stands and I've been quite satisfied with the result so far and hopefully my audience will be too. I still can't believe that this year went by this fast. It feels like it was just the other day that I was making the poster for my 'Kite Runner' project. Time flies and my highschool career is almost over. Time to turn some things around and end it with a big BANG.♥

Boutique Adventure #15.

'Tick . . . . . Tock. . . . Tick. . . . Yawn. . . . Tock.' It's around that time now where we start winding down in the store. Customers lessen a little because most of the prom hype is coming to an end. Of course, there are the ones that are still to come in May and early June but most of those gowns, accesories and alterations have already been taken care of, not including the last minuters who have to scurry to get them. For the past few months the boutique has been 'Full-Blown Prom' as we like to call it. Then, after all of this is done they plan to bring back all the popular clothing to satisfy the average shopping customer. So, this visit was a little, chilled and relaxed. A little arrangement for the stores display window was done, we added more colors, a few colorful sets of blinds, different dresses to display and we tried different angles than usual. We also added a bit of casual wear, a waist-length and lightweight white and turquoise paisely jacket, accented with a camisole tank under it that brightened up the window and reminded our Haddonfield shoppers that we aren't all dresses and prom stuff. We got in a few new skirts, tops, 'casual' dresses and accesories that I am sure customers will be happy to see and, well, purchase. I keep forgetting to take in my cupcake necklaces, (which I think will be a great and new hit to the store :]). Hopefully, by my next adventure blog I'll be explaining to you guys how that worked out lol. Remind Me!♥

'Who Can I Run To?' (Choice)

Durand Bernarr. The name of a highly talented young man. I've been following him on youtube for a while now and his voice is wonderful. He specializes in covers, remixing and making original songwriting. I've recently downloaded some of his music and have fallen in love. My new addiction, Robin Thickes song, 'Sex Therapy', excuse the title, was redone by Mr. Bernarr and I must say, he did his own great rendition of this song. You can check it out here, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJXHWWkHcQg. It has been left on repeat on my iPod for the past day :). He does the recording and editing himself as well as his own background vocals. Many people may be say that these are all easy tasks, well, I know -I- can't easily take on any of them so I give him major props and all his credit where it is due. I shared this song with Mr. ATM, (Antoine McGee) and he also noticed he great scale and key and change of words to make the song his own and I'm sure he enjoyed it almost as much as I did! ;) Whenever you get a free moment check out this song and his actual Youtube profile to see some of his work.♥

http://www.youtube.com/user/alcoholharmony

'It's Showtime'. Presentation is Key. (Connection)

For the past, I want to say, month or so, some of the students of Lindenwold High have been working together to help prepare for the Senior Citizens prom due to take place this Friday, May 7th 2010. The theme of this years event is going to be based on a fun and spunky era, the 50's. Everyone is still kind of in the mood of the whole feel of that time because of the play 'GREASE' that our talented drama students brought to life in our auditiorium in early March. Usually, the Senior Citizens prom is aimed for just the senior's of our community which includes a night of dining and music, dancing, fun conversation, and a King & Queen crowning. This time around, we've decided to change it up a bit by including not only the seniors but the community as well. We divided the cafeteria in half to have the seniors and community split which still made the seniors feel catered to and instead of having dinner we decided to make it a 'Dessert Extravaganza'. The buffet line was filled with cookies, cakes, cupcakes, ice cream, fruit and even a couple chocolate fountains. Equipped with conviently placed strawberries, bite sized pretzels and marshmellows around to be dipped into the luscious flowing chocolate. That was a BIG hit the whole night. The night was great and everything went well. The setup took a few hours, between decorations, food prep and organization, it took a lot of teamwork and cooperation. I was thrilled to find out that the colors for our theme were PINK, black and teal. When you first walked into the foyer of the school, you were welcomed by a select group of students who were at the entrance. You would then get you picture taken in front of 3 pink, teal and black drape drops that fell from the ceilings that also had dangling music notes. This fit great with the events title, 'It's Showtime'. Although it was tough work, the ending result was an A plus, plus! I begin to realize that presentation is key. You have to present any and everything with a 'top-notch' point of view which immediately reminded me that that is the same route I'll have to take when presenting my ending product for my presentation. It'll definitely be showtime baby!♥