Customers love Dress It Up products

-i love your product–the best on the web and in any craft store–i will be back to order again

tippra s – appleton, wi

Beading Classes

 

Bead Classes – A Great Start to Trendy Jewelry

Key Lime Pie

“I am a bead artist who manufactures items for craft shows and I also teach beading and do jewelry making parties. Your Dress It Up packs are a wonderful starter for many beading products. Your bead mixes are great for teaching young girls the art of beading.”

Dottie Win Designs by Dot Andover, Mass

Thanks, Dottie. We couldn’t have said it better ourselves. Many novice beaders can get easily overwhelmed by the amount of individual beads in a bead store or a bead department. It is indeed an art to be able to combine certain shades of one color with shades of another.

Jesse James and Co. has developed the color combo concept by watching fashion designers and paying minute detail to what is being shown in the leading fashion magazines and on fashion internet sites. These are the same color combinations that you will see in our packs.

Very Berry

Look What Kaitlin Made

One of Kaitlin's Creations

Merry Christmas from the James Gang!

Our bling items are designed to make “stand-out” necklaces and earrings. But as you see here from the Christmas ornament, they can also be the focal piece in other items (for more ornament ideas, try the 8-sided blue star, the ab star or even the butterfly).

We invite you to think out of the box-
What else can we make with our bling items?
…sun catchers, shoe clips, hair clips, lighting pulls.

We can embellish hand bags,lamp shades….even gift packages.

Thanks, Have Fun.

Combine Crystal, Pearls and Cubes

to make an elegant, night-out-on-the-town piece.

The above creation comes from our leading designer, Kaitlin Pangrass. She chose high quality Czech fire polish crystals, Czech and glass pearls and added our machine-cut 18 faceted cubes to highlight the necklace with great sparkle.

 To make a double stranded necklace such as this…

1. You will need the following beads:

Crystal fire polish

Purple Cubes and other pieces of similar color

White Pearls

2. To make this piece of jewelry -

• Start off with two strands of beading wire.
• String them through the double strand clasp.
• Once you have your bead pattern laid out, start stringing one end of each strand.
• Continue following the pattern and string all the way through until you are at the other end of the beading strand.
• When at the end of the pattern, string the same strands to the same place on the other end of the double strand clasp.
• Finish off with a crimped bead and wear!

 If you would like complete instructions on this item, please e mail us at sales@jessejamesbeads.com.

Your Color Concepts Are Great

by: Sarah E., Philadelphia, PA -

“I love the way that you put all of the combinations together. I have come across a new site that many may be interested in. It is www.nitrolicious.com. In the search area if you type “pantone colors”, it will show you the upcoming spring colors. It also has designers such as Nanette Lapore and David Rodriquez, who show upcoming designs and share their inspirations for making them. Last week, they also highlighted one of the cross pendants, similar to the ones that you sell. Thank you, keep up the good work. I love fashion and to have access to the very latest styles.”

Fashion Designer Color Mixes

THE FASHION DESIGNER COLOR MIXES have been the strength of Jesse James Beads and has hit a much needed niche in the bead industry.

One of our New Designer Bead Combos

 

Jesse started the bead division of the company by buying every fashion magazine that was available.  He then ripped out the pages of the most popular fashion items.  Jesse then searched factories and bought beads in every color.  The design department was then invited to join the process and the beads were carefully matched to the designer clothing pictures to create a  designer-based color combination bead pack.  A new concept in the bead market was born.

Birth of a Designer Color Mix

Most customers( those who are not designers) would never consider mixing and matching beads to hit these designer color selections. The color combinations inspire the beader to put an outfit together. They can make a great piece of jewerly and then put together a great outfit (picture a tan top, black leggings and a purple belt).

You could match this outfit with many of our combo packs

The color combos are a great starting point .  You can add a pendant or other favorite beads to compliment the many beads in the mix.  The packs are also tremendous for those who are just starting to bead. They are also ideal for bead classes.

 

Who we are….what we do….and craft ideas to boot!

Greetings from the sales staff at Jesse James & Co. – Lore MacNamara, Marsha Pangrass, Angela Moret and Dawn Gordon – together we have 38 years of experience with our Dress It Up products!  Our customers are located all over the world, and hail from every state in the U.S.   Our products are extremely versatile and are purchased to be used in many different ways:  They can be found in chains and countless independents– In general craft stores, they can be cross-merchandised into different departments, sewing stores, quilt shops and needlepoint stores, scrapbook/rubber stamp stores, stationery, variety stores and of course, bead shops.  We also create custom packs and kits for catalog companies and manufacturers, while designers and professional crafters use our products in a variety of unique applications.  I am very enthusiastic about our products, and always have a lot to say, so this post I will talk about our buttons and embellishments and next time I will talk about beads!

Something that you might not know about our products is how hands on our process is from start to finish, so that we can offer you the BEST PRODUCT in the marketplace!  We create our designs from original artwork, drawn by our very talented artists.  All of our buttons are hand-dyed, hand-assembled and hand- packaged on our premises for the best quality.  We are able to make modifications to our packs quickly to react to market trends and keep our packs current, fresh and exciting.  The retail customer will not see the same things in our packs for years on end – we want to give you new things to work with – No need to make the same craft over and over again-We try to evolve with the crafting world.

 We always welcome your comments and suggestions and we would love for you to post your comments!  We are in the process of designing our new themes for 2009 – we want to give you new things that YOU WANT – SO LET US HEAR FROM YOU!  If there are themes or types of buttons that you would like us to consider, please POST THEM and I will pass your ideas on to Karen and our design team.

I love our buttons (and beads.) I come from a community of crafters, and I will always be grateful to our owners for giving me a job that allows my creative side flourish (Sidenote:  Now, give me a computer or a gadget and my brain has to work overtime – which all of you who have called my desk phone have figured out in the last few weeks – I have yet to successfully change my voicemail message, even though I have done it 3 times!!.)  Our products are so versatile and can be used with so many different types of crafting components.

This is the time of year when everyone starts crafting for the upcoming holidays.   Halloween seems to be a bigger occasion every year – decorating, party crafting, costumes – we have embellishments for everything.

 

                       

 We have posted a great Halloween project on our website  -  BOO BOXES!

All you need is some small unfinished boxes, a little bit of paint and imagination and some Dress It Up Halloween button packs.  Click on the following link to take you right to the project.

Dress It Up Project of the Month (Boo Box)

 

 

 

 

    

It seems like once Thanksgiving arrives Christmas decorating follows on its heels, so why not get a little mileage from your Fall crafts? – Create a fall wreath, add a removable fall decorated wood cut out, and swap it out for a Thanksgiving themed plaque a few weeks before Thanksgiving.  

             

The winter holiday season offers endless crafting possibilities.  You can start early and use our embellishments right up to the end, putting finishing touches on gift tags, wrappings and table decorations.  I want to continue to post project ideas, but I would love your help – Many heads are far better than one! 

PLEASE SEND ME YOUR IDEAS!! 

Thank you for using our Dress It Up products and I look forward to hearing from you all!

 

Kindest Regards,

Marsha

 

 

 

And so the story goes….

Founded in 1986, Jesse James & Co. evolved from just one bag of buttons.  Karen was a second grade school teacher in York, PA and even tried her hand as a Frito Lay truck driver (Nicknamed: Crash-It didn’t go so well.)  Jesse was in the tag business prior to starting the inventory exchange company.  Searching for and exchanging zippers, shoulder pads, tag clips, hangers….I can’t tell you how many of these things were still in our old warehouse after 20 years….Anyway, people kept asking “Why can’t you find someone to buy my leftover buttons?”  So, Jesse James & Co. had a booth at our first CHA show-There were ties, shoulder pads, zippers, hangers and a bag of buttons.  The ACMoore buyer came in the booth and wanted the buttons.  They were our first customer.

Fast forward 20 years and Jesse James & Co. has been quite busy.  The business has thrived and so has their daughter, Sarah.  (Sidenote: PSU grade who just got her first job-Go Sarah!)  We’ve become a worldwide leader in the craft and embellishment industry.  Jesse James & Co. started with one salesperson-whose desktop was a door, one warehouse, one craft dyer, one booth at CHA…basically, one of everything…boy, how far we’ve come!  Our customers span the globe and five years ago, the business expanded to include our Dress It Up bead company.  You can find us in the major chains….Michaels, ACMoore, Hobby Lobby, JoAnn Stores and countless independents….We truly can supply something for any business because we start from scratch and make beautiful creations.

Join us as we start this blog.  We love feedback….the good, the bad….All of it because it only gives us goals to accomplish.  Stay tuned for our next entry introducing our sales team…

Thanks for reading..

Regards,  Shana-GM

9/11 NEVER FORGET

Hello world!

 

Hello from Jesse James and the James gang! Welcome to the initial entry of our blog. We plan to cover any and all subject matters…We invite any and all feedback and encourage your participation and help in sharing what you are seeing and what you are doing concerning today’s fashions.Jesse James beads and the trademarked Dress It Up embellishments are world renowned because of our design philosophy. We strive to make a huge effort to stay on top of today’s trends and colors. FASHION IS THE DRIVING FORCE OF THE INDUSTRY   One of our plans with the blog is to report on current fashion from the New York street scene, what we are seeing in the leading magazines….such as Vogue….and what we are seeing in the mall storefronts and in cutting edge boutiques. We will then advise where to get products to mirror these color product trends. We will also provide jewelry projects that go with the clothing fashions that you are wearing. An example of this comes from one of our designers–With many of each season’s color combinations, you will have predominant bright colors supported by less predominant blending colors. Her idea was to simply reverse the process–For example, A dress with two of the most popular colors of this season, blue iris and shady green can mix with a supporting color of burnt orange.

Blue Iris Shady Glade Burnt Orange

This dress can be “dressed-up” with a necklace that features the burnt orange as the focal pieces with the blue and green supporting. Another big fad this year will be pendants. The bigger the better, with loads of sparkle, crystal bling, gemstones and Semi-Precious gemstones. This year, the pendants will be collected and worn like handbags and shoes. They will be statement pieces which are big and bold. They will be playful, adaptable, interchangeable and reasonably priced. They will go along with the popular “separate” approach to fashion, giving one more choice and means of expression.On our website, www.jessejamesbeads.com, you will see our updated fall color fashion report. On our blog, you will soon be shown pieces of jewelry that match the most popular color combinations that are featured in this report.Finally, besides beads, Jesse James and Co. is a worldwide leader in embellishments.

This is just one of our many product lines. There are over 1000 items to choose from!

You can see our items decorating products in Neiman Marcus, Nordstrom’s, Dillard’s, Party City, Kids R Us etc. You can see our items on American Greetings cards and other award winning card designs. We will be sharing some other ideas on how to embellish as well.Thanks again. Please share what you are doing in the fashion and embellishing world. Advise us on what you would like to see in this blog. It is for you. The ultimate goal is to have fun, share thoughts and to meet new friends.

Regards,

Jesse