Beachcombers! Henna, Khussa, & Bangle Blog

Downtown Orlando Art & Living Expo
Art & Music Festival at Lake Eola Park
Saturday & Sunday February 23 & 24
11:00am - 6:00pm
Lake Eola Park 101 N Rosalind Ave Orlando, FL 32801, US

Join us at the 4th Annual Downtown Art & Living expo.  Last year’s festival was so much fun, we are doing it again!

This yearly festival in downtown Orlando brings Orlando art and music together at the gorgeous Lake Eola Park & Amphitheater.  Beachcombers! will, again, have a booth where you can meet us and shop for khussa Indian shoes and glass bangle sets.

What to expect at the Beachcombers! booth…

Glass Bangles
Khussa Indian Shoes  
CLEARANCE Shoes! 

Stop by and say hello! We can’t wait to meet you!

Jody
Beachcombers! Bazaar

Thank you to all our great customers that made 2007 a fun exciting year for us here at Beachcombers!.

Let’s see what 2007 was about…

Show, shows, and more shows! We had booths at the Lake Eola Arts Festival, the Ocala Cultural Festival, and the Gypsy Heritage Festival. We also did a slew full of smaller more intimate events including the Florida Tribal Dance Gala, Friday Night Nirvana’s at the YOU Center, Enchanted Twilight (for the Seminole County Special Olympics), and multiple small Beachcombers! parties. Check out our Events and Shows page for reviews about the shows.

New Products! We work hard to continue to bring you new exciting products. In 2007, we introduced all new glass bangles including a new size, XL 2.12. Our written “Express Me” bangles were rolled out in October. We had a couple of major shoe orders this year that included our new Ever After slipper and an experiment of Indian sandals. The long awaited Glitter Paste Gel for henna arrived in November!

Customer Requests! We are proud that nearly all our new product is due to customer requests and suggestions (sandals, larger bangle sizes, glitter paste…). We want to offer what you want to buy! Other requests included more shows (done!), henna information in one place (done! see ShopHenna.com), more sales and specials (done!), larger quantities of henna offered (done!), more applicator bottle styles (done!), and more!

If you have any requests or suggestions, please contact us. We want to hear it!

What’s in Store for 2008? Well I’m not going to give away all the surprises, but look for exciting new product including bindi to be added to our line. More shows, of course, and a hands-on henna workshop! We have more up our sleeve so check back often and sign up for our Preferred Clients email list to stay in-the-know.

Here’s to you and yours! HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Jody
Beachcombers! Bazaar

You Asked…We Delivered!

We try to give you, our customer, what you want and we’ve been working on getting glitter paste for nearly a year. We finally got it right!

This is for you, Deena (the first person to request glitter paste)!

Our new Glitter Paste leaves a nice sparkling finish that sticks to the skin all day, yet is still easy to peel off. It looks great accenting henna designs (both wet paste and henna tattoos) and it works terrific alone. I’ve been making some very cool “bindi” with the Glitter Paste, and my daughter wore her school colors (blue and gold) for the last soccer game.

We have 5 colors to choose from…

Mix and match colors to get the combo you like or get all 5 glitter gel paste colors for a special price!

Shop Our New Glitter Paste today!

Have Fun!
Jody
Beachcombers! Bazaar

Check out our newest line in glass Indian bangles…
Express Me Bangles!

All of our bangles are handmade and hand decorated, but these bangles are hand decorated with MELTED GLASS!

As if that is not exciting enough, we’ve had them made with words so that you can make a statement with your glass bangles. There is something to fit every personality…
Belly Dancer, Diva, Goddess, Hottie, Imagine, Love, Pride, Princess, Sexy, and Strength.

They look fantastic mixed in with our glass bangle sets or you can wear them alone.

Express Me Bangles are available in two sizes.
Small 2.6 Express Me Bangles
Med/Lg 2.10 Express Me Bangles

Visit the website, www.ShopBeachcombers.com, to get your Express Me Bangles while they last. We have a very limited quantity of these and they won’t last long.

Express Yourself!
Jody
Beachcombers! Bazaar

Woo Hoo! Another exciting vending event with Beachcombers!

3rd Annual Ocala Cultural Festival at Ocala Downtown Square
Saturday October 13, 2007
2:00pm - 8:00pm
Ocala Downtown Square

We are very excited about this festival. The Ocala Cultural Festival brings together bits of cultures from the Far East to Cajun Country, the Scottish Highlands to the Middle East and India through dance, music, crafts and food while celebrating cultural diversity of every kind!

Beachcombers! will have khussa Indian shoes, glass bangles, and henna tattoos. Florida Tribal Dance will also be performing!

A beautiful hours drive from Orlando, this festival is well worth the trip!

What to expect at the Beachcombers! booth…

See our Events and Shows Page for more information and other upcoming events.

We look fraward to seeing you there!
Jody
Beachcombers! Bazaar

Every other Friday the Orlando YOU Health Center presents Friday Night Nirvana. This is a VERY cool event that features classes, massage, henna tattoos, drum circles, and positive energy! Every Friday Night Nirvana is different so be sure to contact the YOU center to see what is going on next.

Classes in laughter yoga, sound and light healing with crystal bowls, and more. Look for the days when Friday Night Nirvana features Jody of Beachcombers! doing Henna with Intention.

See our Events & Shows Page for more information and a link for directions.

Energy & healing to you!
Jody
Beachcombers! Bazaar

Have you seen our new henna site yet? It’s all helpful information about henna tattoos! I am constantly adding new things to the site as I learn (henna is a never-ending learning experience, lol!) and information that customers ask about or request. ShopHenna.com has tons of pictures to help demonstrate points.

www.ShopHenna.com

Just a sampling of the useful information on the site, includes…

What kind of henna is best for me?
Henna Color and Longevity article.
How to strain your henna.
Expanded henna trouble shooting guide.
Henna safety & black henna.
Henna design gallery.

Ording henna is still done on our regular website, www.ShopBeachcombers.com .

Feel free to send me pictures of henna designs for the gallery or send me your articles about henna tattoos, mehndi, or anything else related to henna.

Enjoy!
Jody
Beachcombers! Bazaar

Tons of Beachcombers! events coming up! Come visit us to see our products in person and meet us. We love to meet and interact with our customers! Most events will offer glass bangle bracelets and khussa Indian shoes. Some will also offer henna products and some henna tattoos. Feel free to contact us about picking up orders at shows or bringing specific items for you to try out.

Be sure to sign up for our email list and check the Local Events box so that you are notified of upcoming events.

Saturday September 15, 2007: Gypsy Heritage Festival (this also happens to be my birthday, so this event will be a real treat with exciting surprises at our booth!)

Saturday October 13, 2007: 3rd Annual Ocala Cultural Festival

Saturday November 17, 2007: Enchanted Twilight III

Saturday & Sunday February 23rd & 24th, 2008: Annual Downtown Orlando Art & Music Festival at Lake Eola Park

See our Events & Shows Page for more information.

Looking forward to having some fun!
Jody
Beachcombers! Bazaar

Wooo Hooo! Our new glass bangles are finally up and ready to go! This latest order, more than a half a million glass bangles, has been completely organized, and the very first glass bangle sets are on the website ready to purchase. This is great news for all our clients, however there is more!

We worked closely with our customers to create this order and are happy to announce that we’ve used many of your suggestions!

You asked for more silver bangles…
DONE! We have a large variety of silver bangles. Some plain, some fancy, some with other colors, and some with just silver. We are also happy to introduce a new line of colored bangles with silver glitter.

You asked for new styles…
DONE! We have a whole slew of new styles! Check out our new frosted bangles, a gorgeous collection of bangles with holographic accents that reflect a rainbow of colors, our new squiggle bangles, ruffle bangles, transparent bangles, written bangles, and much much more. We plan on adding new styles to the website every 2 weeks, so be sure to check in often.

You asked for more sparkle…
DONE! Gold glitter, silver glitter, color glitter, metallic colors, holographic accents, you name it, we have it!

You asked for a larger size, 2.12…
DONE! We are happy to announce that we have a large selction of 2.12 bangles for you to choose from.

You aksed for better sizing…
DONE! You have told us that our previous sizing, traditional Indian sizing, was confusing and difficult to select a size. We’ve made finding your size easy! We have completely revamped our sizing to be more indicative of Western sizing standards.

If you used to wear….2.6 Medium
You now wear…………2.6 Small

If you used to wear….2.8 Large
You now wear…………2.10 Medium/Large

If you used to wear….2.10 Extra Large
You now wear…………2.10 Medium/Large

Plus we now also have 2.12 Extra-Large !

More than 50% of our customers are the 2.10 Med/Large glass bangle size. This is by far the most popular size in the West. The 2.6 Small size is quite small and works best with small boned women or women with flexible hands. The 2.12 Extra-Large size will work well for the small number of women that cannot fit the 2.10 Med/Large.

Remember bangle sizing is not about the size of your body or your wrist. It is about the size and flexibilty of your hands. For help with sizing see our bangle sizing page, www.banglesite.com/Sizing.htm. There are step-by-step instructions for finding your proper bangle size the first time.

Thank you for your input! Keep those ideas and wishes coming!
Jody
Beachcombers! Bazaar

How fantastically fun was the show this past weekend!? Being an online business means that most of our customer communication involves tip-tapping away on the keyboard. Our booth at the Arts Festival allowed us to really interact with and get to know our customers. There is just nothing like being face-to-face! We had a BALL! Here are some of the highlights…

Tribal Dancers
Asad and I would like to send out a huge thank you to Farasha and the Florida Tribal Dancers. They were absolutely fantastic. They made a such a big splash on the AcustiCon stage that they were invited to preform TWICE on the large ampitheater. They were that good!

Are they beautiful or what?!

Our Booth
Draped in beautiful fabric with our hand-made sign, our booth was a real head-turner.

What We Learned
It was a real education sizing people for bangles and shoes in person. We found that many people are our smallest size bangles, 2.6. In person it was a much higher percentage than on the website. For those of you who did find your proper size, remember…LOTION, LOTION, LOTION!

It was also funny how many styles of bangles and shoes that do not picture well, completely sold out when they were seen in person. I will have to increase our picture quality to show how beautiful some of these items truly are.

We plan on doing more shows since this was such a success. Be sure to sign up for our Preferred Clients List so that you will know when new shows or events come up. You may also want to bookmark our Beachcombers! events page.

Hope the meet you at the next show!
Jody
Beachcombers! Bazaar