PRESS RELEASE FOR RELEASE AUGUST 31, 2007 Contacts: Hilary Halstead Scott Marketing Director Halstead Bead, Inc. 6650 Intercal Way Prescott, AZ 86301 Ph: 928-778-6776 hilary@halsteadbead.com www.halsteadbead.com Belle Brooke Barer Owner Belle Brooke Designs 5453 S Spring St, Ste 704 Los Angeles, CA 90013 Ph: 213-663-6614 belle@bellebrooke.net www.bellebrooke.net Belle Brooke Designs Wins National Jewelry Award Prescott, AZ – August 31, 2007 – Today, Halstead Bead, Inc. announced the winner of its second annual national business grant competition for bridge jewelry designers: Belle Brooke Designs of Los Angeles, CA. Belle Brooke Barer, principal designer and visionary of the company, will receive $6,000 in cash and merchandise as part of the grant prize package. She intends to use these funds to invest in a fashion marketing campaign including both print and web materials. "I think that is going to be a big help for me in taking the next step and really expanding my business," said an exuberant Barer. Her work is already sold in stores around the country as well as through several online retailers. Barer creates jewelry that is inspired by the natural symmetry inherent in the organic world. The style is an artistic rendering of the concept of cells and their multitudinous manifestations. Her work is unmistakably original and features circular patterns compressed within shaped frames and offset by natural gemstones. You can see her current Metropolis and Night Sky collections at www.bellebrooke.net. Barer began making jewelry as a teenager in her hometown of Houston, TX. Her passion for jewelry as an art form continued to grow over the years alongside her other creative endeavors such as photography and studio art. She moved to California for her advanced education and honed her talents at Pitzer College in Claremont, The Crucible in Berkeley and the Revere Academy of Jewelry Arts in San Francisco. Eventually, she landed her first industry job as a bench jeweler for Studio 311 in Petaluma. After studying many techniques, Barer began to develop her own unique style and decided to launch her signature line and business in 2005. Belle Brooke Designs was born and has been steadily growing from its Los Angeles home base ever since. "Belle Brooke stood out in an extremely competitive field of applicants this year. Anyone can see the design talent she possesses when you look at her line. However, the judging committee also got to see a thorough business plan that revealed her solid strategic and analytical skills," said Hilary Halstead Scott, Marketing Director at Halstead Bead, Inc. "This is clearly a young woman with a very bright future in the industry and we are proud to offer her this award." Halstead Bead offers the grant each year as an award to a bridge jewelry designer who launched their business within the last three years. The prize differs from most competitions in the trade because judging is equally based on both jewelry design acumen and the artists’ business skills. Applicants are required to respond to several specific questions and submit a business plan along with their design portfolio. Candidates from all over the United States vied for the grant and represented the full breadth of products and marketing approaches in the marketplace. The Halstead Bead Business Grant for Bridge Jewelry is an annual competition that draws designers from across the nation. Details on the award and all of this year’s top 10 finalists can be found at www.halsteadbead.com/grant. The deadline for next year’s competition will be in June 2008. Updated application materials will be available online this fall. Last year’s winner was Ananda Khalsa Jewelry of Providence, RI. Halstead Bead, Inc. is one of North America’s leading jewelry supply importers and distributors. The firm was established in 1973 and now supplies thousands of component resellers and jewelry designers around the globe. Halstead Bead, Inc. is wholesale only and sells beads and findings for the bridge jewelry segment in sterling silver, gold-filled, copper, pearl, shell, gemstones, glass and crystal. The firm also distributes branded component lines such as Swarovski and Beadalon.
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