01.22.18 Hacked

Jewelry hack kit

Late last year I got the following message from a friend -

One day towards the end of 2017, two women went for a walk... And we talked. A lot. We realized that we each knew how to do certain things to make our lives a touch easier and joked that we should have a Life Hacks Party to find out all of the things our friends know, too.

That joke is turning into a real thing.

Join us for a Saturday of idea-sharing to help make 2018 a bit more manageable!

I started thinking about what I knew that would be useful and it dawned on me - many people love their jewelry, but don't know how to do simple repairs or keep it cleaned and polished - but I do!  So I put together some small hack kits - a pair of silicon ear nuts, a square of anti-tarnish paper and a small piece of Sunshine cloth - packed up my hand tools and some earring findings, and off I went.

I also created a "jewelry hack list" on Amazon, so that after the event folks could go buy more of anything they wanted - including some relatively inexpensive tools to do their own simple repairs.

It was an incredibly fun afternoon - I showed folks how to replace an ear wire, keep their jewelry polished and talked about repairs and even recycling old jewelry.


It was wonderful to meet so many smart, talented women - and as a bonus, I walked away with some great recipes, time and money saving tips, and new friends (and even sold a pair of earring!).

I hope your new year is off to a good start!

Until next time.

01.08.18 Rockin' in the New Year

Happy New Year everyone!  Welcome to year four of the blog!

I just dropped my kiddo off at the airport - she's going back for her last semester of college (she's our youngest, so in May we will have fully launched all three of them into adulthood) - and I'm headed back to the studio this week for the first time in a month.







I'm excited to be back at the bench to finish things I started back in December, and I have a whole bunch of new stones to play with...





At the end of the year I was fortunate to find a lot of oval millefiori glass, so I have plans to make as many Texas wildflower pendants as I can sell (and probably keep one for myself this time).

I bought some other wonderful cabs, too (check out my recent posts on Instagram), and I'm excited about the possibilities they hold.

So watch this space - I'll be back every couple of weeks with new stones and new stories for 2018.

Until next time.