When I was little, my mom opened up a candle shop. Der Candlemaker. We lived upstairs and she made and dipped those candles right underneath us. It was fascinating growing up in a candleshop. We spent many hours dipping our fingers to make wax replica's of them. And I can make change lickety-split from working there as a child.

My own story with creating things began by crafting at Mac and Bapa's house. When we were little, we were all shuttled off to spend the weekend at our grandparent's house in early December to make our Christmas presents.
Every single year. For all of our aunts and uncles and grandparents. And we had a lot of them. I mean…I thought everybody did that. Didn't everybody do that?

So fast forward....I make my kids do the same thing (somehow they fight me on it these years) and we have a big family and we celebrate handmade gifts and make a GREAT BIG deal about it. The adults too.
We're makers, and we were raised by makers.

Naturally I went to art school, where I studied advertising and graphic design. I freelance for small businesses, I have an Etsy shop where I design invitations, (www.sweethammerpress.etsy.com) and I love working with metal. Go figure. It's just in me. I especially love the old tins that I scour flea markets for-with the old type and retro graphics. So I've been making these assemblages for about 13 years now and each one is just as fun to make as the first.

I hope you enjoy what you see!