Always Looking For the Silver Lining

I'm Denise, but most folks call me Neesie or den. (Small d, don't ask me why - I've just written it that way for as long as I can remember.) I create jewelry in my home studio in beautiful New Hampshire, USA.

I started on my jewelry-making journey years ago, when a dear friend presented me with two beautifully handcrafted bead woven bracelets that she had made especially for me. She taught me how to make my own, and I've been hooked on jewelry-making ever since! Nowadays, I do more metal work, but I still love to go back to bead weaving occasionally, and you'll find a few of my beaded bracelets in my shop.

It used to be common for thrifty New England homes to have a "button box". Not wanting to waste anything, once clothing became so worn that it got relegated to the rag box, we'd cut off the buttons, snaps, and zippers to reuse when making new clothes. I have a big stash of vintage buttons, collected over many decades by several generations of my family, and I love to repurpose them by working them into some of my designs.

My husband and I are avid New England beachcombers, and I also enjoy incorporating pieces of genuine sea glass that we've found into my jewelry. Sea glass comes from fragments of bottles, dishes, lamps, or other glass items that were once discarded as trash, lost in shipwrecks, or lost in homes washed out to sea by ferocious storms. After tumbling around in the ocean and being tossed and smoothed by the waves for decades, it sometimes eventually gets washed ashore by the tides. Prized by collectors worldwide, sea glass is becoming more and more difficult to find as we have moved from glass storage containers to plastic ones.

I often include lampwork glass and pottery components from other Etsy shops in my designs as well, as I believe it's important for artists to support each other.

I grew up surrounded by thrifty yankee women, all of whom were talented crafters --
whether they were sewing, knitting, crocheting, painting, weaving, or just repurposing old things to create something new. It's no wonder I love creating things.

I tend to be a glass-half-full person, and my friends tease me about always looking for the silver lining in any given situation. When I decided to start selling my creations, den's Silver Linings was born.