FrenchSentiments

It all started when my daughter graduated from college with a degree in metalsmithing. She moved home for a couple of months and taught me just enough jewelry making skills to be dangerous! I began by making Sally Jean-type soldered jewelry using bits of samplers instead of collages. After soldering a good five billion pieces (a slight exaggeration!), I needed to move in a different direction. That's when I discovered altered art jewelry. I added the antique pieces and I was sold! I've been an antique collector for a good 30 years, so adding jewelry pieces to the things I already collected was a natural progression. All though this time, I had been going to gem and jewelry shows with my daughter and absolutely loved gemstone beads. I still go to the gem and jewelry shows that fall in a 100 mile radius of my home in south-center Pennsylvania - which means Maryland shows, Pennsylvania shows and Virginia shows. To this day, walking into one of those shows causes my heart to flutter! I'm also within an hour of a town full of antique markets in Pennsylvania and make it to the Sunday markets almost every weekend. They are a great source of antique jewelry pieces.

I'm a lucky girl. I have customers I've come to know and love and am always thrilled to add more. I love having relationships with all of you and I consider many, many my friends.

Come and visit often! I make a lot of jewelry in the course of a week and try to get it listed every chance I get. There are two things that slow me down - one is dark rainy days when I can't get good photographs and the other is my sampler design business which requires a lot of creativity and a lot of time. I've found when I'm focused on samplers, I haven't much creativity left for jewelry and vice versa. So, you can rest assured that when I'm quiet for short periods of time, it just means that I'm working on samplers instead of jewelry. And I'll be back soon!

Thank you!

Kathy