My husband, Tom, and I went to the mountains to pan for gold (his hobby). I was the "digger", while he did the pan washing to remove the dirt and rocks. Eventually he (and I) discovered that some of the rocks he was discarding housed gems i.e. Amethyst, Citrine, Agate, Jasper, Peridot, etc. When we returned home to Florida, we found our local gem and mineral society and joined. We started taking classes i.e. wire-wrapping, silver smithing, cutting cabachons and learning to facet stones. I learned stone setting and we had a wonderful time working together to create beautiful things. The Gem & Mineral Society has a large show here in Jacksonville in September of each year. We decided to become vendors, as we now had a large supply of creations. My niece helped me open a shop on Etsy and the fun began. We did some traveling in our RV, and were vendors when the opportunity presented itself - from all around Florida to Oklahoma. In mid 2011 he was diagnosed with lung cancer. He fought a good fight, but we lost him in February of 2014. For at least two of those years, I did not pursue our "hobby". I was caring for him. Just this last summer of 2015, I started creating again. Thanks to my brother, I have branched out to creating fossil jewelry from Mastodon and Mamouth Ivory that is 10,000 to 150,000 years old, Camel Bone, Asian Buffalo Horn, and Elk and Sheep horn from Alaska. As soon as I can get some computer help (from a grandchild) I will be putting some of my "new" creations on Etsy!
Thanks for allowing me to share my story.
Marie Jeffery, a.k.a. Jeffery's Jewels