[Jewelry making - Article 00249] - Re: [Orchid] Truth or dare survey

[Annette Andres]

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    Truth or Dare survey: OK, I'll jump in. I have always made things and
    always will. In college in the early 70's I found a place to buy
    silver wire and bent it into shapes and then learned to solder it at
    a community rec. center class. After college I taught grade school
    but made jewelry in the evening and sold it to fellow teachers. 

    In the 80's my three kids came along and I stopped teaching.I had no
    time to make jewelry for a few years until 1989 when I made a
    musical theme piece for a music school my kids attended. I learned
    to cast and designed more musical theme items and an opportunity to
    sell these pieces at summer music camps came up. Since then I've
    sold on consignment at about 4 of these camps each summer. My son
    started participating in this music school at age three. He's now
    almost 22 and made my little website featuring my music designs. Go
    to www.stringfields.com to see it. 

    Now if you went to my website you should know that the one-of-a-kind
    pieces I do for the two galleries I'm in and the Art festivals I do
    is quite different. I like to carve wax, cast the piece in silver
    and add detail soldering gold onto it and set small stones. 

    I've done Art Festivals for three summers doing three the first
    summer and 6 last summer. There are great shows, dud shows and those
    in between. I don't have to be the bread winner in my family which
    I'm very grateful for and my husband has figured out that I'm a
    happy energetic spouse who makes his life easier as long as I have
    my little jewelry business going. Over the years I've put all my
    profits back into my shop buying tools and materials and now it is
    complete. I did spend a couple of years early on (early 90's)
    working a night shift at a bank processing center just to have extra
    money that I could use to buy equipment to get my in-home basement
    shop up and running. 

    So, I am making money doing this but probably not enough to justify
    the time I spend. Just a little extra for the family to help with
    fun stuff, meals out, Christmas, a little spending money on
    vacations. I do find that since my mindset is on making something
    for sale I don't tend to go out shopping much for fun, because for
    me fun is making and selling, not buying. Annette from Iowa

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