Psst! Don’t forget! The Merry Christmas to You Contest continues!

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I never considered myself artistic. I can’t draw convincing stick figures. I can’t arrange pinecones to look like anything other than grubby pinecones stuck in a bowl. When I discovered I could write, I figured that was all the artsy goodness I had inside me. My mother is the artist of the family. She paints in water color and oil. Lovely things. And she belongs to an art guild. Well, I joined because she can’t drive at night and thought, well since I’m going to be there…

I’m not even sure how it started, but watching other folks who claimed they weren’t artistic, but were willing to experiment to find something visually creative they could do, inspired me to try as well. I’m a jewelry hound. So naturally, when I discovered Etsy, I combed the sight and found some things I wanted to try. I began with domino and scrabble tile altered art pendants. With paper, rubber stamps, alcohol ink blotches, glue, glitter, jewels, and tons of patience, I’ve made pendants I actually love wearing. And I’ve sold them to other people!! Talk about encouragement—someone else likes what I do! Then I branched into metal stamping and glass fusion. Nothing that requires that I draw a straight line, but I have discovered I’m terrific with color and layering things together. Now, I’m looking at crocheted and beaded bracelets.

I finished this domino pendant yesterday. This one’s very simple. Just paper and glitter.

If you’re on facebook, you’ve likely seen other pendants and decoupage projects I’ve worked on. My daughter’s been there every step of the way, and shared the journey. We’ve found something we love doing together, and we’re constantly conspiring to create new things.

Finding balance between the writing and jewelry-making is becoming a new challenge. For the longest, writing was all I thought I wanted to do. Who knew?

So what about you? Do you enjoy arts and crafts? Don’t tell me you don’t have
that gene. Is there something you’ve thought about trying?

Oh! And this is something simple too. A way I am able to blend my writing and crafty worlds together. I’ll be giving these away when the book releases end of January: