Throwback - How it all Started

Part of the One of a Kind Shows Diaries Challenge was to write about how you got started with your craft.  Here's my story.

A craft night in the summer of 2005 with some girls from work is what really stated it all. We got together and made some super long seed bead duster earrings and wore our new creations to work the next day. Customers would ask where I got those earrings, and I was proud to say I had made them! My colleague Vanessa and I signed up for evening jewelry courses in enameling, lost wax casting and intro to silversmithing. After finishing these classes I still wanted to create but couldn't justify the expense for all the tools I needed to fabricate pieces I had just completed from the three courses. I mean it was just a hobby right?!  We had also just signed up to share a table at a small local juried Christmas craft fair. I learned a lot after this first show and decided I wanted to carve my own niche and create something different with my jewelry. Sterling silver seemed to be what most makers were using at the time so I went with goldfill, brass and charms. I also designed mismatched earrings as well as asymmetric elements from the very start and still continue to do so to this day twelve years later!.

Back in the day you submitted actual printed 4 x 6 photos. The images seen here are not from my first showing, these were taken about a year later, in 2006 when I officially started my jewelry business TOODLEBUNNY Designs.

Oh and the name, TOODLEBUNNY. Well my guy calls me toodles. One Easter he wrote on a card 'to my little TOODLEBUNNY' and it kinda stuck.  And after that first craft fair with my friend in 2005 he had secretly registered the domain name, and built me my first website . I found out on xmas day as there was a note that it was a gift that he tucked into my stocking. He's a keeper that one!