It Was All The Turkey's Fault

I had to come up with gifts for my girlfriends at Christmas and had no money to buy a thing.  I was 13 years old.  What to do? What to do?  Somehow for some odd reason known only to myself I had saved the turkey wishbones from feasts in the past.  Turkey wishbones? Could I make these into necklaces? Hmmm.....metallic gold paint.....hmmmm.  Yup, I painted those suckers ever so carefully, drilled a hole in the top part of the bone , used a ribbon and lo and behold: necklaces!!!  Yes indeedy!  I gave these as gifts that year and had one for myself.  I think my friends thought that I was cccrrrraaaaaazzzzyyyy!  I thought it was clever and cheap.  And that is how it all started.

Then I noticed that I had some turquoise nuggets!  Which I promptly wrapped in silver wire (it was cheap then and Tandy was the only craft place in town)  Wish I could find that nugget today!  I know it is somewhere in this house - I never threw anything out.

So then I went on to scavenge sea glass, now mind you this was in the early 60's!  And there was lots out on the beach when I was 15.  These were wrapped in copper wire. And pebbles became pins.

Finally, I moved on to sea shells and making earrings for everyone and myself.  I was an earring hog!

The discovery of polymer clay lead me to making some awful stuff!  And my mother wore them!  But not all.

I continued making earrings, but it just didn't feel creative enough.  I needed something hands on, so I took a metalsmithing class last year and this was my first piece

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That did it I was hooked on metal!