First

From the beginning I've been creative in one way or another. My earliest memories are of endless drawing of princess gowns (they couldn’t be called dresses, they were way too fabulous for that) and hand sewing clothes for my treasured Barbie doll (and sometimes myself) out of scraps of fabric I scavenged from my Mum’s sewing room.

In my early years at primary school I loved to paint (I wasn't good at it but loved it none the less). High school gave me art classes and Miss Radunz my favourite teacher. Her tuition nurtured my passion for all things "arty". At first I thought I wanted to get into fashion (you know all those pretty dresses drawn in childhood), I thought I could do it, then I realized perhaps I should get a real job. I wasn’t that good at sewing anyways and found it just took to long to get the end product. So that’s where I left it, at the gates of the school when I graduated in ’89.

Many years later, on a not particularly noteworthy miserably rainy day in a small country town my boredom lead to the discovery of beading and jewellery making. My good friend Tennille and I wanted to go to the beach, but because of the aforementioned rain and misery we headed instead to a dollar shop in the main street of the small town I lived in, to find something to amuse ourselves.

After wandering the isles of cheap stuff, I happened upon a revolving stand of pretty, shinny things. After a small discussion with my friend and the purchase of a selection of pretty, shinny things we headed back to my Mum’s house and commenced creating. My friend discovered she wasn’t that interested in making jewellery or beading, but for me it was a revelation, an epiphany, something I’d never done before but felt I’d being doing for ever.

That was about 7 years ago and since then I’ve settled back in Brisbane, made many, many pretty things, sold and given away many, many of those pretty things. I have accumulated a rather large collection of beads and stuff and am always looking for more to add to the collection, even though I’ve not been creating as much as I would like to the past few years.

In July this year I went to a local bead and gem show with hopes of reviving my flagging creativity and pick up a few pretty beads in the process, naturally!. This is when I first heard of Precious Metal Clay (PMC). I signed up for a 3 hour workshop on that day and fell in love. What an amazing product, so many possibilities, so shinny when all polished up!

A few weeks after discovering PMC I attended a beginners Silversmithing workshop that I’d signed up for months before. This was fabulous too and got me thinking. Thinking about what I want to do with my life and where I would like to be. I think I want to be sitting in my garage workshop creating stuff, making jewellery, getting my hands dirty. I think this is the beginning of something good. Something that’s been in the back of my mind for a very long time.

Thanks for reading.