Creating something beautiful to wear makes me smile! I'm especially grateful that other people enjoy wearing my artful adornment. I like to add soothing words and phrases to lift spirits and encourage gratitude for life's blessings.

Putting on a piece of jewelry tells a little about you and adds sparkle to your face and eyes!

I started making jewelry after seeing a Jewelry Affaire magazine piece about making wearable shadow boxes with pictures and tiny trinkets inside. I began to make soldered frames and add pictures, rhinestones, and buttons or pearls set in resin. I like to wear these with pictures of my family and introduce them to my friends and acquaintances.

I love a lot of different styles of jewelry. I started out making Mixed Media from old and new pieces, photo jewelry to look like a Tin Type, etching metal, working with resin, and now Sterling Silver Metalsmithing.

Sometimes my mother would let me look at an old jewelry box full of jewelry and fragments . I loved all the different pieces and had my favorites!

I grew up with five sisters. My mother and Grandmother's taught me that kindness matters. I will be forever grateful for the example of faithfulness, and stalwart hardworking women in my family both living, and in Heaven.

I come from hardy pioneer stock where the women suffered deprivations, loss, physical trauma: yet stayed true to their faith in God and country, and also our Beloved Savior. These women had a generous sense of humor, positive attitude and pulled themselves up by their bootstraps to keep going.

My triple great grandmother Zina had a baby boy in a wagon, in the rain, after being forced to leave her beautiful home. She named her son Chariton after the river nearby. Zina became midwife. She didn't lose any babies or mothers.

My Grandmother Frances found herself divorced with my mother, Shirlee (2) and my Uncle Fred (4). She had to move back home for a season and look for work. She worked as a secretary for little pay during the Depression years of the 1930s. She wore a black dress that she would sew lace cuffs and a collar to so it would give her two dresses. She taught my mom that you don't need money to have fun. A favorite saying is "Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without."

We live a throw away world, but some things are worth holding onto like; Bible stories, keeping the 10 commandments, having a sense of humor, the benefits of hard work, keeping up hope, that kindness matters, and it's a special thing to have few pieces of cherished jewelry from a person you love.

Cherish one another.

Julie Pike