There are some weeks when I wonder why I keep making jewelry and learning new skills. This was NOT one of them!
The independent jewelry maker can make his/her own policies when needed rather than visiting the “company” voice. I no longer string or restring beads for people unless I made the piece in the first place. I used to do this, but now it seems I’m unable to get new design work in and and trying to find that valuable commodity – time. This week, however, a man I didn’t know phoned to see if I could help him with a broken piece of jewelry. My first instinct was to say “NO”, but for some reason I listened. His girlfriend had lost one of her favorite earrings and he wanted someone to make the remaining one into a small pendant for her birthday. We talked for a bit and he finally told me that no one else would discuss it with him. All the stores he called told him “we don’t do that.” Since I was going to a town near him the next day, I agreed to meet him and see what I might do.
On the appointed day, I took all the needed tools, wire and findings and met the man. The earring was a pretty sterling silver back with two small pieces of turquoise set in bezels. The ear wire was soldered to the back. I managed to turn the ear wire into a closed ring and put it on a sterling silver chain for which I had made a clasp. Then we picked out turquoise to match and made a new pair of earrings using a bit of the matching chain. I had the man put the headpins in the stones and then polish the piece in order to be able to say he helped make them. We wrote on the card “Custom Made by “(the man) and Karen.” Did I mentioned how pleased he was?
The neatest part about this episode is that during the course of our conversation we realized that his lady is my Mother’s nurse where she lives. Neither of us had any prior idea of this.
The moral of this story is . . . you never know when in an attempt to make someone else happy you make yourself even more pleased. I like being an independent.
