Beginnings (6/3/15)
OK - this is my official first post on my blog. My name is Kathryn Houseman Lobert. I was born in Springfield, Massachusetts and now I live in Columbus, Ohio. In between, I lived in St. Louis, Dallas, college at Indiana University, back to Dallas, then Arlington,Texas and now here. I am the owner and every other position at Kathryn's Jewelry Designs.
{ LINK- Kathryn's Jewelry Designs on Etsy }
I seriously love designing jewelry. Over all the years of my life, I have loved creating "stuff." Sometime I will list some things, but I do not want to chase you away on day one!!
I started with jewelry for a very practical reason - I wanted it to hold up! I love the jewelry from a particular store, but it was rather pricey and flimsy. I started looking for it on Ebay and that alleviated some of the "pricey" but did nothing for the flimsy. The last time I bought any of the jewelry, it arrived already broken. I contacted the seller and he responded that there are no returns. I told him I did not want to send it back because I loved the piece. I just wanted him to just refund me enough money to get what I needed to fix it. He was very nice and agreed. I was quite sure that I had the skill set to accomplish that - not that I had ever fixed a piece of jewelry before. That is actually how I pretty much always fell into various creative escapades. When we moved into our home in Texas, I knew exactly what I wanted to do with the rooms and windows, but I just could not conceive of paying huge prices to do what I was sure I could do myself. I mentioned this to my husband, but I do not think he took me seriously - or could it have been possible he was NOT listening??? :-D Anyway, I went looking for fabric for my wall, windows, pillows, pillow shams, dust ruffles, quilted comforter and then I saw it at JoAnn's (might have been Cloth World back then!) So, I came home with 50+ yards of fabric, called my friend Jill, who was a genius at all things creative, so that she could jump start me. I was so excited - when my husband saw the huge roll of fabric, I am pretty sure the look on his face was something other than joy and excitement. "Do you know what you are doing?" "No, why?" What followed was a mishmash of sputters and words like "but, what are.., how..." and other gibberish. However, thanks to excellent instruction from Jill, my love of the fabric, absurd belief in my own abilities, and my vision of our room, etc, it all came together beautifully and we were all quite happy. I had a serious love for those padded fabric walls! Oh - and I cannot forget the amazing and timely contribution of my mom! She and Daddy paid to have someone else make the quilted comforter as my birthday present. While she told me that she thought I was just too busy to do that, what she was really thinking was, "my dear child, while I have always told you that you are more than capable of doing anything in your life you ever wanted, I did not think about quilted comforters."
Anyway, that is how I got started with jewelry. I fixed one necklace, thought it was fun, looked up some stuff online and started getting supplies. No, of course I did not have any designs in mind - I have to wait on the beads to point my way. (oops, that is one of those things my husband and children have asked me not to tell too many people. Oh well.) That was several years ago and I have thoroughly enjoyed myself. I had several years that I steadily made and sold jewelry on Ebay and then Etsy as well as in person. However, then we moved here to Columbus with both of our sons and their wives and two of our granddaughters. Since I am quite sure that I was put on this earth to be the grandmother to the seven granddaughters we have been given, jewelry took a bit of a back seat. (I also have told my sons that I was given 7 granddaughters as a reward for surviving raising them :-)
Oops - I am trying so hard to curb my tendency for wordiness and so I am stopping here! I once heard Patsy Clairmont say something like "People say that God gave us two ears and one mouth so we will listen more than we talk, but I keep thinking that may be true, but He has just given me so many words!" I cannot believe that I no longer remember her exact words because she was so funny. However, I certainly understood the meaning of those words because that is my struggle as well. That may very well be why a blog is good for me - I can talk but you can choose how much you want to read. Take care - more another day.
Thank you for coming!
Kathryn
