Mini Marvels - MmeMagpie

Better late than never...;)

It's Mini-Marvel time!

You know that person who you can always count on for sound advice about stuff you're interested in? Well, MmeMagpie is the person many of us over at Mis-named go to when we're in a bind when it comes to stones. She's always there with advice and she makes such beautiful things!

She's also got a fabulous supply shop in MmeMagpieSupply which I'm sure will be filled with treasures again soon. I sort of emptied it out this morning...*lol*

I asked her tell us a little more about who she is:

I have this memory from when I was much shorter of tugging my mom's skirt, looking up at her, and saying as earnestly as only a very small human can, "I'm going to be an artist when I grow up!" Her gift of seed beads and a loom at the age of eight, or so, got me started on this long road that ends, for now, in a small shed in my back yard.

A combination of beads, thread, and creative ingenuity started this adventure. Formal education doesn’t really figure into any of it, just trial and error and a few books. At 21, when a friend asked to buy something I was working on, a light just came on and that’s when I knew jewelry was the path I should take.

Not long after, I moved to Virginia Beach where I wandered into Silver Stream with a briefcase full of glass bead and brass wirework jewelry and walked out with a job (and a briefcase full of brass and glass jewelry). There I learned the joy of having the flame in one hand and tweezers in the other. And hammers. And drill bits…

Well, I learned the joy of working metal in high school. Sometimes I wish Mr Burkholder would have lived a few more years so I could have showed him some of my early, misshapen silver projects. I think he would have been tickled to know his one female student wound up a working metal. I remember him sometimes, especially when I smell hot steel and scorched lubricants.

Ahem. I ramble.

My gem obsession was a simple side effect of falling in love with jewelry. It started with, “Ooooh, that’s pretty” to “What is this, exactly” to “Hmm. That rhodolite looks a little different from the rubellite, but they’re the same color. What gives?” The last question sent me to California and the GIA for six months. I got my GG for Christmas that year. Best present EVER.

Any way you slice it, I’m a gem and jewelry nut through and through. I can’t even imagine retiring. Stop doing this? I can’t think of one reason to give up working with beautiful things and meeting the people who share my joy.

Enjoy her shop and her knowledge!
♥