Here is where I tell you I've played with beads since I was a little child, have always loved jewellery and everything else that sparkles,...wrong. As much as that scenerio would fit in well with this website, it simply isn't true.

In fact quite the opposite is true. When I sat down to write a fluffy about me page, to help you understand how my jewellery has gotten to the point it has, I couldn't bring myself to write the above statement and/or how much I love jewellery, because it's not how it is,..and I just don't love jewellery. However, books, tools, electronic equipment and of course my family, not necessarily in that order :), are my weaknesses, and are what really 'floats my boat'.

So now,...while this may not quite be what you'd expect to read, here is where I tell you how my jewellery really came into being. Not your typical story of someone's progression into jewellery making, let me warn you.

Just add 14yrs of laugh lines to this picture
and it's up-to-date.
Whaahaha,.... oops! there's another one :)..

A little background first, leading up to how and why jewellery making came about for me.
When I was a child, (I hear you snoring), I played with toy cars, marbles, playing & swap cards, kicked around soccerballs and footballs and took apart old radios and electronic equipment to see how they worked, sometimes to fix, but mostly for the purpose of harvesting really cool objects for constructing working 'gadgets'. These gadgets were often constructed from timber, tins, nails, rubber bands and any of my found objects. Some of my favourites were a working pinball machine and a 'Light Switcheroffera', constructed on the wall of my bedroom (much to the horror of my mother), that enabled me to turn my light off from the other side of the room without getting out of bed. :)

I caught frogs, tadpoles, crickets, tied strands of long hair to blowfly's legs so I could hold them on a 'leash' and watch them fly around in circles (better fun than a balloon), and I raced snails up walls with my friends until my mother got tired of silver snail trails up our verandah walls and pointed to the icecream container holding 20+ of my fastest snails and said they'd really enjoy a sprinkle of salt to eat. I was devastated by the loss of my entire racing team and watched in horror as their froth filled the container. Need I say it,.. I was not a girly girl back then and could chuck rocks further than most of my male friends. I was the child my father made mow the lawn each week and work on things with him in the garage despite having an older brother.

I fought and won a battle with my high school to allow girls to take Woodwork and Metalwork classes instead of Sewing and Cooking classes which were then our only options, so I was the first girl to take 'boy' classes......ooooooh!. I'm no longer that tomboy,. however you'll never catch me with long fingernails and high heels. :)

I planned to have a career in carpentry and began a course after leaving school. Our class was framing up our first house and I was half way through first year when a Govt job offer came up and the money was too good to refuse. I spent the next 15 or so years in various Govt jobs all in the computer industry, and ended up managing a computer network for the last 10 years of my service. I left Govt employment to start a new, and by far the most rewarding career, of raising our three children which is where I've been for the past 11 years. Now here is where the jewellery making comes in, are you still reading? :)

In 2000, I decided to find something I could do from home and still be there for the children, to bring in a little income for our young family, and an internet search brought up the usual 'make money from home' things which didn't interest me, but it also brought up jewellery making,.. the first time I had ever heard of such a thing, and I was curious because it suggested I could get creative at the same time. I was already playing around with watercolours at the time and the thought of making a little income from another creative pursuit was appealing. And why jewellery? you may be thinking, if I'm personally not 'into' jewellery myself? Well it has more to do with the creative process, tools and techniques, as well as the size of the finished 'creation' that I love so much. For me, it's like small scale sculptures that just happen to be small enough to wear.

So, leaving watercolours behind, I pursued jewellery making for several years (you'll find pictures of this work in Galleries ). For the most part, I loved making jewellery, though I gradually became incredibly frustrated with wire because of it's limitations (or so I believed back then), and going back to watercolours seemed the only way I could achieve certain creative techniques/elements that I craved, but believed wire as the medium could never provide. Chasing a desirable creative outlet for me had gradually become the priority over making an income.

Recently though, I have made a return back to jewellery making after over a year absence while playing with watercolours. My time doing watercolours again was absolutely wonderful and I gained far more from the experience than just better watercolour skills. You'll find these watercolours also in the Galleries. That year of intensive watercolour painting of at least one painting per week, every week, gave me more ideas, insight and knowledge of flowing freeform, blending colours and creating a 3D effect on a 2D canvas.

I really believe my background in watercolours has helped me come back to jewellery making with a fresh appreciation and now unlimited possibilities of wire as a medium, a renewed excitement and personal challenge of how far I can push wire. The results of which, you can now see on the jewellery Store page. I feel I have only just begun.

More recently, my time is dedicated to writing quality jewellery Making Tutorials. I had been asked many times over the years if I would write tutorials and I guess I just wasn't ready back then. Now that I've started, I believe I have truly found something I thoroughly enjoy doing. Not only do I still get to make jewellery, but what I really love is the personal challenge of designing new and exciting pieces for the tutorials. I remember what it was like when I first started making jewellery, so I hope my tutorials will be a source of great enjoyment for other jewellery makers.

D.K.Heath.....