About Handmade Joy BR

Everyone’s life should read like a book, with many chapters.  My chapters are a bit unconventional, with some side-trips, and circle-arounds, but each chapter builds upon the past and points to the future.

I started out as a little suburban girl.  My favorite activity was camping on the Gunflint Trail in northern Minnesota, and hunting for agates with my Dad on the North Shore of Lake Superior.  And, like many other little girls, I dreamed of having a horse.

The dream came true when I was 12 years old, and my parents (completely out of their comfort zone) bought an acreage in the country and started building a horse farm.  From that point on, starting as the greenest of greenhorns, we started breeding, training, and successfully exhibiting some pretty top-quality Arabian horses.  The experiences on the farm led me to pursue a career in veterinary medicine, and start my own equine and large animal practice.

Some years later, God became a big part of my life.  I put my veterinary career on pause, and pursued a doctorate in theology.  I worked in churches, taught in Bible schools, and spent years on the mission field, mostly in war-torn parts of Africa.  To this day, Jesus is still the center of my life.

Upon return to the U.S., I faced numerous health challenges.  I taught veterinary technicians, and even dealt high stakes black jack at a large casino.  I returned to veterinary medicine, this time with small animals.  A heart-to-heart conversation with one of the clients led me to pursue a post-retirement business of making jewelry.  It started slowly, with my sales emanating from friends and a local farmers’ market.  It took me about three more years to retire (sort of) and engage more fully in the business.  My passion is in unique and beautiful stones (a throw-back to hunting agates with my Dad) and creating jewelry with them.  I am now including fossils and shells.  I’ll also make jewelry from a myriad of holiday-themed charms which are the mainstay of the craft markets.

I continue to go to craft shows nearly every weekend….I love the environment, the challenges, but mostly, the people.

I believe that jewelry is personal.  With every sale, I want to make sure that YOU are 100% satisfied with your purchase.  I cringe when I see items for sale where you just click on an item, enter your address and payment, and that’s it.  So, in starting this website, I wanted to offer a personal experience where YOU get to place YOUR input into YOUR purchase.  It may be asking for a different style or length of chain, or a different type of clasp.  Or maybe you see a stone bracelet with metal work, you love the metal work, but you’d like a different stone such as amethyst instead of carnelian.  So we enter a conversation over email to make sure that you get exactly what you want.  Wear with pride something YOU helped to create!