All my life, I have worked for someone else. When I decided to start my own business, I was currently working for Bumble Bee Seafoods, the tuna company in San Diego, California. It was the mid 1990's. My hubby was selling real estate. My job was becoming more and more stressful, as I managed the consumer affairs department with all its complaints that came into the company. Negativity surrounded me daily. One day, my boss had asked us all to write goals for ourselves.....so I did. I wanted to create my own business -- one I was in control of, set my own rules, hours, and could personally run, giving awesome customer service. I loved antiques, so what better place to start.

After some years in the antiques business, I grew tired of lugging all the ceramics, glass and other heavy items to shows and packing it up to ship from my online business with Ebay, but Ebay became less desirable. So my business faltered.

At about the same time, we lost our only child, our son Ryan. Life now had lost all its joy and happiness. My husband and I became distant. It was 2006, his real estate business declined, soon after the economy tanked, real estate sales were nearly non-existent. It seemed like everything had taken a turn for the worst, and so did our desire to help ourselves. Nothing is worse than losing a child and so nothing in life mattered anymore. Depression set in for both of us. We struggled with debt and making our house payment. For the first time in our lives, we couldn't pay our bills! We struggled for years with depression. Then one day, while I was managing a local antique store in town, I decided it was time to live life again.....I don't know exactly what triggered it, but I found my desire to live again through my jewelry business. I love jewelry, vintage and antique jewelry primarily. I started educating myself and collecting. I found I had a real eye for it. Got back on the computer and started selling again, along with doing shows throughout California and Nevada and selling in the store I was managing. Eventually, my husband got in on the act, woke up and decided he wanted to join me. So we began our business together and started the process of getting back on our feet.

Then, one day a friend introduced me to Etsy and it has been a God Send. I love this site and the people in it. Etsy is so helpful and forward thinking. It is not like any other website business I have seen online. It has afforded my husband and I a living and business that we are very proud of. I left my job as manager and began working full time building my Etsy business. Then a couple of years ago, I decided it was time to grow again. I wanted to create custom items. I saw a need for creating unique military, political, civil service and other items. My hubby, Mick, decided to join me on this journey and now we work together coming up with different ideas for unusual and custom made jewelry items. Since my hubby was a veteran from the British Royal Navy, we thought it would be fitting to do something that may give a little happiness and enjoyment to the many millions of veterans and our currently serving service men and women. We decided that for every one of our custom made military pocket watches sold, we would donate $1 to the Wounded Warriors Project. Many of our items are custom made one-of-a-kind items. Perfect for gift giving or as a gift to yourself that you will cherish forever. I never get tired of this business, and enjoy jumping out of bed each morning and taking my long commute to my office down the hall.

My husband is my partner in life and in business. We work out of our home studio. We also have a space in a local shop called "Whiskey Flat" in Kernville, California (Central California). We were able to buy our new home outright, with no mortgage, and have a gorgeous view of Lake Isabella and the Kern River. We love it here! I sit down at my computer and create items that are unique and one of a kind. Hubby likes being with people, working the shop and does the actual physical making of our items. I love working on the computer creating the designs, so we make a great team. I'm IN LOVE with our business!!!! It has given us the desire to succeed again and enjoy life once more. Through all our struggles, losing our son, getting into debt and almost losing our home, we are now on the road to success and recovery. We now have a home fully paid for, we are no longer in debt, and we have an up and coming thriving business......we love our life and each other very much.

As a friend of mine always says, life is good, and getting better! Thank you Etsy!!!!