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Subject: |
Dr. L's Jewelry (Part I): From Hobby to Passion |
| Date: |
2009-01-21
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Dr. L's Jewelry (Part I): From Hobby to Passion
Hi. I’m Dr. Laura and welcome to my "bead sanctuary". It’s a sanctuary for beads and it’s a sanctuary for me. I got into making necklaces in an odd sort of way. We were going through a lot of difficult things in the family, and one day my son came to me and said, “Mom, you’re either working or you’re being sad. You have to get a hobby.” He was just a little kid! It’s amazing how insightful they are at young ages. And I decided…okay, what am I going to do that I don’t have to take lessons for ten years in order to do it well? So that left… let’s see… skydiving out.
So I thought, one day when I walked by a store, I could just make jewelry or something. I mentioned it on air one day and somebody wrote and said somewhere in Santa Monica there’s going to be a bead festival. You go down there and you can buy stones and things and what-have-you. And, I had absolutely no clue how you go about this. I went down and I just saw a lot of things that I didn’t like and didn’t think were pretty and didn’t look interesting and looked a little trashy and cheap. So, I said, “Obviously, this is not for me.”
And, as I was walking out of this place, I passed by a table that had all these Tibetan ornaments that were 50 years old and more. And they were frogs and weird looking animals and, of course, if you knew me at all you knew that would appeal to me! So, I bought up a whole bunch of this stuff, not having any idea what to do, went immediately to the bookstore, bought all the books I could find, (You’ll see those in a moment, they’re on shelves) and I just started reading, reading, reading, reading, trying to figure out how to do things and -- you know -- how the clasps wouldn’t break and fall off and what kind of stones would go together. And basically, what I learned is you just have to “feel” it.
So, I’m going to take you to a little bit of what I’ve developed over these, almost, 10 years now that I have made jewelry. I make them for various charities. I don’t get reimbursed for one cent because that, to me, is not charity. If you’re getting reimbursed, it’s a business. So I don’t get reimbursed at all, it’s my pleasure, and we have raised something like $125-250,000 per year for Operation Family Fund, which you’ve heard me talk about very often, because four times a year we will have a big sale on our website. And that’s been always very exciting. We take a week, I nag you about it every day and you buy these things [Dr. Laura holds a necklace] and you accomplish two things: You have something really pretty to either wear or give away and you help a family in need who’s had a family member die or become severely injured in the war on terror in Afghanistan and Iraq. So, it’s all good news.
I’m going to take you over now to show you my nuttiness and how I collect stones and fix things and give you a whole lesson on what it’s like when I come up here and just bury myself in all of it and come out with all of these creations. So, let’s go that way.
End of Part I; to be continued in Part II
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