For my 50th birthday a good friend of mine gave me a bag of beads. She had seen some of my work and encouraged me to branch out. That started an avalanche of ideas and creativity.

 

I love nature and working with natural gemstones. This is where I draw most of my insperation for my designs. I also love Hill Tribe silver and incorperate it into many of my pieces. Most of the silver I work with is Argentium sterling silver. All Argentium silver is made from reclaimed silver. It is modified to have less copper and a touch of germanium added to it.

This makes it very tarnish resistant so it keeps a nice shine and can be cleaned very easily if it does becomes dull. I also

like using PMC silver clay which is made form reclaimed silver as well. This is precious metal clay that can be formed into shapes and then fired to harden. It is 99.9% silver after being fired and is also very tarnish resistant. All of my jewelry is handcrafted by me in my home studio.

 

I hope you enjoy my work and that it brings you the pleasure it brings me when I create it.

 

P.S. If you know someone that has a passion for something... give them a "bag of beads". You never know what may come from it :)

 

Mary Lou Osterhous

Owner/Designer