Coming Up in April

Wow! April will be a busy month for me, for a change. Usually it's one of my slower months as the craft fair season hasn't started yet, but this year I've got some stuff planned:

~I'll be doing The Beads and Baubles Downeast Spring Bead and Jewelry Show on Friday, April 16th (12:00 noon to 6:00 p.m.) and Saturday, April 17th (10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.) on the second floor of the Maine Grind building on Main Street in Ellsworth. I'll have some finished jewelry there, but the focus will be on handcrafted pendants and beads made from metal clay (silver and copper).

~On Tuesday, April 27th I will be teaching a workshop from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon at the Woodlawn Museum (known to locals as the Black House): Making a PMC Pendant. This will be a quick and fun way to make your own jewelry piece to keep or to give for Mother's Day. For more information or to register, you can go to the Woodlawn Museum website.

~Last, but not least, April 25th through May 2nd is Vasculitis Awareness Week. As you know if you have followed my blog for a while, I have Wegener's Granulomatosis, a form of Vasculitis. It's a fairly rare autoimmune disease. While most people have at least heard of the more common autoimmune diseases like Lupus and Rheumatoid Arthritis, many people have never heard of Wegener's. And so to raise awareness and help raise money for research, I will be donating 10% of my sales through my Etsy shop during the month of April to the Vasculitis Foundation. Also during April, I will be giving small copper Keep Hope Close to Your Heart charms with each purchase.


To bring more awareness to Wegener's and Vasculitis, I will be writing a bit about my experience with Wegener's and I hope to tell others' stories as well. Along with that, I will be doing a giveaway. In order to raise awareness, people have to hear my story (and those of others) and to hear my story, people will need to read my blog. So in order to get more people to follow my blog, I will be giving away a large Keep Hope Close to Your Heart brooch. The design is still in the works and once it is finished I will have photos, as well as more details on how to get a chance to win it.

So, stay tuned for more information. If you or someone you know suffers from any form of Vasculitis, I would love to hear your story and possibly include it in my blog in April.