Reminiscing After Ten Years with Spitfire Designs Jewelry…..

October 22nd, 2014

I’ve been wanting to write a blog, but what about?  I am still on a high about my recent trip to Wyoming.  Many people due to my FB business page already know about this, but they don’t know how I made it out there.  Life takes funny turns that happen in the blink of an eye.  One minute you are sitting poolside on the boardwalk in Ocean City, NJ and you are talking to some fun great woman you connect with who was from New Jersey but moved out to Indiana.  She is telling you about her recent upcoming wedding in Wyoming and how she is marrying her high school sweetheart, a man she dated years ago.  They had both married other people, had children, but met up a second time.  And, well this time they were getting it right and getting married on a ranch in the gorgeous state of Wyoming.  I was hearing all about it, the dress, the diamond, the kids, etc.  We talked about having aging parents, how crazy it is that celebrities are starving themselves and how the jury is out on tattoos.  Some are in, some are out.  I was going home that day, said goodbye to her and received an email later while I was sitting on the beach.  She was ordering jewelry from me and I was so happy to hear from her.  We kept in touch, sent each other emails and 2 months later she invited me to one of the most spectacular weddings I had ever been to with 60 other guests.  I fit right in!  The love story, their love story was what made it so special, their friends were so nice, and the beauty of Wyoming was a show stopper.  That and the gun shooting.  Annie, get your gun!  Loved it.  To Kim and Dave and to second chances and Life Dinners!  And, to meeting people in brief periods of time and somehow just innately knowing that this person is from the same tribe as you.

It seems so long ago and yet it was only a month ago.  Time keeps on slipping, slipping, slipping, into the future….

It’s been ten years since I started this business and there are some key moments I want to reminisce about.  When I first started and I didn’t know I started, the first person I told was my sister, Debbie.  I called her up and said, “I am making jewelry.  Do you want to see it?”  She was always up at night and a night owl she was.  I drove over to Ridley Park, PA and as usual her home was spotless.  I walked in and laid down 5 necklaces that I had made on her dining room table.  She looked over them all and went, “Wow!  They are awesome.  Hol, this is it, this is what you need to do.  This is going to make you rich!”  That’s funny, but hearing that from my older sister was a big deal.  And, then she put on Dave Matthews Band and we danced to #41 along with a few other songs.  It was like some sort of celebration.  Nicole Napoli was the first person to have a homeshow for me and that brought in people from her family and friends along with my family and friends and then my sister came dashing in at the end and bought pieces which to this day I have a hard time with that, but she wanted to bring them into her dental office in Media.  Media Dental.  Then, “Media Dental” wanted me to come in with all of my jewelry.  It was a series of stories like this every time I turned around.

A few months later in 2004, I was visiting family up in Vermont near Brattleboro and this crazy snowstorm was going on.  I had on this great pair of earrings I had made.  I say they were great because of the glass they were made of.  I was walking along in the snow and this woman stopped me and said, “I love your earrings where did you get them?”  I told her that I made them.  She pulled me in out of the snow into a store and asked, “How much do you want for them?”  I wasn’t prepared.  I was freezing and worried because I was 45 minutes from where I needed to be.  Anyway, I sold her the earrings off of my ears.  It was 2 months into the business, so I knew it was possible this could work.

Then there was the time I got lost coming home from Vermont 8 months later and was lost in Rye, New York.  I went into a store to ask for directions and the woman asked how much my Citrine necklace was.  I walked out with $150.00 and a bare neck.

One of the most memorable times was at my doctor’s in Philadelphia in 2007.  Not just any doctor, but a GYN.  They all new there that I made jewelry.  They had me come in and sell in their office.  The doctor loved my work.  She wore purple cowboy boots and her favorite colors were purple and orange.   So, she loved anything bright and shiny.  For her, the more bling, the better.  Well, one day I was in a room waiting to be seen, disrobed and in comes a nurse with a patient.  “Hi Holly, this patient is from New York and wants to buy some jewelry from Philadelphia, but we figured you may have some jewelry on you.  Do you?”  Wow….now this is a new one.  I always brought jewelry because the doctor loved jewelry.  She loved my jewelry and couldn’t have enough, so I did have it on me.  “Yes, I have some.”  But….what a I weird way to sell it and yet hilarious.  She bought the “Silver Celt.”  She bought one of the first one’s ever made and one of the most popular necklaces I have ever made.  I got it out, while I had on this creepy paper gown…!  WOW…the patient didn’t care at all.  I have come to realize, women will do anything for jewelry.  They will get out a checkbook while you are standing there half naked.  They don’t even notice.

And then there is this little number….this needs to go into that book that I keep meaning to write.  Back in 2007, I went out for a night out on the town celebrating my friend’s husband’s birthday in Phildelphia and ended up meeting this guy who was a student at Wharton.  He was tall and very good looking and much younger.  9 years younger.  I tried to keep my distance all night, but my friend was like, “Holly, really?  He is gorgeous, so what if he is younger, he likes you!” So, I gave him my card and he emailed me telling me how much he enjoyed meeting me and how much he loved my jewelry.  He wanted to know if we could have dinner and if I could bring my jewelry.  I was nervous and excited.  Hey, a guy who is 9 years younger and attractive and clearly intelligent and he wants to buy some jewelry…this is the perfect date!  Oh, boy.  He was so nervous.  I called him, “fidget.”  He told me he thought I was beautiful and then went on to tell me that he wanted to buy jewelry for this girl that he went to Wharton with.  They weren’t a couple because she had a boyfriend, but he loved her.  Umm….what?  Oh, brother…another guy who is a mess, but he wants some jewelry.  He ended up buying jewelry for the girl he loved who had a boyfriend, his mom and his grandmother.  It was an awkward transaction, one where he tried kissing me at the end.   At the same time, it was so funny.  A few weeks later I received an email from him telling me that the girl he loved loved her necklace but didn’t love him and hence, he was quite sad and asked if we could be friends.  No response from me.

And then there are those voices, the ones with unsolicited advice that needs to stay behind the lips.  In 2006, “Holly, you really should learn true metalsmithing otherwise your work will really never get off the ground.”  This was said to me at at the “Brush and Palette’s” Holiday Artist Event where the owner would bring in 3 artists and I was one of them.  This woman (artist) with her advice sat there while my jewelry was selling.  Her pieces were seriously stunning at $700- $1,500.00.  Beautiful pendants on a very simple chain.  The pendant was all that mattered.  My pieces were much less expensive and my work was selling….mucho.  Anyhow, as her jewelry sat there, not moving, she told me I would need to learn the next medium.  I would need to become a ‘true jeweler.’  Oh, as opposed to what?

Anyway, because I valued her opinion and I am open to learning, I agreed and went and enrolled at the Delaware Art Museum’s Metal Smith class for 3 months.  Intense, serious and boring.  I was never so bored in my life.  I realized just why it is that her work is so expensive other than the fact that it was stunning, because it took hours upon hours to create.  Hours of sweat, cutting, shaving, sawing, polishing the silver, gold, or copper that she used and all for something that I could buy already made and for a fraction of the cost due to the fabulous medium known as “casting.”  You make a cast wax shape of what you want and pour metal into it and it turns out in no time flat unlike the hours of tedium that it takes with sawing your metal.  Yup, metalsmith classes were not for me.  When I stopped going to class, she called me and told me, “Your type of jewelry will not be in forever.  You need to come back to class!”  Who knows, maybe she is right?!  But, that was in 2007 and it’s 7 years later and I am selling more now than I was then, so what does that say?  Not to mention, my work has changed.  It always does as with everything and everyone.  I am not a one trick pony.  But I am glad for that experience because I learned a lot.  I learned how to solder and how to put holes in components and metals and how to polish metals and I need to do that.  I learned things that I needed to know, I just use it how I need to use it, but not to make a bracelet that takes 3 days and 24 hours to make.

And all of those growing pains, I have stopped having them.  I don’t get as upset about stuff.  It breaks, you fix it.  The website doesn’t work, you find someone to fix it.  You need help with an event, I have several employees that I rotate and if they can’t do it, you ask a friend. Things are easier.  It’s not as crazy.  I don’t have as much anxiety about the small stuff.  I feel like I am in that sweet spot with the business.  It took me some time, but I am here.

I think back to some of the first pieces I ever made.  I gasp at some of them and yet they sold!  But, there is one that I always look at and love and my sister really loved it. I brought it in to her when she was in the hospital.  It was in February of 2005, so a few months in to the business.  I made this purple Agate and Stick Pearl necklace with Sterling Silver.  A 3 strander.  She held it in her hands and loved it.  She kept feeling it and looking at it and up at me.  She asked me if I could make her one.  Anyway, I always kept it.  I never wear it.  It’s still waiting for her because I don’t feel that anyone else should ever wear it.

Thanks, Debbie for dancing with me to DMB a few times and for cheering me on with this gig I started ten years ago.  Thanks to all of my clients and my friends and my mom.  Thanks to all of the love in my life.