Many Hats

I am a woman who wears a lot of hats. While I do have several hat boxes in my closet filled with stylish vintage chapeaux that I like to wear on occasion this post chats about the many hats I wear in my work-day world.

Most of you know me as a "Jewelry Educator." A teacher of all things jewelry-related. I love teaching others to make jewelry and many of those students have become successful jewelry designers in their own right, designing and selling their own jewelry line.

I love that. LOVE IT!

Now it's my turn.

Yep. I have a new hat. It's called "jewelry designer." I have always designed and sold jewelry during my career, but on a really small scale. Home parties, trunk shows, the occasional craft fair. I have always designed pieces with my student or a class in mind. But now things are changing. Don't worry! I am not taking off my teaching hat. I have A LOT of cool teaching gigs coming up in 2014 (more on that soon.) This is just an addition to the hat collection.

Some of you may know my longtime friend Jess Gaston of Jess Imports. She sells beautiful jewelry components at trade shows. Earlier this year we were at a show together and were checking out the finished jewelry that was offered for sale. That lead to a discussion about trend and business and the people we know in the industry and why didn't we see anything that we really liked and why can't it be made in the USA and what if someone produced a cool, affordable, trendy but not too trendy line don't you think that might sell and that naturally led to..."Hey, wait a minute! Why aren't WE doing that?"

So we are.

Meet the Gaston Collective.  Her idea is to bring together American suppliers and artists, supporting them with a living wage and work that they enjoy and feels meaningful. Things have been ramping up this past year with a few trade shows (with a favorable reception) and the addition of artists Cynthia Thornton and Bob Burkett to the mix. It's been so so so fun to create and collaborate and design. This is just the beginning. Jessica's dream is actually starting to come true. I am so excited and proud to be a part of that.

This January is the big debut of the line at three big trade shows in Atlanta, Dallas and Las Vegas. We are moving full steam ahead. And we are asking for a bit of help.  Enter crowd funding and really cool contributor perks. We have created an Indiegogo campaign (Indiegogo campagin link is here.) to help gather the funds we need to get things kicked into high gear for January.

So if you can contribute, that would be awesome! You will have our sincere thanks and get a really cool gift in return. If you can’t contribute, that doesn’t mean you can’t help. We'd really appreciate if you would help pass on the word via social media, word of mouth,  or in your holiday newsletter (okay, just kidding on that one.)

Here is the link to our Indiegogo page. 

Thanks for reading and thanks for your support!

We have got a winner!

Hi Gang!

Thanks so much for your kind comments. The random number generator just picked three winners and they are as follows:

Kath who said:

Love to play with fire, and I think your book would give me a boost of inspiration. Also "liked" on FB, twittered on k8ofkatehall & instagram kate_jewelry. 

Debbie who said:

I have watched your "Metalsmithing at Home" video on Craftsy many times. You are an absolute hoot! I adore your enthusiasm, your sense of humor, not to mention you are so talented. I don't have a copy of "Simple Soldering" so winning a copy would be amazing! Soldering is one of those things that constantly eludes me.
(Debbie I could not contact you through Google, would you send me your info using the contact on my blog?)

And

Deb who said:

Oh could I be this lucky!!! Looks like a beautiful book and DVD!

 Whooohoooo! Congrats and I'll be contacting you shortly and mailing them off.

Thanks again and I loved reading each comment.

My Book-a-versary and a Giveaway

Unwrapping my first shipment.

Comments are closed! A Winner to be announced shortly.

November 27, 2012. It was official. My first book with DVD included, Simple Soldering: A Beginner's Guide to Jewelrymaking was released.

What a year it has been.

My heartfelt thanks to everyone who purchased the book. I love reading your emails and Amazon reviews! (Seriously, if I am ever feeling down, I click over to my review page. Thank you for all the love.)

WOW! There it is!

People have asked me how long it took to write and my ready answer is "20 years." My whole career moved me to the publication of my book. It was a labor of love and I still get excited to think that I have my very own ISBN number. 978-1596685505 to be exact.

It was the most amazing process. Scary. Easy. Hard. Exhilarating. Fun. Challenging. All at the same time. I could not have done it without the help of my family, friends and students. They propped me up, gave good advice and tested and tested and tested the projects.

Acknowledgements from the book.

There were some really fun parts of the process, but the most fun was when I traveled to the offices of Interweave Press to shoot the video and photos for my book. 

Me and my wonderful editor, Erica.

My dear friend Mary went with me to keep everything in line. (Seriously, everyone should be so lucky to have a friend like Mary. She seriously kept me on task and organized.)

Kate & Mary on set.

Mary put her theater skills to use and raided the prop room
at Interweave to decorate the set.

We shot the book video and all of the photos in four whirlwind days. It was such fun. And I learned a lot. That's the talented Joe Coca behind the camera.

Smile for the camera, torch!

It takes a village. Seriously.

So how to celebrate such a momentous occasion?? With a giveaway, of course. I have THREE autographed copies of my book to give away to my readers.

All you need to do to win is to leave a comment below. I will pick three winners at random next Wednesday, December 4. If you already have a copy of my book, then you can choose between a book OR instead I'll send you a link to take my Metalsmithing at Home class on Craftsy.com for FREE! Just let me know which one you'd like to win. This giveaway is open to everyone, not just USA readers.

Want extra entries? Repost the giveaway on your social media (Twitter, blog, FB) and come back here and let me know in the comments. Comment once for each extra social media posting so I can count each as an entry. Make sure I have a way to reach you in case you win. If you are an anonymous poster, just leave your email in the post (cryptically, like this... name (at) provider (dot) com.)

This...

..or this!

Leave your comment below and good luck!! And of course Happy Thanksgiving to all of my USA readers. Have a happy and safe holiday!