Monday, April 19, 2010

My First Blog

Welcome to my blog. My name is Stephenie and I am a full-time working mother of two beautiful daughters. I have recently started to sell handmade items online at several different online venues including Etsy, Zibbet and Craft is Art. You will find jewelry, headbands, barrettes, pendant, and a few polymer clay items.


One thing my daughters have always enjoyed is being crafty. My older daughter, who is 14, draws beautfiul pictures and has since she was very young, adding detail beyond what you would think a child would do. She has been diagnosed with a degenerative eye problem called Optic Nerve Atrophy. This is the "wasting away" of the optic nerve. It is not correctable with glasses or surgery and the amount of vision loss is different per person. She is currently seeing between 20/50 and 20/70 and it is likely she will have further progression of her visual loss to what extent we will not know, but we hope and pray that she will be fortunate enough to always have some form of vision. This year in school she signed up to do art and I was so proud of her work. It was wonderful to see her get back to something she does so well. It fills my heart everytime she does something that you at first wonder how her vision will impact it and then see her success.

My younger daughter who is 8 was born with bilateral congenital cataracts. Interestingly enough, the two eye issues my daughters have have nothing to do with each other. She has had 5 eye surgeries and has been in one form or another of corrective lenses since she was a month old. Nothing stops her. And day by day, she is becoming more creative too.


The girls actions to overcome their "issues" inspires me to be creative too. I'm one of those people who thought I never had much "talent". I have been scrapbooking now for about 8 years, and my girls love their books. As I look back through the books and see my progress, I become more confident in my work. I also do some stamping, I was even a demonstrater for a stamping company for a couple of years. Then started dabbling with beading. Of course my girls loved my work, but were they biased? So as I wore my jewelry to work people started commenting, and then the suggestion of selling came up. I have to admit it is a scarey thought. What if nobody liked it, what if it didn't sell. Well, I figured I had nothing to loose... that's how Lemonade From My Lemons was born. My mom always talked about when life gives you lemons make lemonade...it is a phrase that has come up many times in my life. And for my girls, the lemons are the visual challenges they face every day. So...we are making Lemonade, lots of sweet, juicy, beaded (oops, maybe not beaded) lemonade. I ask you to join me in my shops and take a peak. I hope you find just what your looking for.







I hope to see you there


Stephenie / Lemonade From My Lemons

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