Sandi began making jewelry in 1997, starting with basic bead stringing and then moving forward to learn and make lampwork glass beads. Since then she has continued to pursue jewelry design by learning how to work with wire, to create various designs incorporating her own glass beads and a variety of gemstones. In 2016, after 18 years of working on her dining room table, she cleared out an area of her basement and set up a small jewelry studio. Sandi's love for a wide variety of glass beads, semi-precious stones, freshwater pearls, and metals, provides an interesting and colorful palette with which to design and make jewelry. Although Sandi makes a range of jewelry items including necklaces and bracelets, she especially enjoys designing and making earrings, because working on a smaller scale provides much opportunity for experimentation and creativity. Various metals including copper, bronze, brass, and sterling silver are used for metalwork. In January of 2021, Sandi started exploring sheet metal and it rocked her world! Being able to cut out and combine various shapes in different metals provided a whole new way of thinking about jewelry design. Her most recent earrings show how learning this new technique has brought about big changes in the work.
