Do You See What I See?

I took one look at these metallic beads and it was love.

“Ooh, ooh, ooh!" I said.


Aren’t they gorgeous?

Nancy did not share my feeling.

“Oh, that necklace," she said. "I don’t know if I want to even work
on that.”

People sometimes ask me, “Should I even bring this to you?” I always tell them, “It’s completely up to you. But it’s not about what you originally paid for it (lots of people bring in family jewelry, for which they paid bupkes), or if anybody else sees the value in it." My rule for design and restoration (and life) is quite simple: “If it's important to you, it's important to me.”

This works both ways. I see potential all over the place. But other people don’t always see it, and the customer’s the boss. We were already working on a number of other projects (yes, you’ll see them soon), so I just said, “Okay.”

But I still loved those beads. When I would look at the necklace from time to time, they just shimmered. Every so often I would say to Nancy, “I know we’re not doing anything with this necklace, but I still love it.”

“Uh-huh,” she said.

I left it at that. Lots of other fish in the sea.

One day Nancy said, “Okay. Go ahead.”

So I designed this.


“I’m going to wear that all the time!” she said.

“Told you,” I said.

©2011, 2014 Laynie Tzena.