I love showing my pens and others things to new people! 90% of the time their response is : 'Wait, you made that?'.....
Let's back up a bit to how I got into this unusual hobby:
In the summer of 2018 I had a realization that I had lost myself and my own interests to being a mom/school counselor/wife/cook/taxi driver etc. over the years. At the time, my oldest was 11 and youngest 4--that is a long time to not have your own hobbies! I must admit, I am quite terrific at these things and greatly enjoy most of it. But given time or money of my own, I couldn't find anything I wanted to do that didn't involve my kids or husband. Well, like many of you, we watch a fair share of YouTube around here--mostly about DIY household projects, gardening,or woodworking (my husband is a great handyman to have around!) and he showed me a video of a man using a lathe to turn something. I WAS HOOKED! Watching the wood fly off and become a smooth surface is absolutely mesmerizing--I needed to try it. Luckily we have a Woodcraft store here in OKC that happens to have classes on Saturdays to learn all sorts of techniques in the wood shop and they had a pen turning class coming up in July! We made that our big date for the month and made a day of it together. Despite owning a great deal of power tools and large woodworking equipment, I hadn't really used much of them before. I had a lot to learn that day, but had a fantastic time and knew I wanted to do more. It didn't take long before my awesome husband started sharing 'his' garage with me and 'my' new lathe :)
Soon after I started my new hobby, our church announced that there would be a group going to spend time at the Pearl House in Ghana--I have wanted to go there for about 5 years (since I first learned about it) and finally had the opportunity to make it a reality! I needed to raise a good chunk of money and decided I needed to sell some pens. I bought 2 pen styles (Princeton and Cigar) and a 32 pack of African hardwoods and started making a bunch of pens. Some of them I had engraved with 'Jesu' which is Jesus in Twi (the language of the region we would be going to) which was really special. Each of those pens had a story and I hope to continue that line of thought as I create new things and make more pens for people. I want my products to make the recipient feel special and think of the gift giver in a special way whenever they use their pen (or pen light or seam ripper or key chain...). And I want to continue having people ask me: 'Wait, you made that?'
