Featured Artist: Christine Stoll of Kathy O Inspirations on Etsy

For this featured artist post, I’m delighted to share with you Christine Stoll’s beautiful jewelry designs. Christine is the designer-owner of Kathy O Inspirations on Etsy.

Christine is another neighbor of Bumbershoot Supplies, located in Bellevue, WA across Lake Washington from Seattle.

Here is her story: “After my Grandma Kathy passed away in 2005, I became the recipient of her amazing collection of beads. I left her house with two of her vintage suitcases filled with vintage and new beads, tools, and antique buttons....

She was a crafty woman – sewing, designing her own clothing patterns, silk screening, and, of course, beading. She began her obsession with beading in the mid-‘80s to early ‘90s. She loved to work with beads, especially freshwater rice pearls, crystals, and seed beads, creating fabulous works of art with her delicate and patient skills. I also received some wonderful pieces of costume and vintage jewelry from her personal collection – I have taken apart some of the jewelry to make new pieces.

Each piece of jewelry I create contains something repurposed, whether it's from Grandma Kathy's bead collection, my thrift store finds, found objects, and personal costume jewelry collection. I like to take pieces apart, using the beads and findings to create an updated look. My jewelry incorporates my love of vintage with a mix of modern – inspired by Grandma Kathy.”

It’s so much fun to visit Christine’s shop to see how she repurposes her Grandma Kathy’s treasures.  It’s extra special to know a bit about the story behind the vintage baubles.  You just know there’s a lot of love in these pieces.

I also want to share some of Christine’s found object jewelry, in particular how she re-imagines computer hard drive platter spacer rings and pairs them with crystals and other jewelry components.  What on earth is a platter spacer ring, you ask?  So did I! It turns out that the data in your computer’s hard drive are stored on something called a platter and if you have multiple platters in your computer, they are stacked, separated by spacer rings such as these that Christine uses in her designs.

I love it!  I hope you too will enjoy a visit to Kathy O Inspirations to view Christine’s designs and for a dose of inspiration from Grandma Kathy and Christine.