Grow your Blog post.

      Here we are at the big day for the Grow Your Blog Party!!. I  am really excited to take part in this so I can meet more bloggers and grow my circle of blog friends. Thank you so much Vicki of 2 Bags Full for organizing this party.
     My name is Nan Smith and I live in Hamilton, Ontario , Canada. It's a medium sized city about 1 hour's drive west of Toronto at the western end of Lake Ontario, near Niagara Falls.

      I started making jewelry as a hobby several years ago and it quickly became my passion. There are so many different techniques and styles to explore but I especially love wire and metalwork although I also dabble in bead stringing , polymer clay beads,and most recently discovered Zentangle which saved my life during a high stress period this past

summer.
      I joined the blogging world a year ago when I signed up for Lori Anderson's Bead Soup Blog Party and was introduced to the wonderful world of jewelry blogs!!!! I'm now quite addicted to blogs and not just about jewelry making either. It's just so much fun to learn about everybody's passions through this media. I have made several good friends and look forward to making more.I even hosted a blog hop last June and it was great fun. Hopefully with new followers as a result of this party will bring more participants to my blog hop this year.

     I have more time these days for blogging , jewelry making, playing with clay and making zentangles since I retired in December from a 38 year career as a Registered Nurse. I miss it because it was a very satisfying and rewarding profession and I miss the daily contact with patients and their families. I do not , however, miss the physical and emotional toll that working at the bedside in acute care nursing takes on one. I am amazed at how the level of stress in my life has disappeared and I have much more creative energy these days.
     I am  a divorced, empty nester with a wonderful son, Robbie(26) ,who lives in Toronto and is taking a business diploma at a college there. Maybe he will help me get my own business up and running with all his new knowledge about marketing. Hopefully this will be the year I open an Etsy shop and get a website up and running . It promises to be a busy year with that, jewelry making and regular blogging!
      I recently moved here from Toronto where I lived for most of the last 40 years. I now share a 113 year old house  with my friend Marie . There are many things I miss about big city life but the pace of life here is slower and quieter here and hopefully more conducive to the creative life. Marie has a business selling vintage jewelry  online so we are quite the pair. I prefer  a  modern, edgy, urban, minimalist style of jewelry

and she specializes in vintage jewelry with a large focus on wedding jewelry including pearls and pretty sparkly items for the bride and mother of the bride. Our tastes are very different but occasionally we find something that seems to overlap all styles and appeals to both of us.

     I hope you enjoyed reading my blog and will follow me on my journey! I will follow you when I find your blog! Goodness knows how we are all going to manage to read over 500 blogs!!!! It will take me weeks but it will be fun!
PARTY ON!