“Jewelry maker started with gifts”

Posted: 30 Nov 2010 09:00 PM PST

By LENORA LAKE | Tribune correspondent

Published: December 1, 2010

LUTZ - Jackie Hoover found herself buying more and more handmade, beaded jewelry through a co-worker for relatives as gifts.

"Why don't I teach you to make it yourself?" the coworker asked.

So about five years ago Hoover, 51, of Lutz began making beaded earrings, necklaces and bracelets for her daughter, mother, sister and other relatives.

When Hoover took some to show friends her progress and ask their opinions, they asked to buy them. One friend showed them to a gift shop owner who asked if Hoover would be willing to sell her pieces at the owner's Tarpon Springs store.

Hoover also began showing at area arts and crafts shows and will be taking part in this weekend's Lutz Arts and Crafts Festival at Lake Park. It is her fourth year in the 31-year-old show, which will have nearly 300 participants.

"I think it all just kind of came naturally to me," Hoover said. "I grew up in a household where the women wore jewelry."

Her mother and grandmother came from Berlin, and her mother worked in the jewelry department of a retail store.

"European women put more of an emphasis on jewelry," she said.

Hoover buys many of her beads online, ordering them from India and Austria. Some are from local bead stores or ones she finds traveling.

She likes matching the beads to shoes and clothes.

"I just vision what piece of jewelry should go with it," she said. "And then something will just hit me about certain beads. I like that color, I like that shape."

She often takes a single bead "as a focal point and the jewelry is created in my mind."

Earrings start at $10 with many necklaces between $30 and $40.

"There's something about getting a unique, special, one-of-a-kind piece," she said.

Hoover works most of the summer on the inventory and does between six and eight shows during the fall and spring.

She said the Lutz show is one of her favorites because "it is well organized and pulls in quality vendors."

The Lutz event is sponsored by the Lutz-Land O' Lakes Woman's Club and proceeds benefit projects including libraries, scholarship funds and schools.

Shirley Simmons, who is the festival's co-chairwoman along with Phyllis Hoedt, said more than 260 artists and craftsmen will be there offering paintings, home décor, wearable art, jewelry and food gifts. Another 10 spaces will be used by food vendors and about 20 nonprofit groups, including the Lutz Patriots and Bowers/Whitley Career Center, will have booths.

She said when the weather cooperates, between 30,000 and 40,000 people visit the festival, according to counts the organizers get from park rangers who assist with the event.

The event also reflects the community spirit of Lutz, she said.

"We couldn't do it without the Boy Scouts who campout both nights and provide the security; the Civil Air Patrol which does the parking and the rangers helping with everything," Simmons said.

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