Always Remember....A brand new line at Erk N' Jrk Creations

Always Remember......

Have you ever heard this phrase? I have...a thousand times over.

This idea came to me not long ago and I just knew that I had to do something with it.

So without further ado....

Erk N' Jrk Creations presents:

Always Remember...Funny, Sentimental, and Quirky...Thoughts To Live By

This collection is a series of soldered pendants. Each pendant features two sides with one side having a funny, vintage, or interesting photo with the reverse as a reminder to Always Remember.

Here's a pic of the work in progress. Each pendant has been hand foiled with hand cut glass and soldered by us!

Pre-soldered pendants featuring the reverse "Always Remember" sides.

Here are the finished products! I will be adding more and more as I make them!

Trepidations, self esteem, salvation

Wow..where to begin.

Let's start with trepidations....

The definition of trepidation is basically the feeling of dread. That would be the correct word to sum up the idea of sitting in front of a table, creating things by hand, then having the audacity to think that someone would want to purchase these things. Who the heck was I? Who do I think I am? Are these things good enough? Will people like them? What if they think it's shoddy work?

Can't you just hear all of that negativity buzzing around like a swarm of mosquitoes in the middle of summer?

Those were only some of the thoughts I was having when I looked at everything I had created just sitting there staring back at me and basically saying, "What now?"

I sat on my creations for quite a while, months actually. I debated on doing craft shows but never quite committed to anything. I showed everyone I knew all of the things I had made and reveled in the praise and "oooos" and "ahhhs" everything received, but would very quickly fall back into that shadow of self doubt and wondering if anything I made would actually be good enough.

I guess it all comes down to self esteem; something that I have lacked in the past, and I'm sure will always lack no matter how I try to compensate. I am fortunate however, to have another half, a partner, a friend, a soulmate to knock some sense into my rather large thick head (with great hair btw).

Salvation came in the form of someone who always gave me support, encouragement, and had the guts to tell me when something was just plain horrible without slamming me so badly I never wanted to pick up another soldering iron or bead again.

To put it simply, this post is a thank you to my other half for always having my back.

How did we get our name?

This has been a question that has come up lately! Well...without further ado...here's the story of how Erk N' Jrk Creations came about.

My partner and I sat down and talked long and hard about trying to market some of the things I had been making. See..she is the business minded one, and I'm the not business minded one that just likes to make things. We made a pot of coffee and began the talks that would eventually give us our unique and very different name.

We decided that we needed to come up with a name. After tossing about a million or so of them it pretty much all came down to one thing; while some of the softer names like Moonlight, and Sunbeam, and Shadow whatever were wonderful names for some wonderful people, they were just not right for US.

Well as you can imagine, these talks went well past our bedtimes and our patience and at one point we MIGHT have gotten a little annoyed with each other. (Gee imagine that!). At one point in our heated conversation my partner (whose name is Eleni) looked me square in the eye and said, "You are a JERK!". I blinked because imagine my surprise. I hardly think I'm a jerk and was very much not liking my most favorite person in the entire world at this point. So the first thing that came to mind was this..."Well..you just IRK me!"

Then came the moment of absolute silence followed by gut-wrenching, belly jiggling (I promised to be truthful here!...Just for the record, it doesn't jiggle THAT much though) laughter we knew and the realization that we had the perfect name for our little endeavor.

With a little tweaking, and play on Irk..(so we could have both letters of our name in our business name) we came up with Erk N' Jrk Creations...also known as Eleni and Jennifer! She Erks me and I can be a Jrk! (We wouldn't have it any other way though!)

I hope that clears everything up on why such a strange name. We love it, we will keep it, and hopefully others will find it as amusing as we do!

::hugs and smooshes::
Jenni