We are John and Tracy Seekins. We have been married for 18 years and been through our life ups and life downs. Over the last year we have become Full Time RVers. We live and travel in our camper, as well as create all of our art and jewelry there.

John creates all of our sculpture, paintings, woodburnings and other art as it strikes him to do so. He has a creative hand and an eye for detail. He is on a constant search to create the perfect item. He strives to achieve beauty and detail in all that he does. John has been drawing/sketching since he was 9 years old. Creating art has always been his love. Only recently, within the last 6 months, did he begin creating sculpture and paintings. Most days you will find him at the table with all his art items around him creating something new and wonderful.

I, Tracy, craft all of the jewelry items. I have been crafting since I was about 10. I have used many different mediums of crafting including but not limited to plastic canvas, crocheting, card weaving, jewelry making, and much more. I decided to focus on jewelry because it brings me the greatest amount of satisfaction when I see the completed product. Not often do I create two items that are the same. I like variety and creating unique items. Though, when I find something I like a lot I have been known to create a few similar items so that I can have a pair and then sell some too.

Our Shop is “Jinxy’s Fine Gifts”. I named it Jinxy’s with the original intention that it would be for my jewelry. Jinx is a cute little nickname I got when I was 16 and I have always loved it and used it. I quickly realized I wanted to include John’s art in my shop but we already had people who loved the shop so I didn’t want to change the name. So we added the Fine Gifts to envelope the entire store.

As I said we are Full Time RVers but we also do workamping. What that means is we do a few hours a week of work for the campground in exchange for our rent and utilities. So usually on the weekends we are working but the rest of the week you can find us busily creating arts and crafts in our camper.

John gets a lot of his inspiration for paintings from places we have been or things we have seen along our journey of life. Lazy Days, one of his paintings, is actually a combination of two different campgrounds we stayed at.

John’s sculptures come from somewhere deep within. He often just throws a lump of clay on the table and stares at it until something starts to form in his mind. Then he will begin to work the clay and quite often it becomes something much different than he originally thought it would.

I myself just see the jewelry create itself right in front of me. If it could do it without the help of my hands, sometimes I imagine that it might. It just becomes what it wanted to be. I created a necklace just recently that I was sure was finished but apparently it wanted more beads because I finished it three times before it finally felt and looked finished.

We opened our etsy shop during Memorial Day weekend 2008, so we are still very new, however promoting is a vital part of running any business. I spend at least an hour a day in the forums on etsy learning, chatting and promoting. I have business cards on order for handing out locally. I wear my own jewelry and I am often asked about it. I also provide links to our shop on every site that I belong to online and in my signiture line in my email. This week I plan to completely overhaul my myspace page to promote my Etsy Shop and my newly published poetry book, “Poems for the Soul” published through lulu.com.

All in all John and I enjoy creating our art and jewelry. We love what we do and we love to share what we do with others. We hope that this will become a good income for our family but even if it doesn’t we won’t give up and we won’t stop because we derive great joy from creating.

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