Kenzie Oestmann started her silversmith journey in May.
She said her love for making and creating things from scratch was “born into me.”
Oestmann’s new home-based business, Saddle Up Silver, features handmade jewelry, created in her shop at her Marysville home.
Her grandparents, mother and brother own and operate their own businesses.
“My grandma started me on sewing machines at Needles I so I began with quilts, then my mom opened up a flower shop so my creative mind got put to the test with floral arrangements,” Oestmann said. “Making things is in my blood.”
She said she took a short online class but “that was more to get my feet on the ground and see if this was something I would truly enjoy or if I would end up burning the house down.”
“The rest is mostly trial and error,” she said.
Oestmann uses lots of equipment, multiple sets of pliers and cutters, all kinds of wires and silver, copper tweezers, flux and a crock pot to help with fire scale.
She makes earrings, necklaces, cuffs, rings and pendants.
“My favorite thing to make is all of it because if I want to change something halfway through I can,” she said.
Most requested are necklaces and earrings.
“Silver just hit an all-time high of $100 an ounce right now, but gold is much higher — in the $4,000s,” she said. “For my kind of work I only use silver.”
She sells jewelry pieces in her mother’s store, The Farmer’s Wife in Auburn, Neb., and she also has a website, saddleupsilver. com.
Oestmann works only with stones that she finds, and she especially likes working with turquoise stones.
One of the newest trends is the Cotton Candy designed stone, which features a blend of turquoise, green Sonoran and pink conch combined with white.
“The Cotton Candy stone designs have really taken off,” she said. “They are colorful and the pink conch is really popular and gives a new look to traditional turquoise jewelry.”
“I am always willing to look for something if you have something specific you want,” she said.
She said every piece she makes is different.
“The hardest piece I made was a 15-stone necklace,” she said. “It is so rewarding seeing finished pieces. I always get one done and say, ‘Oh this is my new favorite.’” Her hobbies and interests are rodeo, horses, sewing, taking her dogs on walks and helping with fiancé Ben Dwerlkotte’s cattle operation. She competed in barrel racing and roping calves on the rodeo circuit in Nebraska.
Oestmann enjoys cooking, especially desserts. Butterfinger Dessert is one of her family favorites and is made by her grandmother Connie Dorsch on every holiday. Dorsch uses chocolate pudding as a variant for vanilla pudding. Her grandmother Linda Oestmann is known in her family for her amazing sugar cookies, Kenzie said. Nutmeg is her secret ingredient.
Kenzie is a native of Auburn and graduated from Southeast Community College, Beatrice, Neb.
