Bringing good luck with P.E.I. Wishing Stones by Toni
All her life, Toni Vary has picked up pretty stones. So, when she Springfield moved to West in western P.E.I. in 2017, she soon found herself spending hours walking the beautiful beaches nearby.
“Naturally, I would come home with my pockets full of beautiful and unique stones,” says Vary.
With her being new to the Island and not knowing a lot of people, Vary was in search for a hobby. This set her on a quest to find ideas of what to do with all the stones she brings home from her walks. Her first step was to buy a rock tumbler, and then a drill press so she could turn the polished stones into pendants. Next came a grinder for cutting and polishing the stones, followed by a stone saw.
“And I was well underway,” she says.
With equipment in hand, Vary says she did a lot of research on polishing and tumbling stones. YouTube is a fantastic place to start learning techniques as there are lots of very detailed videos that are great for learning, she says. It was a lot of trial
learning and error too, she says, the correct bits and the correct pressure to use.
Once she had all that sorted out, Vary went online shopping for jewelry findings, the little things that connect the stone to the necklace. Once they were in hand, she played around more and came up with different ideas.
The earrings are very tiny stones, so are quite difficult to drill, says Vary. On the other hand, she says, her fridge magnets are a fairly simple process — that is once she found the best adhesive.
creations, Despite all her artistic Vary does not really consider herself an overly creative person.
“But everyone I showed my necklaces to seemed to like them, so I figured I would keep making them,” says Vary.
In the beginning, she was only making things for friends and family because she needed something to do with all the stones she had brought home.
From there, Vary's business fell into place — something she had never set out intending to do. P.E.I. Wishing Stones by Toni was formed.
The idea for the business name came naturally to her. One of her friends was wearing one of her stones and she said it was her good luck necklace for bingo, and she would rub it for good luck. This is when Vary and her husband came up with the idea of using the words ‘Wishing Stones.'
“If you hold one of these stones in your hand, you will find yourself rubbing it in your fingers,” she says.
Today, Vary makes polished stone pendants and earrings, along with fridge magnets, key chains and ceiling fan pull chains. She also makes some sea glass items.
The idea for the ceiling fan pulls, says Vary, came from her just waking up looking up at the fan in her bedroom and admiring the little butterfly
on the end of the pull chain. She immediately thought, 'well now there is a great place for one of my stones!'
To find the stones for her creations, Vary says she generally stays in West Prince, as she loves the beaches at West Point, MacDonald Shore and up to Campbellton and Tignish.
“When we are travelling and exploring the Island, I will pick stones as I go,” she says.
When out walking, it is whatever that catches her eye, especially if they have a unique shape, or colour. She also says it is best to find the stones when they are wet. How you see the stones when they are wet is how they will look once they are polished.
You also have to look at the
type of stone as some simply will not polish up, she says.
Once the perfect stone is found, each one goes through a six-week process of different grits and polishes. They are then cleaned in a solution before drilling.
When deciding what to make, Vary says she just looks at the stones or glass and tries to find the best place to drill to make the beauty show better. The shape of the stone or glass is equally as important as the colours, she says.
Sometimes, people come to Vary with special requests of things to make.
For example, she was once approached by someone asking if she would make a pendant from a stone they had found. Vary said she could try, but when they appeared with it, it was actually not a stone, but more like a small boulder. Her husband took the sledgehammer to it and broke it down, and from that small boulder, Vary was able to make four or five nice pendants for her children.
She has also mailed necklaces to Ontario, Newfoundland and England and to a friend's wife in Slovenia. Another lady, who found her through a news story, came to her house on her yearly trip from Nova Scotia.
Vary runs P.E.I. Wishing Stones by Toni as a hobby, working from a room in her garage. COVID, she says, slowed things down considerably, so she now has a good stock made ahead, so now she can just putter at it when she either needs something special made or has the time.
As for the future, Vary might help her sister-in-law with setting up a craft store, but she's always looking for new ideas.
Anyone interested in seeing or purchasing Vary's stone creations can find them in O'Leary in Follow Your Heart Woodworking and P.E.I. Creations.
She also takes her jewelry to The West Point Craft
Shop in West Point, and as long as the pandemic does not mess with her plans, she says she will be back at the Westisle Christmas Market this fall.