Kristen Stoner isn’t in your face asking if you’re registered to vote or handing out fliers. People just come to her.
On the Reitz Union Colonnade, Stoner’s orange and blue jewelry creations catch the eyes of sneakered parents dangling canvas Preview totes, a man in a tie eating a Burger King Whopper and students in sunglasses sipping on Starbucks.
Stoner, 39, said she makes about $500 a day selling homemade jewelry at the Reitz. Summer is prime time because of all the parents on campus.
This time, her profits go to the UF flute ensemble she advises as a professor in the School of Music. But on gamedays at the United Downtown festival and other events, she keeps the money.
She’s not bored sitting at a table from 8 a.m. until 4 p.m. She can always play Words with Friends on her iPhone. It’s the wind that gets on her nerves.
The wind blows over a wooden across the walkway and flaps Stoner’s black velvet tablecloth. The earrings make a light clinking sound.
Her beads and trinkets, tiny metal gators and anchors and music notes, plastic dice and peace signs, feathers, glass beads and colored stones, are imported from Asia and South America, Stoner said.
Stoner’s display of 600 pieces has taken time to collect. Some of them she made last night, and some she crafted two or three years ago.
“You made all of these?” customers ask.
“I know, I know,” Stoner said, her blue eyes rolling behind her red-framed glasses. “Crazy.”
