Meet Your Merchant: Couple turns passion of rock hounding and jewelry into a successful business

As a teenager in upstate New York, Deborah Hill fell in love with the search for rocks, fossils and minerals, a pastime also known as "rock hounding." It was a thrill when she discovered that Herkimer diamonds could be dug up right in the woods outside her own hometown, situated just north of the Mohawk River They weren't real diamonds, of course, but to Deborah the double-terminated quartz crystals were just as beautiful. At age 21, she and a friend packed up and took off on a six month rock hounding trip all over the United States With guide books in hand, the two fell in love with the thrill of the hunt, whether it was it the coral fossils of Florida, the sapphire of North Carolina, the selenite crystals of Oklahoma or the smoky quartz of Montana "It became a passion — the beauty was astonishing," said Deborah.

"I began mailing boxes . Source