Keep looking

Like many other people who are interested in some craft, I too have hoarded a respectable amount of supplies over the years. My jewelry making started with the love of glass beads and now I have all kinds of beads in several boxes neatly arranged, at least most of them: glass beads, metal beads, wooden beads, different shapes, sizes and colors, new beads, old beads - even some that glow in the dark. Not to mention all the other supplies that are needed for jewelry making. It´s great to have variation - otherwise you notice really soon that there are not enough pieces that fit together - but it can also be overwhelming. It can stop you in your tracks thinking "so what am I supposed to do with all of this?!"

I´ve tried macrame jewelry, working with different metal wires, making resin pieces, tried different ways of decorating pendants which included editing my own photos and then doing various test prints to print them out to be used as a picture in the pendant – only to find out I didn´t like them; I´ve used buttons instead of beads, collected used stuff from second hand shops, used some good money to purchase stuff which I found out I wasn´t able to use as I thought... All these things take some space in my shelves. They have also taken time, energy and money. At the same time I noticed that it wasn´t so easy to find supplies that really did the job. There´s all kind of not-so-quality-stuff out there (I actually had to put some in the trash bin) and for a long time I didn´t find what I needed. That also stopped me.

The answer to me has been "keep looking". Yes in the middle of it I´ve been very very frustrated a lot of the time. But I think finally you find something that works and even after that you can change things if needed. As a maker you sort of have to deal with the messiness of everything and the messiness of being creative and always wanting to try out new things. Life is not organized – but at least you can always learn something!