I got my start making elastic bracelets with beads
People often ask me how I got started making jewelry. My answer is just as common as many other jewelry designers’: I saw a set of stretchy elastic bracelents my aunt wore to a family reunion, and said to myself, “I could make that.” After a visit to the local bead shop, I sat at my diningroom table, surrounded by elastic, glue, and a colorful array of beads, and strung bracelet after bracelet. It was so much fun.
It didn’t take too long before I wanted to make something more ambitious. I picked up several copies of “Bead and Button” Magazine, and purchased even more beads, this time not only from the bead store, but from eBay as well. I became a little more discerning about glass and crystal and vintage glass beads too. And I began to make simple jewelry for friends.
Some of my early work used crystal, vintage glass, and Bali sterling silver beads. These pieces are called "What's For Dinner" because I made them from beads left over from other projects. Get it? LEFTOVERS!
One of the skills I struggled with was crimping. I had crimping pliers, small and large. I had Softflex and Beadalon in every gauge possible. But I just could not make the ends of my necklaces look finished and polished enough, no matter what I did. Rolled crimps didn’t seem to hold, so I mashed them flat. That looked like dreck. Then I experimented with crimp covers: but they didn’t come large enough to cover my mashed crimps. I experimented with knotting on silk, but with all the crystal and vintage glass beads I used, I worried about the sharp edges of the bead holes fraying the thread.
The next step in my self-taught career was to learn how to make wire loops. That way I could wire beads to chain, and wire the end of the necklace to a clasp. My first experiments were successful, but ugly! It took me about 6 months to master the art of making round loops with my pliers. (That’s when I learned about really good tools, by the way. See my earlier post, “In Praise of Pliers.”)
I learned how to make wired wrapped loops with a lot of trial and error. Mostly error.
Meanwhile, I kept buying beads by the bucket. eBay became my fast friend. My desk was littered with seed beads, vintage Czech beads, Japanese beads, Swarovski crystal beads, beads from necklaces scavenged from yard sales and flea markets, beads I bought in vast quantities from other fledgling designers on eBay who were dumping their supplies, or moving on to something else. Naturally, I had to think about what to do with all that inventory. Coupled with pressure from my husband to either make money or stop buying, I chose to try to make money. Very luckily for me, a local art gallery was happy to take my pieces on commission. But I realized that I wanted to move away from making what I considered to be “costume” jewelry into fine jewelry, and that is what prompted me to start to learn about gemstones.
I consider this necklace to be the first representative piece for Gemella Jewelry.
By this time, I think I was well on my way to becoming the professional artisan jeweler I am now. But you know what? There will never be an end to learning, to getting better at what I do, and to keep evolving. I still love what I do, and care enough about it to challenge myself every day to go just a little further. So while I can easily answer the question, “How did you get started making jewelry?”, I hope I’ll never be able to answer the question, “How did you come to the end?”
