Starting Out

I am no expert at all on jewelry making, but I think one small piece of advice I would give to someone wanting to make jewelry with beads and stones is to only buy beads and stones that you REALLY like.

Long ago in my teens when I first started wanting to make jewelry I went to the local craft store and bought a bunch of cheap beads in every color. I thought that if I had them in every color then I was covered for whatever type of project I wanted to do. The same went with ear wires and other things like that. Cheap.
Even when I became an adult I kept buying ugly cheap beads because I didn't want to pay more for the better stuff. I always wondered why I never liked the final product.

What I have come to realize is if you start with pretty materials to begin with you really don't have to do anything fancy to end up with something nice that you will actually want to wear or give as a gift.

I am thinking about this right now because I just purchased several beads from various Etsy sellers and can't wait for them to show up in the mail. I received one of the packages today with several large nuggets of turquoise. I took them out and instantly wanted to make something. I whipped up this wire wrapped ring and I love it. It's so simple, but when you are working with stones you love you can let the stone speak for the piece on it's own.

I am off to make some dinner!