My Foray Into The World Of Jewellery Making - My First Attempt!

I *finally* got my beautiful beady things in the post *squee!* Look how pretty they are!  They're just what I wanted to get me started on this new venture.  I spent all afternoon thoroughly researching jewellery findings so I could figure out exactly what I had and how best to use them.  Luckily for me, my Dad has a small pair of rounded pliers so I was able to use those for my first tries at jewellery making, but I know if I carry this on I'll have to get some actual jewellery tools (especially one of those wire-snipping thingies, those are awesome!)

I figured I'd start off with the simple things, so I made a necklace, a bracelet and a pair of earrings and I'm pleased to say it went really well and I loved it!  I really, really enjoyed sitting and threading the beads, learning how to bend the headpin to make a loop for the earrings and figuring out how best to secure everything with only one set of pliers (the edge of the table came in *really* handy today) Here are some pictures of my efforts!

I used the utterly gorgeous cloisonné beads for the bracelet and earrings and the sparkliest gemstone chips in the world for the necklace.  For a first try, I am *so* thrilled with how they turned out and will *definitely* be continuing on with it.  I found it really relaxing, as I was able to keep all of the kitty cats out of the kitchen, put on some 80s music (Talking Heads, I love you) and just concentrate on what I was doing.  Working on this today has really inspired the creativity in me, I'm really excited to learn more about jewellery making and see what else I'm able to do!

I feel like today has been a really awesome day for me; I explored my creativity by doing something new and exciting, I bought a smart black jumper from the Oxfam shop in town (I've been looking everywhere for a smart black jumper and there it was, £2.99, in my size - awesome!) and I discovered some beautiful notebooks were on offer in the bookshop so I had to snap up a couple (a very tiny one for my bag and an A5 one for ideas, inspirations and plans) *AND* I've nearly finished the book I'm reading so I'll be able to make a (small) dent in my 10 things.  Not to mention that every day I wake up excited and happy that my boy and I finally set a date for me to come over *squee!* I set out to make this year my year and I really think it's going to be one of the best so far!  Now I'm off to go look at the Indie Business site to see what exciting, inspirational words have been posted!  Toodles!