Lazy Day

"What makes life dreary is the want of a motive." ~ George Eliot

     According to Eliot up there, my life is quite frequently dreary. Insert sigh here. Completely unmotivated and uninspired today. I'm bored as can be and can't think of a single thing I want to create. It's rather maddening. I did make a good steampunk necklace yesterday. That was satisfying. Of course, my mother thinks I'm crazy because she doesn't know what steampunk fashion is, and if you've never seen it before it can be a little confusing. So when I showed her my necklace with three or four different colored metals, she didn't really know what to say. I find my parents' reactions to my jewelry and drawings rather amusing. Sometimes all they can say is "That's interesting..."

     So since I have nothing I'm working on to write about, let me just share a random tip for people who are just getting started making jewelry. Always check out stores that carry jewelry, even if they don't carry jewelry-making supplies. Antique stores, fashion jewelry stores, department stores, yard sales, flea markets... whatever. Check them out from time to time. Not only can you get inspiration and a sense of what people are currently buying, but you can also find some really sweet deals on jewelry that you can later take apart and use for beads. For example, this weekend I went to a store called Serendipity in Griffin, GA. They sell all sorts of stuff from baby clothes to luggage to, of course, jewelry. But this store didn't just sell a few nice pieces of jewelry... oh no. They had two giant racks of cheap costume jewelry on every aisle... and every rack had (total guess here) at least 500 pieces of jewelry. Necklaces, bracelets, earrings... But that's not all. Each aisle was organized by color. So we're talking about approximately a thousand pieces of jewelry for each color. A thousand blue, a thousand purple, a thousand black, etc. How much does all this jewelry cost? Each piece on the rack costs $3. That's it. So I walked out of there with one bracelet and four necklaces for $16 after tax. Yesterday I cut them all up and now I have a bunch of beads that I desperately needed. While you can buy a little tube of tiny seed beads for about $2 or $3, I wound up with three times that much from just one multi-strand necklace I bought.

     There's my handy-dandy tip for the day. Just don't forget to make sure the jewelry you're cutting up isn't worth major bucks. That might make you cry.