Visualize your Jewelry

When I was a kid, we used to get a Sears catalog every year before Christmas. I would spend a lot of time looking at the pictures of all the toys and stuff and eventually tell my parents what I wanted, and most often I would receive it. I know now that this is where my creative abilities were developed. As a child I was totally into playing, I lived in a fantasy in my mind and spent many, many hours playing with all the various toys that I had over the years. I never lost this and playing has been my modus operandi my whole life. Consequently, I have experienced a lot of good things because I lived this way... but that is another story.

The reason I bring this up is because I want to say how important visualizing is in developing a jewelry style, what a good aid it is in creating jewelry that is your own. Books are good -- there is a multitude of books on the market that will give you ideas. But hopefully the things you see in the books are only launching points for getting the skills you will need to make the pieces that you want to make. I have seen a lot of jewelry that is just a copy of another piece of jewelry. I want to encourage you to shoot higher, to believe that you can make the pieces that you imagine in your mind, instead of just becoming another cookie-cutter copycat artist.

I have been using a certain catalog as a visualizing tool since I started making jewelry, when it was a little skinny thing. Now, it has grown to a 2" thick monster with everything you could ever need and more. What is the catalog? Well of course it is the Rio Grande Company's. Before I say more, here is the phone number, 1-800-545-6566. I have used this catalog like I did the Sears catalog when I was a child. I have spent many hours looking at all the tools and imagining what I could do with them. This visualizing was a key to my success at learning to make jewelry.

I was a obstinate kid, if I wanted to do something I was not going to give up. Well, I ended up with an Art Degree and I have tried many forms of art making. As a Jewelry Maker, I am mostly self taught, but where did I get my inspiration? From books of course (I will talk about some of these in my next post), but I must give a lot of credit to the Rio Grande catalog. Of course they are not the only Company selling jewelry tools and findings, in fact a quick search on the internet will net you a bonanza of information. But the internet didn't exist when I started making jewelry.

So call them and get a Tool catalog (ask for the Findings catalog too) and look it over. Imagine what you can do when you put my mind to it. I am grateful to my friend who gave me the phone number when I started. Enjoy making jewelry and learning to express yourself this way and don't get caught in the money-making aspects too much. Keep it original and you will enjoy every minute that you spend making your jewelry, it will never be like work. If you do this people will be asking you for your jewelry and you will make all the money you want effortlessly. I am amazed at how many people now own my jewelry, even Internationally.

I hope this info helps you in your jewelry making quest. Thanks for dropping by and check back soon.