Beads beads beads & a pack of Laurentien 24s

I arrived early to my beginner’s jewellery-making workshop tonight and spent the time browsing the amazing inventory of beads that they have in stock. I was really excited by what I saw—pearlescent, translucent, sparkly, matte, natural, metallic, enamel, semi-precious—there seemed to be an endless array of beads in every colour of the rainbow and the shades in between, and I was sorely tempted by the lot of them.

Given the choices, it took me a good 20 minutes to decide on what beads to use from the limited selection included in the class materials. I changed my mind countless times and finally had to stop looking at them and read my book or risk changing my mind again.

We learned the basics of using the various pliers to cut wire, crimp, loop and close through the making of a pair of earrings, a leather necklace with dangly beads, a floating necklace and a beaded bracelet. I wore the beaded bracelet home and bagged everything else. While I love the design of the wire necklace I made, my execution was quite poor—I need to practice my crimping. I figure I can cut the wire and re-string the beads later. I’ll take the wiring workshop next and perhaps decide then whether or not to invest in a pair of wire cutters and some pliers. Although it’ll probably be just a $40 initial investment, the last thing I need is to buy something in the heat of the moment, so to speak, only to have it collect dust somewhere later because I got bored or lost interest.

I think this new hobby might possibly teach me the virtue of patience. I’ll need a lot of that when it comes time to string together the tiny beads to form some of the long strands I will need for the design of a necklace I have presently flitting around in my mind.

Maybe I'll start putting pencil to paper and get my design ideas down...oooh...I can buy pencil crayons and do the drawings in colour! The last time I bought pencil crayons might have been in grade 9, when I took geography and needed them to colour my maps. I'm getting all nostalgic now, thinking about it, because a Laurentien pack of 24s was a definite must-have for back-to-school...my favourite colour was ultramarine, if only because it had a cool name.