There are several positive aspects associated with taking up jewellery making as a creative activity. But if you are hooked, how can you keep doing it in a way that is sustainable and pleasurable over the long term? Continue reading for more of our top advice!
It doesn’t matter how you got started in the pastime of producing jewellery; that’s not important. It’s one of those hobbies that can really get under your skin, and before you know it, you’ll find that you’ve lost count of four hours every time you work on it, and you’ll have a lot of teeny-tiny jewellery pieces sitting about.
As a person who enjoys crafting as a hobby, you want to ensure that your jewellery making pastime continues to be pleasurable over the years and that it will continue to exist for years to come.
The Advantages of Engaging in Creative Activities
To begin, let’s take a cursory look at the many positive aspects that might result from engaging in a creative pastime such as producing jewellery. The most significant benefit of having a creative pastime is that it is a stress reliever (I know some of you are thinking, “It should be, but sometimes it raises my blood pressure rather than reduces it,” and we’ll get to that in a moment).
Your creative interest may also help you feel better about yourself and offer you a feeling of accomplishment when it comes to finishing anything you started.
It is also good for your brain since you have to figure out how to construct something, and you may have to come up with solutions to problems if things don’t go quite as planned. Having activities that require creativity might not only push you beyond of your comfort zone but also help you meet new people.
How to Get Started With Your New Hobby of Making Jewelry
The most enjoyable aspect of picking up a new pastime is always getting started! The majority of the time, those of us who enjoy making things stumble into new creative hobbies by seeing a brief video on social media, having a friend or member of our family persuade us to give it a shot, or attending a brief community education-style session someplace.
Since we now feel compelled to produce jewellery as our new pastime, we should go out and get the necessary materials.
You Will Require These Supplies
To begin, you are going to need certain tools. The particular list will change based on the type of jewellery that you plan to produce. The tools that are need for beadwork and metalworking are not necessarily the same.
However, the following is a list of the essential items that the vast majority of individuals will want before they can begin crafting jewellery:
- Flat, chain nose, and round pliers are all types of pliers.
- Shears and cutters for wire and sheet metal
- In the Xuron blog, you may read more about these tools, as well as one of the jewellery tool producers that we admire the most.
- Beading projects require the addition of the following, as well:
- Cutters with an extremely fine tip for use in confined spaces
- Pliers used for crimping
A jeweler’s adhesive like Starbond
- For example, Also, your resources, which include things like stringing wire, beads, jump rings, crimp beads, and closures (I.e. spring rings or toggles)
- Organization! Prepare for this in advance so that you don’t wind up throwing anything out.
- Check out our blog post on “Best Beading Tools” for a complete list along with further info.
- If you want to pursue the road of metalsmithing, you might also want to include any of the following items, depending on the project ideas you have in mind:
- You’ll need a sand bag or bean bag to help muffle the noise, as well as a bench block, which is a tiny metal block that may be used to quickly hammer your metal.
- Hammers of several types, including rawhide, cross pein, ball pein, chasing, and stamping
Jeweler’s saw frame and blades
- Files and sandpaper are examples of abrasive materials.
- Check out the post on our blog titled “Essential Tools for Your Jewelry Studio” for a more comprehensive list, including which soldering tools you’ll need if you want to give that a shot.
- It’s easy to feel overwhelmed when looking at the list of equipment and supplies, but remember that you don’t have to run out and get everything at once.
- Begin with a few fundamentals so that you can get started on your first projects, and then build to your library as your abilities improve. Keep an eye out at all times because you never know when you might get lucky and find some useful second-hand tools at a garage sale or an online marketplace.
Maintaining the Fun Aspect of Your Jewelry Making Hobby
Let’s circle back around to the idea of the stress-relieving benefits of making jewellery as a hobby. Your hobbies ought to provide you with a respite from the stress of everyday life and make you feel better about yourself.
Take a step back and give one of these suggestions a shot if you find that your hobby is beginning to cause you stress.
Have Fun!
This is something enjoyable to do when you need a break from the pressures and stresses of real life, unless you have every intention of turning your jewelry-making hobby into your sole source of income.
Your viewpoint ought to be the only one that counts in this discussion. Imagine some designs with a sense of humour! Find the most unique beads you can get your hands on. Mix and match things on purpose in order to examine the aesthetic results. Make your dog the source of your creativity!
Establish Relationships
Make the most of this opportunity to forge new friendships and strengthen the ones you already have. If you decide to enrol in a course, you will most likely make some wonderful new creative friends. You should have your friends over for a night of making jewellery while drinking wine.
When you get together with a great group of other creative people, making jewellery is even more fun than it already is. You could also try to find local groups that get together to work on projects together, or you could look into some Facebook groups to connect with makers from all over the world.
Take a Break
Take a break from your break! If you enjoy making jewellery as a hobby but find that it’s becoming stressful, you should set the project aside for a short while.
Try starting off with a snack break to see if taking some time away from the stressful situation helps relieve some of the tension. In that case, you might need to take a break from the project for a day or two before returning to it with the right frame of mind to finish it.
Make a Change and Try Something Else
If you find that one of your hobbies is causing you stress, try switching to something else! It’s possible that the creative juices aren’t flowing as well for you today when it comes to making jewellery.
Put some effort into one of the other creative projects you have lying around; it’s common knowledge that crafters always have at least a couple of unfinished works of art lying around.
When you have finished your other project and feel like you’ve accomplished something, you may find that the creative juices for making jewellery start flowing again.
Be Aware of Your Constraints
When it comes to crafting, one of our favourite phrases to say is “I can make that.” But there are times when we have to be honest with ourselves and admit that we just can’t “make that.”
We are all constrained in some way, whether it be by the tools at our disposal or the set of skills we possess. Having a clear idea of your capabilities will help you steer clear of stressful situations and keep jewellery making an enjoyable hobby.
Stay away from perfectionism.
You are not going to be able to achieve perfection in your jewellery making hobby, which is something that some of us may find difficult to accept. You are going to make mistakes, particularly in the beginning of the process.
You run the risk of the cut lines not being straight, of mismeasuring the length of your stringing wire, and of not polishing and finishing your piece to a high standard.
But that’s not a problem! Your jewelry-making technique will improve as you make more pieces, and you will become more adept at avoiding common pitfalls as you work. Make sure that your pursuit of perfection does not interfere with your ability to enjoy making jewellery.
Make the making of jewellery a hobby that can support itself.
In principle, it is in your best interest to maintain your jewellery making hobby for an extended period of time.
Since we are crafters, we are aware that beginning new hobbies does not always come cheaply; therefore, we want to make sure that this one can be maintained for as long as it can continue to bring us pleasure and satisfaction. If you want to keep your hobby going for the long haul, give some of these suggestions a try.
Establish Accurate Timelines for Your Projects.
Keep in mind that making jewellery is currently your hobby; you don’t want to tyre yourself out by doing it too much! Using your hobby time to create Christmas presents for your loved ones is always a productive and enjoyable endeavour.
However, you should not attempt to make a piece of intricate jewellery for each aunt, uncle, cousin, and in-law in the final two weeks before Christmas. The more components you want to create, the earlier in the process you will need to get started.
Make sure that the timeline you set for your projects is reasonable by taking into account the possibility that your other work and responsibilities will get in the way.
Put Your Jewellery Up for Sale!
Even if you don’t plan on turning your jewelry-making hobby into a full-fledged enterprise, there’s no reason you can’t make a little extra cash on the side to help defray the costs associated with it.
You may be able to set up shop at craft shows that are hosted by local community organisations, particularly those that take place around the holidays. You could also provide your friends and family who are looking for a unique present for a loved one with the option of using your services as a jewellery maker.
Make sure that you are familiar with any local laws that pertain to the point at which the sale of your jewellery is considered to be a business.