Ten Life Lessons I Have Learned from Making Jewelry

One favorite book I’ve read as an adult is All I Really Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten by Robert Fulghum. Consider this my homage to that book, adapted for the jewelry-making set.

1. Focus on the task at hand. Life and business coaches are all touting “staying in the moment” these days; they recommend people spend less time in their heads because that generally leads to overthinking everything. In the practice of making jewelry, this is really important. If you don’t pay attention to what you are doing and your mind starts to wander, you will inevitably make a mistake…or worse, hurt yourself!

2. Venture outside your comfort zone. Learning and using different jewelry-making techniques helps to not only broaden your skill set, but also to expand your imagination. If your primary focus is metalwork, for example, explore wirework, beading, metal clay, or epoxy. You never know, you might find something you like even better than your “first love” in jewelry-making!

3. Patience is not just a virtue…it’s a necessity! Speeding through a project not only affects the quality of the work; it diminishes the “journey” in creating the piece. Part of the reason we create jewelry is because we enjoy the activity! Where’s the satisfaction in rushing through it, just to be finished? Also, working quickly often has the opposite effect than we intend: instead of saving time, we often waste more time having to correct sloppy mistakes than if we had taken our time in the first place!

4. There are no shortcuts. Whenever I’ve taken a “shortcut” in making a repair or creating a piece, I have regretted it more often than not. The resulting piece tends not to be as resilient as it would be if I’d taken the time to start again from scratch, and it usually falls apart or breaks again. Your best bet is to take the piece apart and start all over from the beginning…as annoying as this process may be at times. In the long run, it is much more efficient than to try mending something that should not be mended. The end result will be work of a much higher quality.

5. “You buy cheap, you pay twice.” I’m not sure of the origin of this quote, but I have found it to be acutely accurate. I have purchased findings and materials from craft stores and some online vendors that proved to be of inferior quality – breaking easily, not working properly, or turning color for example. Of course, these pieces have been returned for replacement or repair. Since I would never charge a customer to replace an inferior part in one of my pieces – naturally, that’s bad for business – I end up “paying twice” by replacing the broken part with a higher quality one. Had I used a higher quality item from the beginning, it would have been factored into the price of the piece, and I would not have incurred a loss.

6. Sometimes, “good enough” is indeed good enough! Perfectionism, in general, is highly overrated. As my grandfather was so fond of saying, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Quit while you are ahead and leave a piece alone, and you will be much better off than if you damage it irreparably by “fixing” something that didn’t really require it.

7. Turn every problem into an opportunity. We’ve all had materials break or somehow become damaged, either in transit or while working on a piece. There are two ways to look that this situation: (1) you have a problem to be solved; or (2) you have an opportunity to go in an entirely different direction than originally planned! I don’t throw away anything – cracked or broken beads, faded findings, found items such as safety pins, buttons, etc. – you never know what will inspire a new idea. Pieces of broken beads can be set into resin or metal clay, cracked focal pieces can be wire-wrapped to cover the flaw; broken decorative clasps can be used ornamentally in larger pieces. My personal motto is “don’t stress…’distress!’” Steampunk has come into fashion again, making vintage, industrial, and “distressed” pieces more and more common. If nothing else, I am creating my own unique style while recycling items that would otherwise end up in a landfill somewhere.

8. Bigger is not necessarily better. Particularly in jewelry-making, there are times when creativity must give way to function and comfort. I have seen some fabulously artistic and imaginative pieces out there, but they are too bulky and heavy to be worn by anyone. If you are designing pieces as an artistic expression to be displayed in a museum, that’s great! However, if you are creating pieces to be worn, make sure they can be worn!

9. Know when to take a break. We’ve all had experiences in which we’ve been working hard on a project and it’s not going as well as we’d like. Feelings of frustration and weariness can affect our state of mind at times like this, as well as our concentration. Once we reach that point, it is time to put down our work and come back to it later. I have ruined more than one piece by trying to “work through” these periods instead of calling it a night.

10. Just because I don’t personally like something, doesn’t mean it isn’t good. I have made a number of pieces that I was thisclose to taking apart, only to decide that I didn’t have the time or wasn’t in the mood. In time, most of those pieces have been sold to people who appreciated them more than I did. Taste is incredibly subjective. If you are dissatisfied with the way a piece turns out, don’t presume it has no value. I guarantee you, 80 percent of the time it will to someone else.