How I started beading

I really kind of fell into beading by accident, never dreaming that one day I'd have a bedroom with beads in every nook and cranny.

I used to have a small flea-market stall where I sold Mexican arts and crafts. My favorite craft were the Huichol Indian beaded carvings. They carve a piece of wood into whatever shape they want, cover it with a soft wax, then cover it with beads. Some of these carvings are breathtaking!

Unfortunately, business was very slow in the store, so I spent my days imitating the Huichol art by gluing beads onto objects. I started out by decorating the rims of clay pots.

Then I started decorating products. Here are two samples, a cereal box and a laundry soap box.

I pick up each bead singly and glue them on, one by one. It's very slow work, but it's actually pretty relaxing. Even now, when my jewelry beading mojo disappears, I'll work on a beaded clay pot.

Eventually I had a pretty large collection of beads, and I was running out of things to put them on, so I wondered if I could learn to make jewelry. I looked up a few sites on the internet, beginning with Ruby's Beadwork, and never looked back.

I love making beaded jewelry. I love wearing it, and I love giving it away. But beads cost money! I'm in no danger of running out, believe me, but there's always another color or shape that I just have to have. That's why I'm so eager to try designing. I want to sell my creations to earn money for more beads, and I can't sell jewelry made from patterns. I could probably sell one here or there to a friend or family member, but I want to have an ArtFire store, and for that I need original designs.

So, as Paul Harvey would say, now you know the rest of the story.

Cat