I decided it was time to get off my bum and do something that required stepping out of my comfort zone this New Year.
It also requires commitment, something I'm a tad bit scared of. You know, cause there's always those dreaded "What if's". "What if I can't find the time,...What if my designs aren't as nice as the other's,....What if I can't stay on track,...What if,....What if,....What if,......"
I'm really not a fan of "What if's",.....and my commitment is to take them out of my brain!!
So, I stepped up to a challenge that I heard about through
Rena Klingenberg's Newsletter/Blog/Website's -
Home Jewelry Business Success Tips, it's called The
Year of Jewelry Project - 2011, and it's where designers create a piece of jewelry a week through out the entire year and post their finished project each week to the website - and the cool thing is they even have themes you can follow each week if you'd like to (or need inspiration and suggestions, such as I do!!).
I've committed (OMG - there's that scary word!) to myself to do this for a few different reasons. I felt the need to evaluate my creative motives, to expand my horizons a bit this year and also, like I said in the beginning of this post, to step ouf of my 'comfort zone'. But I mostly wanted to do this because I felt disconnected from my creative side due to all the "social networking" do-da (as I call it!).
Don't get me wrong, I think the whole social media wave is great. I mean, I connect with friends and clients through social networking sites like
Facebook and
Twitter, etc. and these venues provide an avenue that allows me to interact with people and reach far beyond what I could have several years ago. But I was feeling disconnected from myslef, my family and my own creativity. That inner spark for creating things had strayed and was missing,...or at least hiding somewhere. She just up and left the room for a bit,....and I missed her.
And even as I created things, designing different pieces of
jewelry, I could only feel a small portion of my creative muse's light shining through to me and I felt this vacant spot. The enthusiasm was running on empty too, and that wasn't good. I decided to make a few minor changes and since the beginning of the year is when everyone talks about and does these types of things, well,....why not, right?
So, I signed up for the challenge and checked out the first week's challenge theme and it was "New Beginnings". Wow - how appropriate! But, my next reaction was "What on earth am I going to create?"
I thought for a moment and decided that New Beginnings for me meant going back to one of the first things I learned to do, which was basic stringing. So, I designed a necklace using some gorgeouse
Czech glass beads that look exactly like (Honest to goodness - no kidding!) red velvet cake, some wonderful lampwork glass beads by
Mary over at Firebabies on Etsy and these cool, rough, faceted, chunky nuggets of green garnet (garnets are January's birthstone, so that worked out rather well, too!) and of course I added some silver and wire wrapped a couple of beads and a clasp on to the designs - seems I can't get away from bending metal! (I just feels great, let me tell ya!)
Here's a quick pic of the piece I designed, but you should really go check out all the
participants and their entries for
Week 1 of The Year of Jewelry Project 2011. I mean, there's inspiration galore there and the work these folks are creating is absolutely amazing! (as I drool on the keyboard while typing!)
So, what's in store for you this year? Are you making any changes - small or large - any commitments (Oh! There it is again - hopefully it will get less scary as I keep holding my own feet to the fire!) or goals that you've set for yourself for 2011? Please share them with me as I'm always interested to see and hear what wonderful things others are doing and going through!
Here's to my muse finding her way back into my heart and soul and to everyone creating beautiful things in their lives!
Until Next Time,
Peace, Love and
Commitments! (Oh, geeze!)
Cheers,
~Shel~
Please jump on over to the Year of Jewelry Project 2011 Website and check out the other participant's entries this week - they're all really gorgeous and very creative! I'm completely humbled by the abundance of talent that is abound in this fabulous group of designers. I mean really,...besides some basic stringing, hand knotting of pearls, a little fine metal fusing and some basic to intermediate wire wrapping skills, I'm completely left in the dust with these folks and so hopefully this will light a spark under my bum and get me interested in trying some new things this year! (Although, I might not post those tries, mind you! LOL!!) 
