Good Morning!
So here I am starting up the necessary blog for my current beading venture.
It's funny, this whole thing started years ago as Christmas presents and being broke. My mother loves necklaces and has kept every little thing I've ever made to an absurd point. I can remember being 6 or so and absolutely furious with her because I discovered the "house" I'd made for Santa out of taped together striped drinking straws tucked away in a closet. I could not believe that she would actually steal and keep something I had made for Santa! Obviously there was going to be some sadness at the North Pole because the Big Guy in red was lacking a stripey straw house made with love and scotch tape. What I didn't realize is that my mother was not a covetous thief but rather a staunch supporter of anything I put together. This went on through all of my life so far, I am sure somewhere she can dig up the hat and beard Abraham Lincoln costume I made out of folded together notebook paper (I'd forgotten I had a "dress-up report" and decided that I could fake it by playing Arts and Crafts during Math) or my Clara Barton puppet which was fashioned from an eyelash curler. My mother's love of whatever I make has led to endless handmade Christmas gifts, moving up from the straw house for Santa to the past three years worth of necklaces.
It's the same process every time. I pick out a pendant that I think she will love and then I head to the nearest craft store with that pendant in hand. I stand in the beading aisle for roughly an hour, holding the pendant up to every bead there, debating what I am supposed to use for wire (the year I used sewing thread made for a very short lived gift) and trying to figure out what clasp to use (because seriously, how are you supposed to get the clasp attached if you can't tie wire?). Store employees begin to circle like tiger sharks, eyeballing me as I pick up every strand of beads and smoosh them together trying to get a feel from how they go. The longer I stay and mutter to myself, the closer to me the employees wander to "clean" and I just want to turn and say "Yes, yes, I know you think I'm shoplifting because I've picked up everything and put it down twice but I'm not. I'm creating. Or I'm trying. I think. Wait, does this color go with this one?"
I will finally carefully make my way to the register with my purchases spurting through my fingers. I never remember to get a basket because I always think "Oh, I'm just going to grab a few little beads". Unfortunately, it is never a few beads, it's everything I think will look great together and a few things I'm not sure about, but better safe than sorry! I play the same game with every cashier; I say "Oh, wait, wait... I think I may have gone overboard! Can we just ring up these few things first because these are the ones I really need and then we can go from there?" This is simply my way of reassuring myself, and the poor cashier, that I am going to be choosy and frugal about this whole purchase. This is also a complete joke because I have NEVER put anything back, even when the total soared way above what I expected. If I walk one of those sparkling strands of potential up to the register, it is coming home with me. I can't help thinking how much I might regret not having kept that small pack of nifty little blue beads with the metallic swirlies that don't go with anything. Who am I to judge? I might find a spot for them someday!
So out the door I go with a very small bag and a very long receipt, leaving the annoyed and usually smocked cashier to snap her gum while make faces at the back of my head. The other employees can now stop circling that possible robber/crazy lady in the bead section and swarm upon whatever other hobbyist is taking just a little too long making choice. At stop lights on the ride home, I will pull out some of the beads or charms and hold them up to my windshield to get a really good idea of how they look. I will also draw really confused stares from other cars.
So, at home and ready to go is when I realize that I have nothing to actually put the beads in. Meaning that I should have probably picked up one of those fantastically useful looking organizers but I really just couldn't carry anymore and I thought that the girl making sure I wasn't stealing was going to have an aneurysm if I didn't move it along. So all the beads go splashing around on one of my biggest dinner plates and I go from there. Now, glass beads on ceramic dinner plates have some fairly interesting properties. Number one, they slide constantly. Mostly the direction they slide in is toward the floor or inbetween the couch cushions. Number two, they fascinate cats. I have two cats. When something fascinates a cat, the cat likes to bat the item with its paw until the item slides. Usually onto the floor or inbetween the couch cushions. Lastly, beads on dinner plates are actually invisible to boyfriends. If your boyfriend approaches the couch and there is a dinner plate full of beads, he will be physically unable to see it and will sit on top of it. When this happens, the plate will tips and those fun-loving beads will slide off. Oh, you guessed it! Onto the floor and inbetween the couch cushions. By the time I finish any project, I have lost approximately one third of the beads I started with to my carnivorous carpet and couch. If I ever run really low on supplies, I'm just going to tip the couch upside down and shake it.
There is the actual beading process, but I am not even going to get into that part. Just imagine Sisyphus and his rock, only I have many beads and a piece of wire to push them onto instead of a hill to push them up. Don't get me wrong, I really do love every minute of it but there is a lot of stringing and re-stringing and swearing and I start to feel like my fingers are covered in Crisco when I'm dealing with seed beads after an hour or so. I also have the most ridiculous habit of making what my boyfriend calls the "pook face" when I'm in deep concentration. If you'd like to get a good idea of what my creative process looks like, please imagine a 28 year old woman hunched over a dinner plate full of beads with her lips puckered and curled up in a sort of snarl so that it touches the underside of her nose poking with a wire at a bead that keeps slipping out of her fingers while two cats watch in amusement. This is how the magic happens.
After all of this, I am left with a lovely creation that makes me infinitely happy. I put it on, pop over to the mirror and twirl... until I realize that I missed a bead in the pattern. Yep, there it is, right in the middle. One little bead that no one would notice. Seriously. Who would stare at the necklace and spot that there are only five aqua blue seed beads where there should be six? I should just leave it. It's fine. And I do leave it, until it gnaws away at my brain at one in the morning and I get up to restring it. So after all of THIS, now I am left with a lovely creation that makes me infinitely happy and I can go back to bed.
It's all worth it, it's a small price to pay for seeing my mother hold up something I spent so much time on and put so much love (and aggravation) into and look over at me with pride. It's one of the best moments of the entire year. I try to bask as much in it's glow as I can before it pops two seconds later when she sighs deeply and invariably says, "Oh Melissa, it's so beautiful. You are wasting so much talent. Why don't you sell these?!". She puts it on and calls me every time she gets a compliment on her jewelry to repeat that same phrase over and over. This year, I finally felt like I'd beaten the system because when she turned to me and utted that deflating phrase I just smiled and said, "I am, Mom."
It does make me happy, because I get to treat everyone like they are family and make jewelry with as much attention and care as I would give if it was for my mother. Every time something is sold, I get that happy Christmas morning glow because I can imagine seeing someone getting their mail and opening something beautiful. Granted, it's a mailbox and not a Christmsas tree, but let's not spoil the mood. This opporunity is worth the slippery dinner plates, the suspicious employees and the grumpy clerks. It's worth the curious cats and the Crisco fingers. It's even worth battling my hungry couch, because I have the chance to make someone happy. Let's hope this works out!
- the little miss milyssabeth!
