A Day Off

Here's a photo I took of a bead I made yesterday. I made szeveral attempts to construct it according to the directions in the book, but I couldn't make it work that way, so I devised my own method of making it. I have found that trying to follow directions for various beadwork projects doesn't seem to work very well for me. I have to just do it my own way. And actually I like the challenge of doing that.

Today was a day off for me, but I was still thinking about work. I went to a 99 cent store and bought some plastic containers for storing beads in. That's something I haven't really figured out yet: exactly how to store all the beads. They come packaged in several different ways. Some are strung on strings, usually 10 to 12 strands per hank. Some come in plastic bags. Some come in tubes. So far the beads I've gotten in tubes are in three different size tubes. The ones in bags have to be put in boxes when they are opened. And the strung ones either need to remain on their strands or put in little boxes if a project doesn't take a whole strand.

I've gone back and started reading early entries in my blog. I find it interesting. I need to make some notes to bring up certain subjects again or to report my progress. And I'm also doing it to attempt to maintain continuity. I don't actually know how many people read my blog, and I don't know if anyone has read it from beginning to end, although one artist at Spanish Village did tell me she had read it, most of it maybe.

Nowadays there are so many computer related things I can do to help me with my business. I mean there are a great many things I can do besides the obvious ones of having a website and blog and getting business information. Of course, there's ordering, something I'm doing more of. And there's research, looking at other artists' jewelry to get some inspiration. I spent time recently looking at crochet, tatting, and counted cross stitch patterns to get ideas for beadwork. And I looked at striped upholstery fabric to get ideas for patterns and color combinations.

Another possibility is to create an album of my jewelry photos that can serve as a screen saver. Right now I have a great many travel photos that I have combined to play when I walk away from the computer, but if I had jewelry photos that could be a way to display my work and if I had samples of other artists' work they could work on my subconscious mind to give me ideas. So many ideas. So much fun.