a little break

The one problem with starting a series is that you sometimes get stuck, or bored, or distracted. And then, the series becomes more of a hindrance than a help. Such was the case this past week with my bird collection. Nothing was flowing the way I wanted it to. I started and stopped, getting hung up on little details. But, in the midst of this miserable state of "stuck-ness," I found comfort in an old friend....my beads.

I have been collecting beads for over fifteen years, but my jewelry-making spurts have waxed and wained depending on my stage of life. High school brought the first bout of obsession. There was almost nothing better to me than a bead shop. I'd carefully choose the most interesting beads I could find and go home and create necklaces strung with hundreds of teeny seed beads. Then came the Sculpey clay phase. Simply buying beads was no longer good enough. I had to start making my own too. This jewelry-making craze continued for several years until somehow, one day, I must have grown tired of it. The beads got packed away in plastic storage bins and were relegated to the dreaded basement where they began a long and lonely stay, kept company only by other abandoned craft supplies and half-finished projects.

It wasn't until a year and a half ago that I once again started to give thought to those poor, forgotten beads. In preparing for my wedding, a thought came to mind. I would make handcrafted bracelets for each of my bridesmaids! The plastic bins were dusted off, newer and trendier beads were added to the collection, and I was suddenly back to my old ways!

Since then, I've given into spells of jewelry-making whenever the desire hits. I tend to forget about them when they are tucked away in the closet. But, whenever I do pull them back out, I always wonder why I waited so long to invite them back.