From this point onwards, my jewellery making becomes more mindless and technical than skill-based, and it's the only time I'm prepared to risk jinxing its true completion by telling someone that I've made it and it's going in the shop in the next few days. Yes, I do believe in jinxing. It's happened too often, and it's why I've adopted a "don't tell people your plans, show them your results" attitude, and I apply it to everything. I don't even tell Seeg when he asks what I'm doing, I just reply with "experimenting". He's learned to stop asking.
I've got lots and lots and lots of empty glass jars in all kinds of sizes, and I love the sight of them. I get quite excited thinking about what might fill them - custom orders I might get for people's pets, or perhaps unexpected experiments of my own choice that worked out (if it didn't work, it wouldn't get far enough to go in a jar!). Filling them with grass takes a while and it is so messy, but it's mindless work I don't have to pay attention to. Fixing the animal inside is a bit more delicate - I used to just glue them on top, but two years ago I started adding more grass on top once they were fixed in place to make them look more cosy and hide glue 'seams'. This means that the jars take a lot of tidying up once the animal is inside and it really can take an hour to remove all the loose grass from one jar. And sometimes the animals come loose and need gluing back down again. Sometimes that's not so bad because I just take them out and then I don't have to be as delicate removing the loose grass, but sometimes the animals were literally 1mm too big for the jar, and while I got them in, I cannot get them out. That's when things get complicated, but I have yet to lose a piece that way. I've always managed to salvage them. *Touch wood*
It's the final creative step, and once it's all in place, I often feel much happier with the piece than I expect to - even if it's a fox, and I can't count how many of them I've sold, I still smile and look at it in the little jar with a bit of pride and, admittedly, self-impress...ment? Smug, I suppose, but only a little bit! Everyone should take pride in their work, even if it's work they've done a few hundred times.
It's the final creative step, and once it's all in place, I often feel much happier with the piece than I expect to - even if it's a fox, and I can't count how many of them I've sold, I still smile and look at it in the little jar with a bit of pride and, admittedly, self-impress...ment? Smug, I suppose, but only a little bit! Everyone should take pride in their work, even if it's work they've done a few hundred times.
Previously: Painting ♥ Next Up: Product Photography
And don't forget about my final Christmas order dates for domestic and international purchases!
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