Newbie vs. Experienced Jewelry Maker
One of the first steps in becoming a jewelry designer who can make her own original designs is the ability to look at a finished piece and see the individual elements that you might change or keep. A new jewelry maker can only copy a piece bead for bead. She'll look at a necklace in a magazine or online, for example, and dismiss it if she doesn't like the color green or brass chain. A more experienced jewelry maker can pick out specific elements: the necklace's basic shape, findings, beads, texture, or color combinations and remix and combine them to her heart's content She'll look at the same necklace and think, I could make something similar in blue or I could use that same wire wrapping technique for a bracelet instead of a necklace.
One Design, Two Necklaces
Recently I created these necklaces with the new Bead Gallery beads at Michaels. To someone new to making jewelry (or someone who only wears jewelry and does not make it), these look like completely different necklaces.
Here are the basic differences:
- types and colors of beads (blue/white sea theme vs. bright tropical theme)
- arrangement of beads (evenly spaced vs. clustered)
- colors of findings (silver vs. gold)
- placement of clasp (back vs. side)
The similarities are in the structure and techniques:
- wire wrapped charms and beaded dangles attached to chain with jump rings
- number and length of chains (two chains in the front and one at the back)
The shapes of the necklaces look different (rounded vs. angular) because of the difference in how I arranged the beads. On the blue necklace, the charms are mostly the same weight and evenly spaced, while on the tropical necklace the heavier ceramic bird beads are clustered together with the light rounds mainly on the top strand. If you want to see more construction details, check out the step-by-step instructions (with photos!) for the Sea Blues Necklace on the Halcraft blog.
Why Reuse Designs?
It should be clear that when I'm talking about reusing designs, I'm not talking about cranking out cookie cutter designs that all look exactly identical. I'm talking about reusing basic jewelry shapes, styles, or techniques in multiple designs.
If you're making only a few items a year for family and friends, you may never want to reuse a design structure or element. However, if you're designing an entire jewelry line for a shop or need hundreds of pieces to fill up a table at a craft show, it helps to remember that you can create a lot of designs this way. It might seem uncreative, but really, you're freeing up yourself to work on the parts you might consider more fulfilling such as choosing materials and color combinations.
Learning to pick out individual jewelry elements rather than only seeing the finished piece may lead you on the path of creating a cohesive jewelry line or collection. This can be helpful if you're looking to sell your work. Some example of this idea can be found in the final blog hop for the Build a Line Challenge hosted by B'Sue Boutiques. The 50+ participants have all been working on their lines this winter. You can see how they've reused elements to make their jewelry cohesive, but not boring. They may repeat certain design shapes such as simple pendant necklaces, but their artistic vision still comes through loud and clear. If you decide to follow this path, yours will, too.