On a business level, I've sold about a dozen pieces of jewelry (all through my awesomely supportive husband at his work,) and I began working with a friend on a business plan to eventually get my pieces into local boutiques. I have also fallen in love with seed beading- something that takes up more time than I have, yet feels the most satisfying when I finish. Lord, if I could stop time!
Here are a few pieces I've created, some which have sold:
Earring necklace set- 24kt gold plated Miyuki seed beads, Czech fire polished crystals, coral beads, and 14kt gold plated earhook/rings/necklace. Complete with a one of a kind hand made gift box. My first highest selling pieces!
Personal challenge to make these! But loved the results.
Miyuki and Toho Japanese seed beads, glass pearls.
Glass pearls and seed beads. Simple but versatile. I kept these.
I called this pair "Arabian Sun."
Glass pearls, Swarovski crystal accents, and seed beads on 14kt gold plated earhooks/rings.
Oh how these shimmered in the light! I was sad to see them go.
On a personal level, my son is a six month old healthy chunky little boy who likes to bite while breastfeeding (then grin about it!) My middle child just turned three and only goes to the potty if naked, and my four year old daughter just got recommended to be placed in an advanced class at school instead of K5 for next year. My husband and I are about to celebrate our one year anniversary, and I am one happy wife.
Last month, I celebrated my 29th birthday as well. Although happy I made it another year with all my appendages and sanity, I was a little sad that I'm a lot closer to the big three zero yet only a smidgen closer to my last personal goal. Let me explain... When I was 26, I made up my mind that I'd had enough meandering wasted years and I had until I was 30 to reach some major goals:
A. Meet the love of my life
B. Marriage
C. Be successful in a "career" I'm absolutely passionate about.
My first goal was met that same year. I attracted my husband not long after rebuilding myself from a reality-shattering breakup with the father of my daughter. It took hitting rock bottom to wake up and realize that I deserved someone who would love and cherish me, but it began with loving and cherishing myself first. My second goal happened two years later, and I'm happy to report that it was the best decision I ever made in my life. The third goal has been a slow build. I knew that I wanted something I would wake up excited about. No more jobs without meaning or purpose. And last year, around the same time I conceived my third child, I became pregnant with the passion to begin making my own jewelry and one day having my own successful business. I had stars in my eyes, and I still do.
One of my biggest personal obstacles has been that I have been indecisive about exactly which passion I want to pursue. As a child, whether at home or in a classroom, I was always labeled the "creative" and "aristic" one. For me, anything creative was merely a by-product of my interests being learned and explored. I'd become intrigued by a subject, dive into learning all about it, conquer it, and then abandon it for new aspirations. This is why I've had a million hobbies, and yet I'm master of none. When I reached college age, I couldn't decide whether to pursue an art degree, writing degree, computer degree, music degree, or join the the military. And so I chose none. Sylvia Plath sums up a similar indecisiveness in her book, The Bell Jar:
“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.”
Yet now that I've decided, I've been constantly crippled by a nagging pessimism that keeps telling me I am just a tiny minnow in an ocean of creativity, artistry, and talent. My lack of self belief has simultaneously been my bleeding heart and my crutch. When I sit down to create a jewelry piece I am bombarded with internal negativity that limits my creativity. I am afraid that I will fail, that maybe this isn't something that will ever go anywhere so I am wasting my time. I feel paralyzed, stuck, unmotivated, and frightened to keep on working towards my last pre-thirty year old goal. That is, until my husband's Yoda quote pops into my head, "Do or do not. There is no try..."
It takes strength to believe in a vision. It's strength I know I have, otherwise I wouldn't have met my first two goals. Inside, even if it's dim at times, I feel the passion for creating and expressing my soul grow brighter and stronger the more I make jewelry. When I close my eyes, I see artistic creations that I have yet to materialize. I am hungry to let others know my creative soul, and for me to know theirs. And so I believe in my vision, despite all the negative thoughts that try to make me give up and tell me that this will only ever be a weary stay at home mom's hobby that will be learned, conquered, then abandoned without ever truly being mastered.
Those stars in my eyes shine brighter everyday!
