Chapter 18

Ten Common Jewelry-Making Mistakes to Avoid

In This Chapter

Making good choices to save time and money

Sharing your knowledge and designs

Many people jump into the process of making jewelry and take shortcuts that only hurt them in the long run. Maybe they buy tools and supplies that don’t give them the results they’re looking for. Or they don’t treat their new tools right. Or perhaps they’re convinced that their great new “original” design will make them a million dollars, so they spend all their time copyrighting the design instead of selling pieces.

In this chapter, I show you common mistakes made by many new jewelry makers and beaders and give you the scoop on how to avoid them.

For Quality Jewelry, Use Quality Supplies

When practicing a technique, it’s fine to use the cheap stuff. But when you’re ready to create a quality piece, use quality supplies. Check out Chapter 2 for tips on where to buy supplies and tools. And don’t miss Chapter 17 for other great resources.

Read the Directions

Don’t just look at pictures when following project instructions and assume you know what to do. (You know what they say happens when you “assume.”) When you’re starting out, read the directions completely before you pick up your pliers or wire cutters, and you will save yourself time, frustration, and money.

If you want your project to turn out like the one in the directions, use the supplies and equipment listed. Different supplies will give different finished results.

Use Quality Tools

Using cheap tools often makes it tougher than necessary to master a technique. Typically, your results aren’t as good as they could be if you had tools made for jewelry making. Cheaper tools are okay to start out with, especially if you’re not sure that making jewelry is for you. But when you are making jewelry on a regular basis, invest in quality tools and use them just for jewelry making. Check out Chapter 2 for information on choosing and using the right tools for the right job.

Never Cut Memory Wire with Your Good Wire Cutters

Memory wire is a rigid, coiled stainless-steel wire used to make jewelry. There’s no better way to dull good wire cutters than to cut memory wire with them. Use heavy-duty cutters reserved just for this purpose, or invest in memory wire shears, which you can get at just about any jewelry supply retailer or wholesaler.

Keep Your Supplies Organized

As your supply of beads and findings expands, you should expand your organizational equipment too. This particular mistake is one that I still make on occasion. I seem to collect beads at a surprising rate, and then I have trouble tracking down exactly the beads I want when I want them. I spend more time than necessary looking for what I need.

Learn from my mistake. Take the time to organize your supplies in a way that makes sense to you. If you have a lot of metal beads, you might keep silver, gold, and brass separated. Depending on what you have, you might even separate them by antique or shiny finish, for example. On the other hand, if you have a limited supply of metal, you can lump them together. Chapter 4 gives you more ideas for keeping your bits organized so you can find what you need when you need it.

Use Crimping Pliers for Crimps

I list crimp pliers as optional in many of the tool lists in the projects in this book. However, crimp pliers give your piece such a professional, finished look (with practice, of course) that they’re definitely worth the investment. If you want to sell your finished pieces, don’t just flatten crimps with flat-nose pliers; crimp them the right way. For tips on working with crimp pliers, take a peek at Chapter 5.

Recognize That There’s No Right Way to Try New Techniques

Be open to new and different ways of doing things. Just because one person (such as me) showed you how to do something doesn’t mean that someone else may not have a different, perfectly valid way of doing it. Experiment and find what works for you.

Be Willing to Practice

Whether you’re crimping a bead, making a wrapped loop, or connecting an earwire to a headpin, don’t expect to get it right the first or even second time. Buy some inexpensive supplies, and perfect your techniques before you invest in high quality products.

Share Your Knowledge

Join jewelry-making forums, chat groups, or user groups and share information. Don’t be stingy if someone asks for instructions to a project you post or wants details on where you found those awesome seed beads. The more you share with others, the more they’ll be willing to share with you.

Don’t Worry Too Much About Copyrighting Your Exclusive Designs

In fashion as well as jewelry, it’s pretty much all been done before, no matter how imaginative you think you are. That’s not to say that your design isn’t terrific, wonderful, and guaranteed to be a great seller. If you do come up with something really special, feel free to contact an attorney to investigate getting a copyright, but I don’t recommend that you spend too much energy or cash in the process. You aren’t going to run out of great design ideas, so spend that energy developing new ones rather than relying on the old ones.