Bead Thing

I am a 60 year old without a fear in the world. I have been crafting for most of my life in one medium or another and have never been afraid to try different things. From the photo you can see the love of my life, my grandson and in the background is my step-son (son). My family is the most important thing to me and not long before this photo was taken, I just been to my mothers’ funeral and then had a heart attack within 24 hours. What doctors don’t tell you is that you will enter into a depressive state after a heart attack that some never recover from and I almost did not either. I did not want to work, I did not want to visit friends, what I wanted was to crawl into a hole and go home. Basically, I thought that my life was over at this point and I was just waiting for another heart attack to come and take me away.

One night I had a vision of my mother. She looked so stern, as she usually did when she was trying to set me straight and she said. “What do you think you are doing?” “Get up, get dressed, stop feeling sorry for yourself and do something.” This told me one thing, get my life priorities straightened out, put things in perspective and learn to live life differently. From that moment on, I did just that, I changed some things in my life, started listening to my heart again, not because I thought it was going to stop, but because I needed to listen for that “still, small voice”. Once I did that, I began to see the world around me a bit differently and the more I did the better the world looked to me. I became more and more oriented toward my family, oh, don’t get me wrong, they have always been very important, but now they are front and center, ALWAYS. I began to see creation as a way to express myself and even though I sometimes use patterns, I always, always make changes so that the piece is uniquely mine. I love to work with seed beads, to wire wrap, and I am practicing my polymer clay ideas as well as I am now preparing to venture into metalwork. Not sure how far into metalwork I will delve. Right now what I do depends on the cost to start because as with many of us, the economy has taken a bite out of our financial abilities.

I started A Bead Thing initially as A Beaded Affair but quickly changed because I found another site with a very similar name, so I thought, just change it, and so I did. This endeavor was started in October 2009 when I attended an annual Halloween party and needed a bit of bling to spice up my “dead bridesmaid” costume. So I asked my daughter to take my growing stash of beads (collecting for years) and make me something. We decided on a “slave anklet” since I really don’t like wearing shoes anyway. She had it done in less than an hour and said to me “mom, I really like doing this” and so it began. We have not stopped beading since that day. Today, it is a way to earn extra money since my real estate career is coming to a close.

If I could say one thing to anyone who wanted to do a “little something”, it would be ‘go for it’, don’t wait, you don’t want to have regrets in your life. I have a few, some can be corrected, some can’t but I start each day as a new day and another chance to serve God in whatever way He chooses as well as to help others in any way possible and I endeavor to live by a quote I love “Whatever you are, be a good one.” By Abraham Lincoln. I think that we learn from our mistakes and if something does not work, you don’t throw it away, you keep going because you never know what God had intended for that piece to become.

If you have to start over, then do so until you get something that you are comfortable with. I don’t necessarily create things that I’m in love with though it does help to like what you have created, but I try to keep in mind that not everyone likes the same things that I do. Nor does everyone like to wear the same type of jewelry that I wear so sometimes it is necessary to think outside of your own box and put yourself out there in an uncomfortable place to come up with something that others will like, appreciate and purchase.

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