When I was a teenager my mother dragged me into our local spotlight store for a jewellery making workshop, way back when they still did those kinds of things. It happened to be a beading workshop and we made a charming little net bracelet. I talked my obliging mother into buying several large lamp work beads (that I have never used) and some beading supplies. That was about the end of it, I made one or two bits of jewellery, from some beading books I had also purchased at some point and decided that it was just another craft to go on the scrap pile.
This discarded hobby, only caught my interest some time later, when procrastinating in the ocean of internet images I saw a beaded sphere and thought to myself that I could make my own. With no reason to believe that I could actually make my own and with only a photo to go by I managed on my second attempt. It was a challenge and as you can see in the photo above its not the best sphere ever made, though a good second attempt. Eventually I found a better way of making the spheres and then decided to use only the one type of bead, making them form much better.
If you look at the progress of my work you will notice that spheres are a constant part of my collection and I am sure that they always will be in some form or variation, because they are such a dynamic and interesting form, that you can do so much with. And much of my work is done with only one type of bead, though I do use more from time to time and am waiting on supplies to start a new project I will tell you about later that incorporates a new material (still made of glass) into the mix.
So I have been beading on and off ever since, with more frequency as the years passed and have been beading full time around full time work for the last two or three years. I have found so much inspiration on the internet that keeps me wanting to push boundaries and explore what is possible. To be honest part of the attraction to beading is being able to try something new that may not have been do already, and find a way to make something work, or even turn it into something else if it dose not work. I am nothing if not a sucker for a challenge.
