One-of-a-kind

I hate remaking the same items over and over.  Reeaaallly hate it.  When I have to do it, I start to wish I didn’t have to make jewellery at all.  So I try to avoid it.  That’s why almost all of my hairsticks are one-of-a-kind.  It’s not to preserve artistic integrity…if that can be an issue at all…no, nothing of the sort.  I just get horribly bored.  I think it’s not much difference from working on an assembly line.  Some people are suited to this, thank goodness, because we NEED people like that…but I’m not one of them.

Currently the only sticks I do/will remake *exactly* are Amazon and my 13th Princess hairsticks.  Amazon I remake because I love it so much AND because it seems really popular, so far.  However, my remaking it has come to an end at 3 pairs (four, including the pair I am going to keep even though I can’t wear hairsticks in my very short hair)  because I no longer have the leather leaves so necessary to the design.  Those leaves are made by my friend Andrea (Merimask on Etsy) and I may have some more in the future, but I can’t buy them like I can buy beads…I can’t bring them in by the string at a hundred for five bucks, because each is a piece of handmade art.  So Amazon is definitely limited…the pair I have up right now will be the last for a while.  When I do get more leaves, Amazon’s price most definitely will have to go up.  (When you consider that one leaf alone is worth about $15.  They are hand formed, carved, and painted, you know.)

I got a great idea for a necklace using one of the unmatched (not in a pair) leaves I still have while I was reading.  Necklaces take quite a while and I’m a little hesitant, as I feel fairly certain I am going to want to keep this necklace when I make it, and making things for myself always seems like waste of time when I need to be making items for the shop.  Anyone else have this problem?

Also, I have my next two Etsy purchases lined up in my head.  I want to buy those mugs I showed you all in a previous entry (just scroll down to the entry with the title ‘More for me!’) and also…some handmade paper.  Lately I’ve been de-stressing by handwriting cards and letters.  I used to hate doing that, but now that my handwriting is SO bad, from more than 10 years of typing-only, I find that I have to really concentrate on it, and somehow it has become soothing.  So buying some handmade paper to write on is like buying myself a chocolate bar.  Mellows me out…but without threatening to put a little pook on my middle.

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