Do You Wear Your Beginner Jewelry?
Jewelry and Coffee with Rena
Video Episode 12
by Rena Klingenberg.
Peek into my ancient history to see some of the earliest necklaces I made – and find out why I actually still wear them.
Transcript of This Video:
Do you ever wear your beginner jewelry?
Those very first pieces you created when you started making jewelry?
Well, over the years I’ve sold or taken apart or given away most of my beginner pieces, but I do still have a few necklaces that I made when I very first started out.
And I want to share some of those with your today, because I still wear these.
And this is one of them right here – this is the very first bead necklace I ever made:
Of course it’s in my favorite shades of green!
But unfortunately when I made it, I didn’t know that some gemstone chip beads have sharp edges:
But I haven’t changed out any of the sharp beads, because I want to leave my first bead necklace the way I created it.
This one is actually my favorite of all of my beginner necklaces that I’ve kept:
This faceted serpentine pendant came with a metal loop in the top.
But every time I wear this necklace I can’t help thinking it could be improved with just a little bit of wire artistry on the pendant!
But, again, I want to keep it in its original state.
This one is the first two-strand necklace I made as a beginning jewelry artist:
It’s made with fake turquoise heishi beads plus amethyst chips.
Now, this is not how I would design the ends of a two-strand necklace now – but it seemed like a good idea at the time:
And actually it turns out that I don’t usually wear this one as a necklace.
Instead, I usually wrap it around my wrist a couple of times as a bracelet:
So why do I still wear my beginner jewelry sometimes, and why do I want to keep it unchanged?
I want to honor my first efforts – the beginnings of my passion for making jewelry.
And it’s fun to look back and remember how exciting it was to make these first necklaces, and then actually wear them.
And they’re also a record of the people and experiences that have come into my life through jewelry.
Well, how about you?
Do you wear any of your beginner jewelry?
And what do some of your earliest pieces mean to you?
I’d love to hear, if you’d like to leave a comment below.
I want to thank you for coming in today to hear some of my ancient history!
I’ll see you soon.
