Materials - and My First Miserable Mistake

SOooooo… Beginnings are always hard. I bet you already know this. Not different with making jewellery. I have to admit, I was lying a bit in my first post. I have already received my first batch of supplies 3 weeks ago. I’m sorry. But I’m eager to share the journey and the tips, so bear with me – no more yapping anymore, just the real deal. Promise.
Beginnings are always hard. I said it already. But keep that in mind. There will be a lot of frustration before you taste the sweetness of the success – and I’m not there yet, so I definitely know what I’m talking about.

Where to start… Study some materials and MAKE UP YOUR MIND what kind of projects you would like to focus at the beginning. Buy a magazine or a book, or just use internet which has enormous resources and information totally for free. Now when you see what all possibilities there are, decide where you would like to explore your talents first – the choices are enormously endless.
You can start stringing, which is really easy and you can play with different beads and findings and create your first designs.
You can work with wire, seed beads or do chainmaille (chains with jump rings)...

Decided? So now you need materials and tools.
Don't make a mistake like me - I wanted to try a bit of everything and so I bought a bit of every material only to find, that I can hardly finish a project, because I keep missing some vital findings or don't have the right pair of pliers! My next order will be better!

Here are the main mistakes to avoid when getting your first order (and which I didn't avoid):
Get the right colours! If you're getting i.e. beads, you want to get colours that are coordinated, not just beads that looked pretty! Also get them in right sizes! Sometimes beads that are too small and beads that are really big don't look good together.
Pay attention to the metal finishes when buying wires and metal findings: i.e.silver and antiqued silver can look good together, but not always. If you're trying to make your order small or are on a budget, get one or the other first. So see if you want to coordinate things in silver/ antiqued silver, gold/ antiqued gold, copper or other metals... have a look on-line or in your local bead shop at the different metal finishes. I wanted to save money and bought some cheap gold-plated beads - they didn't look like gold at all, and worse, I couldn't combine them with copper either, it just looked too weird (not WIRED, seriously weird)!

But otherwise ordering materials and findings is FUN!