A few months ago, embarking on my first ever bead shopping expedition, I felt like I had a good idea of what kind of style I wanted my new jewelry label to have. I chose wooden beads, turquoise, hematite, lace obsidian, gold and silver beads as well as some thread to do macrame and felt it had a tribal type theme. I looked in my basket and had a good feeling about where my style was headed - I could see the necklaces forming in my mind and what kind of people would wear them. It had a tribal princess or Amazonian type feel to it. Colours of the forest.
On returning home I was pulled up however when I realised that the thread I had bought was too thick and made from cotton - I couldn't get it through the beads and it frayed! I tried attaching the beads to the thread using copper wire but it looked atrocious! So I went back to the shop and tried to find the right kind of thread. I thought needed waxed polyester thread, and knew I liked working with it as my Brazillian friend Tanya had given me a small roll to have a go with. Unfortunately no one at the shop - or other shops I tried - knew what I was talking about. So I had to try something new. I bought some unwaxed polyester thread and some fire wire, learning in the shop how to use clamps to attach fasteners. I took them home and had another go. The polyester thread was awful. It came undone and twisted on the finished piece. I made one item with it and gave up. I considered waxing it myself, but never got round to it. In retrospect, I doubt it would have worked anyway. The fire wire proved more successful. It fit through all the beads for one thing, so I could get right into making some nice pieces, and I liked how professional it looked to have proper clasps. I made the range Woodlands at this point and I still think they are a great part of my label. They embody the original ideas I had for my style, however they have taken on a completely new form. They are like a refined version of the tribal feel. A bit more mature and glamourous, while at the same time holding fast to the natural feel.
Woodlands Range leaf pendant necklace $29
I also started making some of my crystal jewelry at this point, particularly the pieces I made from hematite and lace obsidian with silver, and turquoise. They came out nicely and were some of the first pieces I actually sold. I have now decided to expand on this area of the label as the medium is so good for it, and the particular supplier I have appropriate. I love the feeling of working with crystals, their energies and meanings and how this brings us in connection with nature.
Hematite and lace obsidian necklace $32, bracelet $20, earrings $11
It was also fun to bring more colour into the label. As I was unable at this stage to work with macrame, I went back to the bead shop and expanded on my bead options, bringing in reds, pinks and blues, as well as coloured seed beads. This led to some interesting pieces, and unique designs, and I love a lot of them, however at this stage I was starting to feel like they were not a succinct enough group to make a solid range.
As I wanted to get back to macrame, as well as being inspired by some of the work of the other artists in the Maya Earth Collective - a group I would be starting a market stall with - I decided to learn about polymer clays like Fimo. This was really fun and I experimented with a few new styles. It took me well away from my original vision however. The creative juices were flowing and could not be held back. I made colourful beads, some with inspiration from the film Avatar with glow in the dark blue and white, attempting to get that tribal feel back. I scoured YouTube for how-to videos on making fimo and worked out fairly successfully how to make flowers, which made a nice pink and black range of beads that I used in the range Midnight. I coupled them with lavastone and black seed beads and although I had throught of them as a bit surfie, they seemed to get the attention of mature women at the markets.
Midnight polymer clay and lavastone necklace $32
Things changed a bit with the Fimo when my friend Tanya from Brazil came to Australia to visit. She sold me a huge pile of waxed polyester threads and so suddenly I had new options for where I could take things. I learnt some new macrame techniques and made a few things with that, and I also made some very surfie style franjipani pendants and beads and put them together with macrame to make a bit of a surfie range, as well as creating some more intricate scene pendants too. These last pieces took me back to the days when I used to be a swimwear designer! Palm trees, tropical coasts and flowers. All very surfie...
And then I hit a wall....
Where was I going with all this? I had diverged on a creative backstreet to find myself lost in the sprawling suburbs of crafting abilities. There were too many colours, too many styles, how did it all go together? I haven't even published photos of the last surfie range as I felt that they were too divergent from my original ideas. Where did "Forest Spirit" come into surf jewelry? Where was my tribal princess? What I had wanted originally was for people to have the feeling that they had wandered through the jungle to come out covered in sticks and leaves and flowers and for it to look like jewelry. I wanted raw. Beads and macrame with an exotic and arty feel to them. Where were these pieces? They weren't there. I had sidestepped my vision out of looking for ways to acheive it. Granted, the pieces I had created were well made, with good style in themselves. But there was a lack of cohesion in the label.
I'm still trying to find my way back there. This blog, I hope will help me to document my progress. I plan to show new ideas, new things I am learning, new pieces I have made - not with any intention to make it look perfect necessarily, but to show you how things come together. How labels are created. The successes and the failures. The passion and the let down. Hopefully it will work to keep me motivated too :-)
If you are interested in purchasing any of my work or seeing the full range available, you can either check out my facebook page, listed under "Forest Spirit Jewelry by Julie Mills" or you can find me at the markets in Sydney, Australia. Please email forestspiritjewelry@gmail.com to find out where our next market will be held, or to make inquiries about purchases. Thanks x
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