Beginning your jewelry-making path is thrilling: You buy your first tools, play around with various designs, and have a lot of fun making a thing. However, like в любом новом деле, mistakes are part of the way.
The secret is to do not completely avoid mistakes (это невозможно), но rather learn from them faster than anyone.
Let’s cover the 7 most frequent newbie mistakes and how you can outrun them.
- Trying to Learn All Techniques at the Same Time
A beginner may constantly switch from one technique to another and forget to master all techniques one by one. It only confuses and slows down your progress.
How to deal with this:
Master one skill. When you get the hang of it, only then move on.
- Neglecting the Relevance of the Right Tools
The wrong tools or just bad-quality equipment can make any work even with a simple technique difficult or even painful for you. Bad tools only lead to the плохой результат and bad mood.
How to deal with this:
It is not always necessary to have tons of tools to work. You can have 10 different pliers and just use one of them. Start with a few good quality tools instead of many cheap ones.
- Hasty Work
The art of jewelry making requires a lot of patience. A hasty work results in frequent mistakes. The overall look will suffer as well.
How to deal with this:
Slow down. Accuracy is more important than speed.
- Working with no clear Idea
Sometimes beginners just start to work without having a plan. As a result, your work may look unbalance or incomplete.
How to deal with this:
Think and plan before you work. It may be something very simple, but it will save you a lot of time and mistakes.
- Not Treating Finishing Well
No one wants to finish their work with rough edges, visible scratches, and poor polish. But some of us often forget about this or just skip this part.
How to deal with this:
Polishing and finishing. Always. It will make your work look finished.
- Comparison Too Soon
Looking at the works of other jewellers can be motivating, but also discouraging if your work is not yet good.
How to deal with this:
Compare yourself with yourself before and after.
- Giving Up Too Soon
Maybe it is obvious, but still: your very first work doesn’t always look like what you want. Or even the second, the fifth or twentieth work.
How to deal with this:
Keep going! Mistakes happen, that is normal. Learn and keep going.
Final thoughts
Mistakes are OK. They are the proof of the fact that you’re trying. The only thing you should try to do is learn from mistakes as fast as you can, and keep moving.
Jewelry making is a process. And like the process of any kind, it is not about perfection from the beginning, but improvement with every step.