Creating and organizing

A little while ago I went on a spending spree, buying cabochons and faceted gems in lots of different colours. I'm not very good at planning out what I want to make and then finding the stones I want to use in those designs; I like to be inspired by different stones. Of course I can design something and then find stones to fit but it can be hard to find a stone of a particular size and colour. I buy on eBay and etsy; I don't buy the volume of good stones to be able to place an order at one of the big gem supply places. I also don't want to pay those prices!

Anyways, I bought all those stones and have been carrying them around in their original packaging. This has made it difficult to look at the stones and be inspired by them. I bought some watchcases a couple of weeks ago and this weekend I finally put all the stones in the watchcases. I haven't yet finished putting all of the information on the cases about the stone (in particular, not every case has the price I paid for the stone), and I haven't organized the stones aside from separating faceted stones from cabochons, but now I can open up the cases and see all my beautiful stones.

Hopefully I'll start being inspired soon. My niece and one of my nephews are graduating from high school this year and I'm making each of them something to celebrate. I actually have ideas about what I want to make for each of them and now that I can see my stones, I can look at them and make these ideas into drawings into actual things.

Each one already knows they're getting something so I don't mind saying that but I'm not going to tell you about my ideas. After all, I might change them and even if I don't, I want the final products to be a surprise. :) I'm very excited about making these gifts.

Speaking of making things, my instructor loved the sample apron I made. I need to adjust the neck strap slightly but she loves it otherwise... as do two of the other students. They're buying aprons, too, which is kind of cool. I won't make money on these but I'm happy that I can make something useful for the studio and my classmates.