Finding a new hobby – From Kiln to Card Making and Jewelry

I never contemplated a stay-at-home, doing nothing, sort of retirement. Because of the dementia that my father is in the grips of, I always felt that I needed something to do with my brain. At my job now, I do a lot of writing so I felt that I had it covered. In retirement I figured to work on keeping a blog going and more recently have entertained the notion of writing a book. It is these things that I expect will keep my mind going. Plus, I have lots of things to read, blog wise, and listen to books on a daily basis (right now I am enjoying “The Hunger Games” the first of a three part series) and expect to continue that too.

But I need something to do with my hands. I used to make note cards from my photographs and sold some at a local autumn fair for a while. This is something I really enjoy and recently Mrsfabp and I have been engaging in recycling Christmas cards using her scrapbooking talents and techniques and have really enjoyed not only that process but also the thought of incorporating it into my own card making. I am sure to write about that in a future post.

At one point I thought the hobby might be pottery. I bought a used kiln, started taking classes and although I really enjoyed the process, I learned one valuable thing. I have no artistic talent in this type of field. I should have guessed that fact earlier. After all, all of my drawings look like stick figures, even portraits. This was a clue, dismissed by me, able to be ignored until later on in the pottery classes. I could make a cup if my life depended on it. My thinks looked like the sort of thing that summer camp arts and crafters throw away. I was disappointed but accepting of my fate. This just meant that I needed to find some other hobby/crafty thing to do. At this point, I think it might be jewelry making – more specifically earrings and pendants.

I have made a couple so far and am pleased with both the process and the result. Like with the card making, there is a certain sense of creativity that I think I may have the eye for. In the cards, like in photographs, it is the context and the overall composition of the picture of the picture, and I think I may have a talent for that. With the jewelry, I seem to be able to see what I want the piece to look like. Now I just need to learn how to do it.

So, I have collected my beads and other items, the jewelry finds, the tools and move forward with this new endeavor. Let’s just see where it takes me…