CONFESSIONS OF A CRAFTING SUPPLIES COLLECTOR:
Some time back, I ran across this saying:
“I have come to the conclusion that buying craft supplies, and actually using them, are two separate hobbies.”
It made me laugh, but it also hit uncomfortably close to home. I currently possess more beads, findings, equipment, tools, and other arts & crafts materials and supplies than I have ever owned in my life. And I have no craft room. Most of this stuff is crammed into plastic bins that are piled up in my bedroom. The rest of it is out in the living room stacked up in various boxes and bins on shelf units.
It’s not that I never use the stuff. I make funny personalized cards for friends. I’ve made lots of hand-decorated journals. I enjoy designing and making jewelry pieces, and have made some really cool things. I’ve given lots of handmade jewelry and journals away to friends and family members for birthday gifts or Christmas. I’ve even sold a limited amount of my stuff at small craft fair venues. And I’ve made a number of things just for myself. I have a head full of ideas for future projects, and hand-written notebooks full of techniques I’ve learned from watching You Tube tutorials. I have so many plans for things I want to do.
It’s been my dream for several years to open my own Etsy shop. I’ve been working on jewelry-making, and bead-collecting since 1992. And I’ve been making funny cards since long before then. I’ve always loved cool, handmade things. I have loved attending arts & crafts fairs, and buying the unique kinds of things I would never be able to find in a regular store. Very often though, the prices would be prohibitive for me, and I’d wonder if the item I liked was something I could just learn to make myself. One day I showed a coworker a book I had with photos of some really intricate beaded things, and he told me he knew someone who could make things like that. So I asked him to put me in touch, and see if she would teach me.
Luckily for me she was interested. At first it started out just the two of us. Then I mentioned my beading lessons to another friend of mine, and she wanted to join in. After that, word of mouth got around and pretty soon we had a pretty sizeable little beading group. It was really fun, and I learned a lot from it. Unfortunately, when I switched to working night shift at work, the beading class didn’t fit in my schedule anymore.
But I kept on buying beads. Every time I got a little extra money, I’d head to one of the bead stores in my area, and spend it. And every time I traveled out of town to visit a friend somewhere, I’d have to seek out a bead store in that location. Occasionally I’d go to some big bead show, and work my way through the crowds to find some new treasures. I justified it by telling myself that one day when I retired, I probably wouldn’t have much free money for beads and bead supplies, so I needed to stock up now, while I was still working. My goal was to build up an inventory of supplies that I could use to make things to sell at arts & crafts fairs. But then, when Etsy became available online, I thought that would be a better place for me to be able to sell my stuff. I wanted to get it together to start up an Etsy store of my own, but with working full-time, I just didn’t have the energy. I decided it would be something I would do after I retired. Then I’d have all kinds of free time to devote to it.
Not long before I retired, I started buying up some things I wanted to use for my intended work area. I’d planned to use a section of the living room as my crafting space. I’d bought a large fold-out table, a rolling 10-drawer cart, a lamp, a grid to hang over my work table to hold things, etc. But then after I retired, I didn’t get started on doing any of that.
I’d been given some money as a retirement gift from coworkers, and I wanted to go onto Etsy and use it to buy myself some really nice piece of jewelry that I otherwise would never splurge on. I hadn’t spent much money for things like beads and jewelry-making stuff for quite a while, so it was a big thrill to have some money to spend on that stuff again. I did buy a really beautiful ring for myself, and I discovered even more beads and supplies that I totally had to have.
I had discovered that online bead shopping was much easier for me than going in person to a bead store. In a bead store, I’d just be overwhelmed with all the hanging strands of colorful beads on the walls, and tubes of beads, packets of beads, and dishes of loose beads everywhere I looked. I’d have to walk around slowly, carrying a tray or basket, bending over to get a closer look at all the tiny items, trying to decide which ones to buy. I have a hard time being up on my feet for very long, and soon my feet and legs and lower back would hurt. There would be no place to sit down and rest, so I’d have to hurry up and make selections. I’d made some impulsive purchases that way, and sometimes I’d missed out on other things I just hadn’t had time to look through. With online shopping, I could comfortably take my time, and look through each item in detail. I could do searches that would bring up exactly the kinds of things I was looking for, and I could compare them and choose what I wanted. If I put too much in my cart, or changed my mind about something, I could remove it with a click, instead of having to actually remember where I got something from, and go there and put it back.
It turned out I was not as poor as I had thought I would be after retirement, and I decided I could afford to indulge some of my cravings to acquire more beads and things. After all, I was going to be starting up my own Etsy store, so I would need certain supplies to get started. And for the next 2–3 years I was a big spender on Etsy (and Amazon). Every time I would get a new idea for something, I had to have the materials that would be required to make that project. And every time I watched a new You Tube video about how to make something that interested me, I had to buy the supplies for that too. There were just endless things that inspired me to try making them myself.
Meanwhile, I had to buy more plastic boxes and bins to hold all this stuff. And then the boxes and bins had to be stored somewhere. The work space I wanted to set up in the living room unfortunately didn’t happen. We had too much other stuff that had nowhere else to go to make room for it. The folding table I bought, and the 10-drawer cart, are still in their boxes, unopened. I live in a small, two-bedroom apartment with my son, and space is at a premium. All my collected stuff was scattered all over the place in all different containers. When I wanted to work on something, I had to go digging through it all to find what I was looking for. It was a real pain. I needed to get organized.
So I did manage, over a few weeks, to gather up all my stuff, and go through it, and organize it. I was thrilled to discover all kinds of things I’d totally forgotten I had. I put all my glass beads together, separated by color, and the same with my acrylic beads. I put wood beads, metal beads, shell beads, bone beads, etc. in separate containers. I stored all my seed beads together. I had a bin just for charms and pendants. I put all my findings together in small containers inside of one big bin. I put all my wire and wire supplies in another bin. I had a bin for leather and fabric cords of various kinds to make necklaces and bracelets. And another smaller bin for plastic/rubber tubing. And then there were all my various paints, and painting supplies. And alcohol inks, and stamps. And my gelli plates, and stencils. And my paper cutters and punches. And resin, and resin supplies. And art paper, and notebooks I wanted to use to make journals. And all the collected magazine cut-outs I use for decoupage and other various projects. And my paper beads and the supplies that go with that. And my shrink plastic supplies. And my polymer clay, and all the tools and accessories that go with that. And there were tubes and jars of all my numerous glues and glazes. And there were tools like my photo cube, my drill set, my heat gun, my glue gun, my UV light, and my label-maker. Plus there had to be containers for the numerous projects I’d started but hadn’t yet finished. And on and on. There’s a serious amount of stuff I’m dealing with here. I definitely have enough to fill a craft room, except I don’t have one. My son calls my bedroom a hoarder room.
And right now, it is a serious pain for me to work on anything with so much clutter everywhere. My dream of having my own craft room is not going to happen as long as we continue to live in this place. There just isn’t a big enough space anywhere in this apartment to have a table, and all my stuff on shelves within easy reach. In a previous place I lived, I’d turned my dining room into my craft area, but that won’t work in this place. And I have way more stuff now than I did then. I do have a small table in my bedroom that I use as my work table, but it’s piled high with stuff that just doesn’t have anywhere else to go. When I want to use the work table, I have to offload all the stuff onto my bed (as I have no other place to put it), and then get out the supplies for whatever it is I’m making, and put that on my bed too. And since I have so many bins stacked up, if I want something from a bottom bin, I have to move all the other ones out of the way to get to it. Not so convenient.
So, if I’m going to go to all the trouble of getting my supplies out to work on things, I want to make sure I have most of the day free to be able to do it. There’s no point in going through all that effort to get everything out, and then more effort to put everything away again, for just an hour or two of work. But as much as I’m eager to make all the things I want to make, I don’t have the energy I once had. I move a lot slower. I’m so crammed into my bedroom with all my stuff, that if I’m sitting and working on something, and then realize I need some other supplies that I have to get up for, it’s just a big hassle to move my work table out of the way so I can get around it and get to the other things I need.
Nothing is simple or easy. And most days, the thought of dragging all my stuff out so I can work on a project just feels overwhelming. I do have lots of time now that I don’t work anymore, but I seem to use it up by just puttering around aimlessly, getting lost in online reading (and writing) on Medium and Quora, and feeling guilty that I’m not working on my projects. I have so many different things I want to do, that I’m paralyzed by not knowing where to start, or what to start on.
And yet… I have thousands of dollars, literally, that I have poured into all these beads and supplies that I’ve collected over the past nearly 30 years. I’ve been wanting to move back east to live near my sister since retiring, but a move all the way across the country is expensive. I think if I could just get busy making stuff to sell on Etsy, then I could potentially earn enough extra money to finance the move. Or, as a last resort, I could at least re-sell lots of my beads and supplies and make some of my money back. But re-selling would never bring in as much money as I paid for it. And I would certainly make more money selling finished jewelry items and other things, than just selling the supplies.
The truth is, that even if I was extremely motivated, and worked for at least a few hours every day making things out of all my materials and supplies, I’d probably have enough to easily keep me busy for the next 10 or more years without buying hardly anything else, except replenishing a few used-up supplies. But who am I kidding? I’ve got more stuff than I could actually use for the rest of my life.
Maybe I should compromise and sell the stuff I’m least likely to use, and keep the rest. I feel a lot of guilt for having so much stuff, and hardly even using it. Yet it would be a struggle for me to part with it, too. That’s my conundrum. I have a big collection of really unique beads, charms and findings that I’ve had for a long time. I have some really gorgeous, expensive ones that I bought with the idea of using them as focal beads, or centerpieces on a necklace. They are so unique that I would have to do a really good job of constructing just the right necklace to show off the bead properly. And then I worry: what if I make the necklace and it doesn’t do justice to the cool bead? Of course, I could tear it out and make a different version. But once it’s made, and I put it up for sale, then I’ll never have that special bead again. I want to make cool things out of my beads, but I also don’t want to part with them.
I get a special thrill out of buying beads and all the supplies that go with them. I can spend hours and hours in front of my computer, excitedly searching through beads in Etsy stores. My motto has always been: one can never have too many beads. There’s always something new and unique that I’ve never seen before. I have to have it, because I have nothing else like it in my collection. It’s in limited supply. There are only 3 left, and 8 people already have it in their cart! I might miss out completely if I don’t grab it now. And it’s on sale! I almost can’t afford NOT to get it. And if I get a few more things to go with it, I can get free shipping!
In my more lucid moments, I recognize that it’s out-of-control, and I periodically tell myself I have to stop buying beads. I don’t have any room for any more beads. I’m not even using the tons of beads I already have. So I do go for periods of time where I restrain myself from even looking through any Etsy stuff. I delete all the offers I get regularly in my online mailbox. I promise myself I’ll stick to making things using only what I have on hand, and not order anything else.
But I can only handle my abstinence from bead-buying for so long. Eventually I will become intrigued with one of my email offers, enticing me to come and look at new arrivals, or sale items. I’ll open it up, and the temptation to check it out will be too great to overcome. Next thing I know, I’ve got a bunch of stuff in my cart, and I’m wondering what I can cut back on in my regular budget to make room for this order.
There’s another saying I ran across that pretty much sums up my experience:
“I’m a craftaholic on the road to recovery. Just kidding. I’m on the road to the craft store.”
