In my younger days, I made jewelry for fun, and with encouragement of friends and family, I started selling them off too. Back then, I did not wear jewelry, never liked wearing them anyway, though I loved making them. I eventually wore jewelry to advertise my work.

It all started when my cousin showed me earrings she had made. I was fascinated and started experimenting with whatever I could find to make my own jewelry.

My mom is a whiz with all sorts of handicrafts. Macrame, dress making, crochet, rug making, you name it, she's probably made it. She has a nice collection of craft materials. Beads, buttons, fabrics, strings.. and she let me use her materials.

I started with bracelets. No clasps. Just plain stretchable bead bracelets that were simply wooden beads strung together on elastic.

Bracelet making is about putting together a pleasant combination of beads, both in size and color. Mix and match colors. Mix big ones for focus with small ones as fillers. You can thread them through a string first to see how it looks and measure it against your wrist for fit. Once you are satisfied with bracelet. String elastic through beads and tie a dead knot and hide loose ends of elastic under beads.