Beads And Buttons As Gemstones

When we think of jewelry rings, we tend to think of a band made of metal with some sort of stone. That stone could be anything from a rock to a mineral to a semiprecious stone to a precious stone, set into the metal itself. There are many different types of rings that are only made with metal, or resin, or plastic. There are tons of different ways to make them, and the designs to be made are endless. They are never-ending. Anything could be made with those materials, and jewelry will be ever-evolving. 

Lately, I’ve been going bonkers for adding a button, or a fancy bead, to a short amount of stretchy cord, and turning that into a ring. It uses the basic idea of ‘metal with gem’, but instead it’s ‘stretchy cord with bead’.

They’re ridiculously simple to make, and yet, the possibilities are still endless.

Once you realize how much you can do with two materials, and a pair of scissors, the process becomes a lot of fun very quickly. You can have your fancy ring, made with things that are much, much easier to come by than diamonds and emeralds and platinum and gold and things. 

Even though cheap silver is cheap, it’s still harder to use than a button and the elastic from a surgical mask, which was how I first started making these rings to begin with. It all started with a button from a shirt that had fallen off, and the elastic from a surgical mask I’d worn that day. This love of creating these types of rings had sprouted in me around Covid. 

We all began making things during that time. We started cooking or crafting or baking or decorating. We found our souls were filled with art, and the need to be able to mix a good cocktail. Being stuck inside taught us how to be stuck inside. Still, as an artist, I kept creating even after Covid. But, I still had learned more than I could have learned at any other time. Now, I’m getting out of my apartment everyday, no matter the weather, but I keep my life during Covid with me.

It’s amazing the types of things that become necessity when we learn how to not live with what was necessity before. We grow into different people when we have to. My life has been the constant learning of how to do different crafts, and the expansion of that knowledge when it was needed. I know many other artists who are the same. We come into our crafts because, for some reason, they were there when we needed them the most, even when nothing else was going right and when no one was there.

Art gives people who make art control over their own lives. It gives us the ability to puzzle out our lives and give us a venue and a medium to discuss it. Each art is different for each person. We do what we do because we see our lives in it, and we understand our lives better because of it. 

What I see in making jewelry for myself, including these rings, is the ability to create myself and who I want to be.

The root of every medium is self-expression, but it’s more than that. Art is always, always more than that. Every medium is the freedom to discover yourself and how you relate to the world. We exist because of how each medium allows us to build relationships, conversations, and ideas with one another. The world cannot exist without art because human community relies on it. Who would we be without the one thing that brings us together enough to show us who we are?