teaching

September 23, 2009

Had my first class of "peyote intensive" yesterday and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It reminded me how much I love teaching. I used to teach at bead conferences the Bead & Button and Bead Fest shows traveling around the US and teaching. It was a lot of work, creating new original projects for each show, applying to teach and then making kits to bring with me to the show, but I enjoyed it all. My favorite part was the teaching and meeting my students. However, after a few years of this I got tired, all the work to get there was not worth the few hours with the students. Besides, the economy hit the beading business as well. The number of students started dwindling which meant I did not make as much money as I wanted. Both Kalmbach and Interweave - the publishing companies who print the magazines and do the shows - started selling videos of their classes on the internet making it easier and less costly for a student to learn without paying a fortune.

So, the next thing for me was to figure out a way to sell my jewelry. A friend suggested ETSY a place to buy/sell all things handmade. It was not hard to sign up but etsy is so big you have to create a presence on the internet for people to find you and you have to sign up with Paypal, Facebook, you have to Blog and next, you have to be on Twitter!!! All these things are not difficult for someone who is familiar with the computer but for me it has been a CHALLENGE. It has taken me a week to figure out a simple thing that another would have done it with a click of a button.

And so life goes on with all its pleasures and frustrations.....