I brought my beads :D
All of these brings old memories, those magazines are from 2002, my parents bought them from me after they saw me so interest in making stuff for myself.
8 years ago, (*sigh that long?) I was in 8th grade and back then what I watched the most on tv was craft shows, so little by little I started to try those projects but my hometown is a small city, and most or all the materials and tools they showed on tv, weren't there. Also beading or making your own jewelry was odd, it was a "hippie" thing, I mean, Internet was only to check e-mails and chat online.
One day my mom told me about a little bead store, so she drove me there, it was kind of cute now that I remember, the owners were a couple of old people (in a good sense) and they were really nice and they had everything in little boxes, I was amazed, I couldn't stop staring all of that, I wanted to take everything home, so after a few days I became a regular visitor and months later the "bead fever" started, diy jewelery magazines started to come out (i forgot the phrasal verb for "publish and sell") and so people started to sell beads and all the necessary material little by little, but I kept visiting the old little store.
I remember my dad buying tons of magazines for me and my mom asking me if I wanted her to drive me to the little store again... they were like encouraging me. After a few months, while in my parent's hometown on vacation, my aunt asked me if I wanted her to sell my stuff on her store so I said yes and I arranged everything with packaging and displays and gave her most of the stuff I had atm, earrings, necklaces, bracelets, pins (I was kinda crazy, I was making stuff I didn't even wear, I was making those just for the sake of it) and finally I earned 50 bucks :p, my parents were really proud of me, but I was like "bleh it's not big deal, it's what I like to do".
And after a while I stopped doing it, because it became massive and I feel what I was doing wasn't special anymore, I guess the comment "ah yeah, those are easy!, my 5 year old nephew can do them" pushed me back and I wasn't interested anymore, suddenly everybody knew, everybody sold, it wasn't a good viable hobby anymore, so I stayed put. Of course there will always be people better in what they do than you, or worse than you, or people more succesful but I felt like limited because I wanted more but I couldn't buy the stuff to make the things I had on mind, so I just keep making things only for me. It was a craft hiatus till I moved where I live now and i saw all those stores with infinite amount of supplies and I slapped my forehead several times like saying "damn it, if I only knew this before"... but it's fine, I'm cool now, the massive bead fever is kinda gone... or settled....
Now everybody or most people are on the rush and just buy whatever it's on the shops. I still look for handmade stuff, I really care for the effort people have put on the items and it's better if I see I can do it myself, I feel really proud when I finally get it done and I like the result.
I still want to take home everything from the craft stores and make stuff I wont even wear, I can't help it.