If you've been wondering about making your own jewellery, but haven't yet been sure whether it is for you or not - I'd love to encourage you to give it a go!

Of course, I'm biased - I love making jewellery, and also - more importantly, I know it is hugely valuable as a creative outlet; there are plenty of great reasons to give it a try...

Any creative hobby or pastime is proven to be a valuable therapeutic in terms of improving or safeguarding your mental health. Taking the time to have a break from the rest of your life, without worrying about whatever else may be going on in your work, life or family is incredibly valuable. The process of making something and the focus this requires, as well as working with your hands, which very few of us do much of in our lives gives our brains a real break, by using a completely different way of thinking and working... Not to mention the sense of achievement when you can proudly show off your new creations!

If you'd like to find out a little more about getting started with jewellery making - do click here to receive my free booklet with all of my top tips...

Learning new things and expanding my jewellery making skills are key to my life and work. I love to learn new things, find out how things work, and to experiment, and there are many different ways to learn.

One option, of course, it to teach yourself and spend your time working out how things might be made, or backwards engineering different ideas. This can be great fun and you might surprise yourself with how much you can work out if you apply the principles from your existing knowledge into new projects or experiments!

The more you try this, the more it is likely to work as, of course, experience and practice always help, but they are not always essential. A lot of processes can be quite logical once you work out how to break the steps down, or divide the project into separate parts.

To give this a try - whether you are trying to make your own version of something you've seen, or whether it is an idea you've imagined, the best way to start is by trying to draw it - whether or not you think you're good at drawing, the act of looking at (or imagining) the item and trying to figure out how it looks will help you start to think about how it might be build - what shapes join to what, how sections connect, the shape and texture of different elements.. Another way to work is to create a model - depending on the shape you're creating - using paper, card, plasticine, wire to see if you can re-create the form.

Modelmaking and drawing will help you to work out the form, then the next process is to try a prototype - this is a more formal model - made in something close to the final material (if you plan to finally work in gold, then prototype in copper or silver, if you plan to work in silver clay, you could prototype in polymer clay, for example) and working through this will help you to work out and refine any issues. Then you will be ready to create the item for real!

The downside to this process is of course is that you are on your own - but there is plenty of support available, for example - my group the Jewellery Makers - where a friendly group of people is growing - who all love jewellery, and are at different stages of their jewellery making journey - some are professional makers, some are just thinking about getting started, and all different stages in between!

Do come over and join us in the jewellery makers and say hello!

If you've tried teaching yourself something, or working out a new project - do share your own top tips below!!