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Thread: Balancing jewellery with full-time work

  1. #11
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    Jul 2009
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    Shetland
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    129

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    I work part time for the NHS and part time making jewellery. There has to be some give in the system and I'll be glad when the business is able to stand on it's own two feet!! Sometimes I'm busy(like know) sometimes I'm not

  2. #12
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    Jul 2009
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    North Wales
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    I work part time as a craft curator (2days a week), teach jewellery skills and design in the local college (1 day a week), am studying for my pgce (1 day a week), and making jewellery (3 days a week - note no spare days!). I never feel like I have enough time to make the things I want to make, and for the last couple of years I have worked on comission after comission, so my goal for this summer with my few spare days a week is to get some work made that I WANT to make and try and have it exhibited. I need a rich benefactor happy to fund my playtime I think!!

  3. #13
    Join Date
    Jul 2009
    Location
    Market Deeping
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    I gave up selling computer software (well paid) to make jewellery full time 4 years ago. Now I'm poorly paid but very, very happy. One day I'll stop buying tools and pay myself more (rofl yeah right!)
    Nicola x
    Monthly FREE entry giveaways on Blogs!
    Shop Blog: http://muranosilver.blogspot.com/
    Silver Clay Blog: http://pmctips.blogspot.com/
    View images of my work on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/muranosilver

  4. #14
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    Jul 2009
    Location
    Flushing Cornwall
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    48

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    Quote Originally Posted by Milomade View Post
    It's a good mix as if I'm working away on a web project and get bored or frustrated with it, or am simply waiting on a client to supply content. I can go sit at my other desk and do some soldering or work on a project there and keep swapping like that to my hearts content.
    Sounds perfect, Im slowly getting there, but its the funds that are stumping me! need to find me a millionaire but of stuff on the side hahah!!
    have recently become unemployed so looking for the perfect part time job to go along side!!
    HannahMary Jewellery
    Website


  5. #15
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    Jul 2009
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    Balancing full time work and jewellery making is almost impossible! I've been doing both for a year and a half, making jewellery on Saturdays and Sundays and working in London during the week (I live in Brighton). It was very frustrating. So last month I decided to give up the pen pushing job and work on my jewellery full time. Its been a great month and I've nearly finished my first collection of pieces (only 12 items!) which hopefully will sell well locally and earn me a bit of a living.

  6. #16
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    Jul 2009
    Location
    Cornwall
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    3,172

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    I used to work part time and make jewellery part time. I gave up in December '07 to work full time on jewellery. I enjoy every minute although it's really hard work and I don't have much of a social life. Like Muranosilver, a big chunk of my profits goes on equipment.

  7. #17
    Join Date
    Jul 2009
    Location
    Barnstaple, Devon, United Kingdom
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    2,533

    Default Its not all Roses!

    Up until 2007 I worked as a clinical midwifery manager at the local hospital. I loved my midwifery but going into management was a mistake and made me quite ill. The stress was appalling. Then I had a stroke of luck (sort of); I was diagnosed with a health problem that precluded midwifery (something called Behcets Disease) and had to retire. Problem was, we still have a mortgage to pay and my OH is ten years older than me and due to retire. He had also given up a very well paid job in IT to enable me to further my midwifery and also to enable us to move to Devon.

    Crap hit fan time eh?

    Well, I set myself up, quite successfully as it happens, as a freelance writer and that pulled in more than enough to pay the mortgage. I was doing something I loved that was compatible with my health issues. Then came the credit crunch - the first people to get hit are the freelancers - especially if they do something like writing because everybody thinks its a simple matter to write and the function gets brought in house.

    So, now I have time to reclaim my jewellery making. If you find a market for your stuff that can pay (although not like writing and certainly not like health service management). At the end of August my OH will be 65 and to my shame (because he gave up a well paid job for me) he will have to continue working in the cardboard box factory down the road.

    All of this is dealable with but the thing I find really difficult is the solitariness of working from home. Going out to work is as much a social activity as it is an economic necessity.

    So, those of you who are lusting to give up the 9-5 - just remember that it ain't all roses (although, on balance, it is better than facing the politics of the workplace everyday!).

    Di x

  8. #18
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    Jul 2009
    Location
    Bristol
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    It's really encouraging to see so many people having given up work for jewellery and loving it! My plan to go Self Employed took a slight turn but I am hoping it will give me the right balance between being emplyed and having the freedom to work on my business. Basically I have found a job, from a website I frequently buy from, as a Web Developer, but I can work from home and hours to suit me, so I will save travel time, can have things in my kiln while I am working next to it, etc etc. Will make my life muuch simpler and easier to make time for my jewellery with any luck, and still give me a bit of time for my other half and social life too!

  9. #19
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    Jul 2009
    Location
    Bristol
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    Oh Di, you posted that while I was writing, don't think I am being oblivios to your comments!

    Sounds like you have had a rubbish run of bad luck financially I agree with being aware of the isolation of working for yourself, I have done it before. From my point of view I love ebing able to be at home in the day - I have my cats and tortoise for company (I know how sad that sounds, but I do find them good company - well mostly the cats - not so much interaction with a toirtoise!!) and I have a pretty good social life now. I didn't before and I was a bit of a hermit! And of course there's the internet

  10. #20
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    Jul 2009
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    Barnstaple, Devon, United Kingdom
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    Hey 44 - I realised that but thank you for being concerned about it

    I have Floozie (the ginger Tom) and my friends on FB and a couple of other sites and my ex- boss visits, as do a couple of friends. And, tbh, I prefer my own company - although most folk think I'm a raving extrovert.

    I just wanted to remind folk that its not all its cracked up to be. Me being me didn't think about the downsides - the opportunity came and I went for it! I think that the pig flu (or whatever it is) caused me a moment of emotional incontinence.

    x

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