“I think I’m going to get into beading,” I said to my husband as we sat on the couch together in the post-bedtime slump. After we get our 4-year-old to bed, sometimes with a fight, we crash in the living room together and just enjoy the sound of silence. In telling him, I was mostly preparing him for the number of packages that were about to arrive in the mail bearing beads, tiny pliers, and little gold doodads. “I want something to do when my brain is tired that isn’t scrolling on my phone.”
“Like a hand hobby?” he said. “Yes! Exactly. A hand hobby,” I replied. I’d been thinking about it a few nights prior as I tried to decide what to do with my two hours between our son’s bedtime and when I lay down myself. I was mentally exhausted, too much so to do either of my usual hobbies: reading and writing. It felt like I had nothing else to do but look at my phone for two hours, and that thought pissed me right off. Of course there were better things to do with my time. But what to do…
I started thinking about what I could take up that’s creative and might put me in that wonderful state of flow where time passes differently because you’re so focused and into what’s in front of you. Certainly replacing doomscrolling with an analog hobby that grounds me in the present would do wonders for my nervous system. I felt the urge to create something and started thinking about my options. Maybe painting? Drawing? Sculpting little air-dry clay trinkets? Coloring? None of that really excited me. Knitting or embroidery, perhaps? Hmm, no, not feeling it. Beading? Oh, that could do the trick.
I watched a few beading TikToks and marveled at the beautiful necklaces and bag charms these women were making, and I immediately wanted to try it myself. I love accessories, and I could apparently make my own with relative ease. It occurred to me then that beading was something I had always loved — I would go through set after set of plastic beads as a kid, making whozits and whatzits for myself and everyone around me.
Why didn’t I think of this sooner? My loves of writing and reading bloomed in childhood too — my mom loves to talk about how, as a little girl, I’d sit on a big rock in the backyard writing in my pink and purple journal, or climb up into my grandparents’ orange tree to read a book. I had stopped reading for pleasure in college, when being an English major necessitated that I read multiple books a week for years on end. But a couple of years back, I picked it back up, and it significantly reduced the amount of time I dedicated to social media and being on my phone.
Beading fell off my radar at some point, probably when I hit middle or high school and started spending more time online, setting cryptic AIM away messages and agonizing over which song to use on my MySpace profile. I guess it makes sense that now, in my efforts to get even further offline, I’d find my way back to jewelry-making again.
It has been so fun browsing online, picking out the beads and charms for my projects, watching tutorials explaining which wire to use inside a necklace, and looking for inspiration instead of just endlessly scrolling in search of something worth seeing. I’ve bookmarked some adorable fruit beaded bracelets to make for friends and family as gifts, a gorgeous half-gemstone, half-pearl necklace to recreate, and while I can’t yet figure out how to make beaded earrings, I intend to figure it out. My little beading pliers and wires and clasps have started arriving in the mail, and I’m just waiting on the beads to get here to start.
Maybe this fall and winter is the moment for all of us to think about how we want to spend our time. The cozy hours indoors are upon us; what do we really want to use them for? Personally, I’m excited to fill my field of vision with a tiny glowing rectangle a lot less often. Instead, I’ll be over here making possum keychains and candy cane Christmas ornaments.
