New Bezel Setting Tips Video

I like to keep these blog posts short and to the point. Bear with me today:

Well, when I first started this JewelryMonk website, I had so many ideas in my head. I have all this info in me that I have collected over the years, and I have always been of the opinion that I can’t take it with me, and it is better shared than hoarded.  You see, I have been making jewelry for over 30 years and the one thing I like more than making jewelry is teaching….. and race cars….. and my guitar……and…. ok, but I really like to teach.  I don’t know why, because in school, I was not the best student. I had it in me, but it takes the right kind of teacher and the right subject to get me interested I guess….. but I digress.

Let me get a bit personal and tell you a story that changed my life. A number of years ago I lived in the Dominican Republic for a couple of years training model makers how to make jewelry. I didn’t speak but about 10 words of Spanish…… interesting times. Driving back and forth to work every day along the Coastal Highway was one of the most beautiful drives….. again I digress.  Along this drive, when I got into the city of Santo Domingo, at every stoplight, there were always people asking for money. Un-Peso-Por-Favor, or in English “Can I Have a Peso Please? Peso’s were pretty cheap, so I always kept a bunch of peso coins in my vehicle, a 1963 Chevy Pickup….. (another story)

This one particular day I stopped at this stoplight and I noticed this Dominican lady standing there with 7 children, all between the age of 1-10, the 1 year old was on her hip. The light turned red and the lady and her children dispersed and tapped on all the car windows with their dirty faces…. Un-Peso-Por-Favor….. I started thinking to myself, this lady has quite the business going on here, the light changes every 2 minutes, loads of cars, loads of dirty faced kids…. she is probably making good money….. in fact, she is probably making better money than I am…… I started to feel dirty and angry inside. Then I heard a voice speak to me. It was not an audible voice, but it spoke to me deep inside my being. I heard, “Your job is to give, not to judge who you think is “worthy of your pesos”, You are a giver, not a judge. How would you like to be judged the same way you judge?” WOW, I was shaken, and have looked at the world differently ever since.

So I give. and this website has been a vessel of giving back to the craft that has given me so much.

1. Tutorials, in fact when I first started this site, I did 90 tutorials in 90 days!! If you haven’t been on this journey this whole time, go ahead and scroll down and go back a few pages and check out some great content.
2. Podcasts, I have been doing a few podcasts lately and if you haven’t checked them out, you can listen to them here on this website, or download them from iTunes or Stitcher onto your mobile devices or smart phones and listen to them at your leisure, or drives to work, etc.
3. Video teaching, this is new to me, and I am still pretty uncomfortable in front of the camera, but I will get better, and the video and audio quality will get better I promise, but I created my first video teaching on Bezel Setting Tips. It can be found at Jewelrymonk.com/bezelsettips  Check it out and let me know what you think. There will be more coming.

So this is a long Blog Post, but it is my way, I guess, to say thank you for coming on this journey with me. I am still blown away by the generosity I received months back when I went through my little cancer trial. I am doing great and pressing onward.

As always, thanks for stopping by. If you value the content here, subscribe and get notified whenever I post something new. Also follow along on FaceBook, Twitter, and Pinterest. Just look for “JewelryMonk”

Now…… Go Make Something Shiny!