OK. I have to admit right up front that I teach jewelry making classes. So why would I say to you that jewelry making videos are a better option than taking classes?

I've learned this from my own experience with my students. Some of my students take my jewelry making classes just because they want to spend some time doing something interesting and enjoy the company of other ladies. They look at jewelry making as just a hobby, and that's fine.

But my other students take their jewelry making a little more seriously. They want to make quality handmade jewelry for themselves, as gifts for friends and family, or even sell their jewelry for profit. If you are like these students then I recommend jewelry making videos as a more effective teaching tool, and also as a more cost effective option than jewelry making classes.

Why more effective as a teaching tool? It's pretty simple really. When you learn a new jewelry pattern in class you probably will have forgotten much of it by the time you get home. That's just how our brains work unfortunately. Even if you take home with you written diagrams showing the jewelry pattern of the piece you learned in class, many people, myself included, just can't translate a 2-dimensional diagram into a 3-dimensional world.

This can be a very frustrating experience, as I have learned with many of my students. To help my students overcome this I created jewelry making videos showing step-by-step how to create the jewelry pieces we made in class.

What a difference this has made not only in improving the quality of the jewelry pieces my students make, but also in eliminating their frustration level of forgetting how to make the jewelry pieces once they get back home from class.

What a jewelry making video allows you to do is watch every move the teacher makes in close-up detail. But probably more importantly, with a video you can watch the lesson over and over and over again, anytime you want, in the comfort of your own home. It's like being able to retake the class, for free, as many times as you like. This is especially important when you haven't made the jewelry piece in a while and you need a refresher. No need to pay for another class!

And that gets to my second point, why videos are more cost effective than jewelry making classes. When you take a class, private or group, you have to pay for the instructor's time. If you want to learn to make many different jewelry pieces, at $20/hr. for group lessons, and upwards of $40/hr. for private lessons, the cost can really start to add up. In addition, you are limited to learning whatever it is that the instructor wants to teach you.

With jewelry making videos, on the other hand, there is a vast and rapidly growing library of lessons available for viewing on the internet or on DVD. The cost for these lessons is very low, sometimes even free, and you get to own them forever. You never have to pay for them again.

If you are, or are thinking you might become, serious about your jewelry making, I recommend giving video lessons a shot.

Both the playback and the payback are hard to beat.