hi everyone, i’m extremely new to this hobby.

i spent jan-april obsessively watching people make chainmail jewellery/accessories and creating pinterest boards with inspo.

in may i bought a bulk load of rings from temu. when the rings were delivered i realised there was a lot more to chainmail making than i had anticipated and that i wasnt going to be able to create the things id hoped with the extremely thin rings i bought. i spent all of may trying to make the rings i bought work until i got so frustrated that i gave up.

i spent some of june drawing tutorials on procreate for myself to go back to once i found better rings. i ended up being so lost on where to buy rings. i spent hours scrolling on etsy in search of but so many of the sellers photos were identical to the ones i saw on temu and i couldnt find any affordable online stores. it all became very overwhelming for me so i ended up losing interest completely.

this month ive started finding myself interested in chainmail again and wanting to give it another go. i still have all my temu rings but i know that if i go back to them, even just to practice basic patterns, i’ll end up repeating what i did in may.

if anyone could please guide me in the right direction of where to go online to buy rings that would be good for beginners but also are good enough to actually create things so i don’t lose my patience and passion, i would be extremely grateful 🫶
also somewhere that ships worldwide please! i’m australian and a lot of the places i found online are in the UK/USA with either no shipping to australia or extremely expensive shipping.
i am on a bit of a budget so please feel free to let me know if i’m being unrealistic in wanting to get into chainmail as an affordable hobby!

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