My Challenge Piece for Etsy Beadweavers in August is POSTED!

After being a member for months, I have finally entered by first Etsy Beadweavers Challenge!  The prize for winning is picking the next month's challenge.  There are 12 challenges per year and I am inspired to start entering more of them afte rthe fantastic experience I had making this piece.  There are about 250 beadworkers from all over the world on the team, which is moderated by several wonderful bead artists.

I am really proud to say I designed all of the beaded beads here save one, the red netted bead which is her "Easy Netted Bead" from Diane Fitzgerald's Netted Beadwork.  The rules of the challenge state clearly that I have to have designed the piece and not used any pattern or tutorial, but this is one easy beaded bead that I needed to balance the rest, so I thought that would be OK since the entire rest of the necklace is 100% Jobi (at least to my knowledge)!

The challenges really force me to create something "outside the box" so I hope to do many more in the future.

Let me know what you think!

A little sample of stuff that has sold

The above design was the best seller at the Trunk Show for earrings.  I made several in different color-ways and they all went lickety split.  They are just a right-angle-weave cube of 6mm Swarovski pearls with a netted embellishment.  Easy beaded bead!

Tried my hand at one of the popular "wrap" bracelets (above) and have since sold every one I have made!  They are very fun to wear and work up quickly, but I prefer my fiddly bead weaving, sadly.

I posted the brown embroidered piece above when I did it long ago, but it actually sold so I am posting it again.  I'd like to make another but am having a hard time finding the right stones.

These little butes sold to my lovely next-door neighbor.  I love orange and gun-metal.

Melissa's Necklace

37 inches of odd-count tubular peyote in.... candy apple red.  Cherry red.  Come hither red.  Naughty lipstick red.  Mmmmmmm.  My horrible photography does not do this color justice.  Sadly, bought this tube of beads from a sale bin years ago and have no idea what they are or if I'll ever see this awesome red again.

Bead Show Bests

I have been meaning to do my "Bead Show best of" post since about June 10, but alas, work and life intervened (and, I had a lot of beading I wanted to do).  Here are photos of my favorite items from Bead Show with contact information if you want to try to shop online!

Julie Miller, above, makes these gorgeous hollows.  She does wonders with metallic looks.

These are my favorite for earrings - lots and lots and lots of earrings...

Second annual favorite in the show, this artist has an eye for color that just kills me.  The bead at the bottom right of this photo is a re-buy from last year!

Fiona and I both got some stuff from Laura Schreiber, who also has my color number!

This is a lousy photo of some really wonderful beads - they are blue with fierce green tigery stripes.

We bought lots of Kim's beads at the Michigan bead artist booth.

Golum Studios, above, continues to have the most interesting designs in cabs, very modern and incredible color.

Our first stop at the show on Thursday night was Lisa Peters.  WE LOVE LISA.  Wow.  Every year her work gets more and more awesome!!

I love owls.  This year's owly purchase was from Mak at MAKU Studios.

We always spend a lot of time at Nikki's booth as well.  She has whimsy, this one does...

And the final haul.  The tubes on the right are seed beads, mostly from Beyond Beadery, which we annually spend an hour in line waiting to pay, but it is all worth it.  And on the bottom right are fire polished Czeck imports from our favorite Raven Studios.