What Inspires You?

Artbeads.com provided a beading contest entitled "What Inspires You?"  Voting opened today, November 23 and ends Wednesday, December 8. Winners will be announced Thursday, December 16, 2010.

There are two categories - a Necklace Category and a General Category and you can vote for your favorite in each one.  Click on the first name in the group and it will show you the original inspiration and the creation it inspired.  From there you can click on the "next" tab and see all of the beautiful entries in each category.

Congratulations to everyone who entered and good luck!  The prizes are fabulous!

And the Winner is...

In honor of reaching 200 sales in my Etsy shop, 43 people commented on my blog and/or let me know that they tried but couldn't due to technical difficulties.  All 43 names went into the hat and my husband pulled out the name "Cali."  Cali won one of my Walk on the Wild Side dichroic glass cabochons I called Midnight Mystery. 

Congrats, Cali!  I left a comment on your facebook page!

Thanks to everyone who commented (or tried) and to all those who have been such an encouragement to me over the past year!

Big Dreams Start Small

Little did I know when I opened my BeadsForever Etsy shop in November 2007 that it would bring such joy to my heart.  I didn't make a big splash when I opened my shop.  Far from it!  It wasn't until almost a year later that I sold my very first item, a necklace I named "Bronze Delight" which combined beadweaving with one of my polymer clay cabs.

Today I had my 200th sale to a very dear facebook friend - one of my dichroic glass cabochons.

While 200 may not be a very large number to many of you, to me it is a huge milestone!  It took a lot of determination and perserverance to stand alone and keep putting one foot in front of another.  I'm so happy I did not give up and let my little dream die.  I praise God for giving me faith to continue on and thank my friends who encouraged me to keep going.

To celebrate this milestone and to thank you all, I am having a giveaway.  Whomever leaves a comment on this blog post will have a change to win this new Walk on the Wild Side dichroic glass cab called Midnight Mystery.

To enter this giveaway just leave a comment on my blog (say anything you want) and your name will be put in a hat for a drawing on November 15, 2010.  Only one entry per person.  Please leave some hint as to how I can get in contact with you to get your mailing address (if I don't know you already).

Remember, big dreams start small.  It just takes a little faith, courage and perserverance.  What's your dream?

Leafy Greens are Good For You!

For the past few weeks I've had the pleasure of collaborating with Marsha Hedrick, a porcelain artist I met on facebook.  Marsha created some new porcelain pendant and end cap sets and she asked me to use a few of them with the Kumihimo braiding technique to create some necklaces.  Here is a picture of the Leafy Green set from Marsha's website, Amazing Porcelain.com which I used to create the first necklace.

For the Kumihimo braid, I used two strands of multi colored fiber, two strands of metallic gold cording, two strands of green and amber triangle beads, and two strands of size 8 transparent dark green seed beads.  I used the round braid pattern to create a 15" necklace.  The slider pendant fits snugly on the 11mm diameter necklace braid.  I attached a bezeled glass drop from the hole in the slider pendant.

After tying off the Kumihimo braid ends, I attached the porcelain end caps and metal toggle closure using needle and thread.  Another option would have been to use wire which can be securely attached to the braid ends and then inserted through the holes in the end caps.  I chose to use thread because I wanted to use matching beads to extend the closure.  The total length of the necklace with the end caps and closure is 17".

Please check out all the other new pendant sets on Marsha's website HERE.  And great news, all the new items are currently on sale!  Stay tuned for more collaboration pieces to be shown soon.