And the Winner Is ....

Congratulations to Isabelle of Bead4Me for winning this month's EBW challenge titled "A Fairy Tale."

You can see all of the winners on the EBW blog.

EBW Fairy Tale Challenge

The Etsy Beadweavers Fairy Tale Challenge is now open for voting.  You can vote for your favorite here now until March 15th.

I Won! I Won! Look What I Won!

Yesterday I received some amazing news.  I won something in a giveaway!  I never ever win anything, so this news was somewhat shocking!  But the best part of winning is not that I won.  It's WHAT I won! 

This painting was created by Jean Hutter of Totally Twisted who had a giveaway on her blog,  I entered it with longing to be the winner but quickly squashed my hopeful yearnings as I didn't want to experience the disappointment of not winning again.   So you can imagine my delight at actually having won!  I can't wait for the painting to arrive so I can see it in person.

Jean is not only a painting genius, but a very talented beadweaver and jewelry designer.  You can see more of her creations in her Etsy shop.  Take a few minutes to go look - you won't be disappointed!

Did I Miss Valentine's Day?

I don't know how it happened, but I'm pretty sure February 14th passed me by and I didn't finish my Valentine piece or blog about it yet.  And yes, I'm feeling guilty!  So just to show I have good intentions and really am working on it, here's a little preview.

 
This will be part of the pendant for a beaded necklace which I hope to have finished soon and I will post pictured of the completed piece - hopefully before next Valentine's Day.

I am privileged to be a member of the Artbeads blogging team and for January we were given the theme of Valentine's Day.  "No problem," I said to myself and I ordered these beautiful ceramic hearts to use in a bead embroidered cuff.

 

I also ordered several types of beads that I thought would look good with the ceramic hearts - some cute mother of pearl hearts,  sterling silver roundels, 1.8mm square cut beads, and 4mm Druk cherry red beads. 

 

Artbeads has a great selection  of Valentine's Day components which you can find HERE.

I have no pictures to prove I actually started on the cuff, but I did.  I even made a special trip into San Diego to find some other beady goodness to go on the cuff.  I cut out the Lacy's stiff stuff and glued the components onto it with E6000 glue.  Then I started beading around the large heart and found it harder than I expected.  The heart bead is about 5mm thick and I was having a hard time getting the inner "cut out" part of the heart to look good.   After several attempts I decided my idea wasn't going to work and I had to come up with plan B which is working out much better.

I receive no compensation from Artbeads for blogging about their products.  I am delighted to be a part of their blogging group and hope they will forgive me for this late posting.