Our Little Pumpkin

We brought our new baby girl home from the hospital Sunday night. We are happy to finally be home with her. We are all doing great. It's been a busy couple of days getting adjusted to taking care of our new addition, we still haven't figured it all out yet. We are a little tired but doing well! Thank you for all the well wishes, Everyone! I loved seeing all your comments! I appreciate all your support for the new baby and the upcoming book as well! :)

A Book and a Call for Contributors!!!

Dear Friends,

I will be writing my first jewelry-making instruction book with my good friend Lorelei Eurto! Yes, that’s right. Lorelei and lil’ ol’ ME! :) The two of us will be co-authors of an upcoming jewelry-making book for Interweave Press! I am just beside myself. This is literally a DREAM COME TRUE for me! I have always LOVED all types of jewelry-making books. I have tons of books in my beading library that I’ve been collecting for years. I’ve flipped through my books dreaming of my own book many, many times. I never thought it would happen this soon! I am so happy to be sharing this experience with a great jewelry designer and friend.

I don’t know if many of you know this, but Lorelei was the first jewelry designer to contact me when I entered the blog-o-sphere over two years ago as a new ceramic bead artist. She was the first to buy some of my ceramic pieces and the first to introduce me to the beading blog community. We have stayed in constant contact with each other since then and we have become close friends over the last two years. Lorelei has never let me down. She has always been there for me personally and supported me in all the different directions I’ve gone in with my bead-making and jewelry-making career. When I was a new ceramic bead artist, she supported me. When I changed my style and look of my ceramic pieces, she was right there cheering me on. When I found out I was pregnant, she was happy for me. When I announced I was leaving the ceramic world to pursued more of a jewelry-making career, she was again one of the first to support my decision and my change. I’ve always been able to count on her. She is a good friend. I am so happy and honored to have her working on this project with me and I can not think of a better person to be doing this with.

CALL FOR CONTRIBUTORS:
We want this to be fun and exciting for you as well! We are sharing this opportunity with all of you here in this beading community. We are looking for jewelry designers to contribute projects to our book! Yes, that’s right, YOU could be apart of this with us and have YOUR work “out there” and published in a BOOK and get paid for it!!! What could be better than that! We have chosen one contributor already, but we’ve decided to open the field up and give some others a chance to be part of this project. We are looking for one other designer, possibly two. If you are chosen to contribute to the book, you will be paid on a per project basis. We would like up to 5 projects from each contributor. Your jewelry designs and complete instructions will be printed in the book along with your name and contact info. You will also receive a free copy of the book when it is published. We are excited to be able to take an opportunity like this and share it. We hope you will be really enthusiastic about this upcoming book project! So, now you want to know what the book is about, right? Well here it goes:

ABOUT THE BOOK:
Title: A Jewelry Accord: 50+ Innovative Styles Using Leather, Lace, Ribbon & Cords
A fundamental jewelry-making instruction book with a focus on the use of alternative materials in beaded jewelry such as, leather cord, suede lace, waxed linen cord, cotton cord, silk cord, ribbons and other cords. This book teaches how to incorporate these materials into jewelry designs using basic jewelry-making techniques such as stringing, wire-wrapping, knotting and braiding.

WHAT WE ARE LOOKING FOR:

Do you enjoy using cords, ribbons or fibers in your jewelry? Would you be super excited and pumped to have your designs published in a book? If your answer is YES to these questions, then you could be who we are looking for!
There are some rules and requirements, so please read carefully.

• Please US residents only. We are very sorry, we wish we could invite absolutely everyone. :(

• We can not accept any projects that have been previously published.

• Your projects must represent original work by you.

• You must create your projects using basic jewelry-making techniques such as stringing, crimping, wire-wrapping, wrapped loops, knotting, simple braiding, etc. Think Stringing Magazine. Look through the techniques section to get an idea of what would be appropriate for this book. You may use more than one technique in a single piece.

• Necklaces and bracelets only please.

• Your jewelry projects must incorporate at least one type of cord or ribbon material in each design.

• We encourage you to use various cord and ribbon findings to finish off your pieces such as crimp-style or fold-over style cord ends, glue-in style cord ends, cone findings, clamshells, knot cups, ribbon ends or clamps, etc. Please look around and see what’s out there on the market today for options.

• We encourage you to use art beads and/or artisan made findings and jewelry components, if you want to, although this is not a requirement.

• We also encourage you to try incorporating more than one type of cording material in a single piece. Try mixing suede lace with silk ribbon or linen cord with leather cord or whatever combination you can come up with! Have fun with it! Use your imagination and don’t be afraid to experiment with the materials! 

• If you are chosen to contribute to the book, you will be responsible for supplying a complete materials list, list of tools used, complete instructions and a resource list for each of your jewelry projects.

IF YOU ARE INTERESTED, PLEASE DO THE FOLLOWING:

1. If you think you might be seriously interested in this opportunity, please fill out this form and send it ASAP.

2. Please join the Jewelry Accord Flickr Group and start submitting your jewelry designs that fit the above mentioned criteria. To be considered for the book, you must submit at least 1 jewelry design. You may submit up to 5 designs. We ask that any and all interested individuals to please have your jewelry designs submitted to this flickr group by December 1st 2010. Thank you!

If you have any questions, please feel free to email us. My email is in my profile. We are looking forward to hearing from you! Please feel free to spread the word on this CALL out! Happy Beading! :)

Gaea's Design Challenge

About a month ago, Gaea posted a design challenge/giveaway on her blog. She chose 6 designers at random to receive a set of 3 of her gorgeous 'Mermaid Beads'! The participants were chosen at random out of all who commented on her blog post. I was lucky enough that my number came up in the drawing! I was thrilled! I love Gaea's beads, especially her magical mermaid beads.  In return, She asked the designers to come up with their own jewelry design using the 3 mermaid beads and the above bracelet as inspiration.

Today is the reveal day for our creations!

Here's my design:

I had a lot of fun coming up with this fun bracelet! Thank you for the inspiration, Gaea!

Here are the links to the other participants in the challenge:

Life in the Bead Lane

For My Sweet Daughter

Lorelei

Sue Beads

Spirited Earth 

Also, please visit Gaea's blog for more!  Thanks for stopping by!

Michaels Challenge

Today is reveal day for the Micheal's Challenge! Back a few weeks ago, Lorelei posed a reader beading challenge on her blog. We were all to buy similar beads from Micheal's and make a necklace using as many elements from Lorelei's chosen bead stash (above) as we could. Here's the necklace I came up with. I made an earthy, chunky necklace.

I ended up buying only two of the beads from Lorelei's picks. The white carved cinnabar beads and the green freshwater pearls. I kept the same color palette of dark brown, white and green. I substituted in these large dark wooden rounds to represent the dark brown beads Lorelei had selected. I added in these silver nugget beads and silver seed beads as my added element to the piece.

I used 6 strands of waxed linen cord to make the necklace. I strung the green freshwater pearls together in clusters for fullness and dimension. The silver seed beads were strung onto the multiple strands of linen and wrapped around the large wooden rounds for a decorative effect. Even though I used only two of Lorelei's bead picks, all of the beads in my necklace I bought at Micheal's! Now, I just need a nice name for my creation, any suggestions? Please leave a comment. Thanks for stopping by! There are lots of others participating in this fun challenge! Below is the list. Click the links to go on to the next designers! or Go to Lorelei's blog to check out the list there!

Mary Harding
Hilary of Fryestyle
For My Sweet Daughter
My Life Under the Bus
Kristie of DreamSomeDesigns
Linda's Bead Blog & Meanderings
Copper Diem

Andrew Thornton
TyneBodenNecklaces
Erin of Treasuresfound
Molly of BeautifullyBrokenMe
Beading by Malin de Koning



AuntieAnnie
Gr8Findings
Deborah M Purdy
Spirited Earth

Erin Siegel Jewelry
beads by breul
Beads for Busy Gals
Cynths Blog
Nayas Organized Chaos
Crafty Hope

Rosebud For the Love of Beads
Jamberry Song
Peacock Fairy
Elysian Studio Art
Designs by Debi
sweet girl design

October Happenings

There are quite a few events and things coming up around the blog-o-sphere in the next week or so. Here's a list of some things coming up soon:

Sunday, October 17th - Lorelei's Micheals Beading Challenge

Please come back this Sunday to see what I came up with! Be sure to check out Lorelei's blog on Sunday to see what she did and also she will have a list of all participating blogs and jewelry pics from participating beaders. I'm looking forward to seeing what everyone created!

Tuesday, October 19th - Gaea's 'copy me' Design Challenge

I will be revealing my design this coming Tuesday. I was lucky enough to be a chosen designer for this challenge, but Gaea has left this one open to anyone that wants to participate! Check out her blog.

Wednesday, October 20th - Super Duper Big Announcement!!!

My good friend Lorelei Eurto and I will be making a BIG special announcement! Please be sure to check both our blogs on Wednesday. We are so excited to share this news and we hope you will be just as excited! All you jewelry designers out there will not want to miss this!

Sunday, October 24th - The Beads-Of-Clay Fall Blog Event

Plan on attending this event! I hope to attend this as well. The ceramic bead artists over at the BOC blog will be having an open studio event with a blog hop, shop sales and tons of giveaways all day!

And last but not least, somewhere in between all this, I will hopefully be having a BABY! LOL! :) So, if I've gone missing, I'm probably in the delivery room! Wish me luck.

Turquoise Button Necklace

My second design for the Artbeads.com Fall design challenge. As I did for my first piece, I used the 'Fall 2010 Patone's Color Report' for my inspiration. Lagoon, Lipstick Red, and Oyster Grey. Turquoise is my absolute favorite color and my favorite gemstone! I'm thrilled that Turquoise is the 'Color of the Year', according to Patone and I'm taking full advantage of it! I love the organic shape of this natural Turquoise nugget bead strand. I hand-knotted the Turquoise gems onto some Red silk beading cord. The large antique silversmith button serves as the focal and the clasp! This decorative button can be worn at the side, in the front or at the back!

I made a simple loop for the button with a piece of 2mm dark brown leather and a large antique silver pewter crimp end. I hope you've enjoyed my Artbeads Fall design project! Thank you for stopping by! :) Happy Beading!

Disclaimer: Artbeads.com has sent me the above mentioned beads, pendants, materials and/or findings to create with as part of their design partner blog program. I have not been paid by Artbeads.com to participate. Thank you.