Jewelry Stringing Magazine Spring 2014

I'm extremely excited to share the cover of the Spring 2014 issue of Jewelry Stringing magazine with you! It's a proud, proud moment for me to see my necklace on the cover of my favorite beading magazine. I'm honored to have my piece featured in this way. So few are chosen for this coveted spot. I feel very fortunate. I can't quite describe how much this means to me. I have dreamed of this. I have visualized my jewelry on the cover many times and thought of what a wonderful feeling it would be. I feel so happy and over-joyed to reach this goal. It just goes to show what you can accomplish when you put your mind to it. Dreams really do come true!

However, I do not think about the cover of the magazine while I make my jewelry for submission. I create what inspires me at the moment. I always create pieces that reflect my own interests and style even when working within the parameters of a magazine's guidelines. Some of you might remember that I wrote an article last September, for the Art Bead Scene about submitting jewelry designs FOR THIS VERY ISSUE! I wrote the article while I was in the process of creating my jewelry pieces for the submission process. Read that post here, if you missed it or for a refresher.

My goal was to offer helpful information for aspiring designers to submit jewelry to the magazine and also encourage participation in contributing designs to publications in general. I took a BIG risk writing and publishing that post before submitting the finished jewelry and again, took another gamble that a piece would even be accepted and then published! I created and submitted 4 pieces for this publication. Two out of those four were accepted for further consideration. I sure am grateful that those two designs were indeed accepted and published in the magazine. I would have felt pretty silly and foolish writing an advice article about successfully creating jewelry for publication and then not getting any pieces accepted to the magazine myself. That would have been slightly embarrassing, but that is the chance I took! I felt inspired to be open and put myself out there. My intention was simply to share my creative process and maybe inspire someone else to give publishing a shot. I hoped I'd get at least one project published in the issue. I never in a million years expected one of my designs to make the cover!

Since I shared a sneak peek at the designs I was working on in my submissions post from last September, I thought it would be fun to reveal all 4 of the necklaces I created and submitted to the magazine for the Spring 2014 issue, even the pieces that were not accepted. So, here it goes.

Necklace submitted to the "Soft Jewelry" theme for Spring 2014:

"World Beat"

Necklace submitted to the "Spring Green" theme for Spring 2014:

"Hemlock Forest"

Necklace submitted to the "Monochromatic" theme for Spring 2014:

"Stormy Winds"

Necklace submitted to the "Bead Soup" theme for Spring 2014:

"Globe-Trotter"

Now, here are my two designs in Jewelry Stringing magazine as published!:

World Beat

Necklace and Bracelet in the "Strike a Cord" section

Jewelry Stringing Magazine Spring 2014

 Sankofa trade beads, Irish waxed linen and Greek leather all supplies from Ornamentea.com.

 

Globe-trotter

Necklace and Bracelet in the "Bead Soup" section

Jewelry Stringing Magazine Spring 2014

Seed beads from ShipWreckBeads.com and a handmade ceramic bead set by artist, Keith O'Connor.

Pick up your copy of this issue on newsstands now or download the digital version. Happy beading to all and if you are so inclined, happy submitting to magazines as well. 

 

Oh, and Happy Valentine's Day!!! I hope you are doing something you love today and spending time with whom you love as well. Much love to you all.