Bead Soup and August Happenings

A special THANK YOU goes out to Lori Anderson for hosting another amazing Bead Soup Blog Party! It gets bigger and better every time. It's an honor to be apart of this renowned event. Here's a sneak-peek teaser of the bead soup I sent my partner, Anna Sabina of Total Escape Clay Studio. She is a polymer clay bead artist and I can't wait to see what she sends along.

And now, here's a list of a few beady events coming up in the month of August:

Tuesday, August 16th - Michelle Mach's Mostly Metal Challenge -
 I'm participating! I can't wait to see what the other participants made with Michelle's mostly metal bead kits! I choose the Gunmetal Love kit. I'm pretty excited about the jewelry I made for this, so be sure to stop by my blog on Tuesday to see what I created.

Friday-Sunday, August 19th-21st - BEAD FEST Philadelphia -
I'm finally going this year!!! I'm so super excited! I'm mostly looking forward to seeing all my beady friends there. What was that, you said?...What about all the beads lying around? Ah, well...those are a nice bonus, too ;0 Can't wait to see my friend and co-author, Lorelei and Nancy and Kelley, too. I'll be meeting TONS of new beady friends from the beading and blogging community that I've been wanting to meet for years. I. CAN. NOT. WAIT. Are you going? Will I see you there? Please let me know if you will be there, I would love say Hi.

Saturday, August 27th - Lorelei's Shadow Box Challenge -
I missed out on this one, but I'm really looking forward to seeing what everyone does with those enameled boxes from C-Koop Beads.


Monday, August 29th - Andrew Thornton's August Reader's Challenge -
Geesh, another one I missed this time. I'm excited to see the results from the ones that did participate, though. It's always fun to see what others create. I like Andrew's idea of creating bead kits for the challenges. It's always interesting to see different ideas come to life from the same components. I really enjoy having a limited pool of materials to work with. Sometimes that makes it much easier to be creative. I will be on the look out for Andrew's September challenge kits to participate next month!

Arm Party

Today, I'm participating in the Bloggers Do it Better: Arm Party! Not sure what an "Arm Party" is? Check out the Arm Party challenge post by Pretty Shiny Sparkly. Pretty Shiny Sparkly.com is a fashion and personal style blog authored by Kristina. I stumbled upon her blog a few days ago. I really love her "Bloggers Do it Better" concept. Her latest "Arm Party"challenge is jewelry related so I HAD to jump on board! Right? How could I let this opportunity pass without throwing on a few bracelets I've been making AND wearing lately? I just LOVE the stacked and layered bracelet trend that is so hot right now.

 If you happen to be a DIY fashionista, you can find the step-by-step tutorial for the peace bracelet on my blog right here. You can also find a video tutorial to make a similar linen and silver bead wrap bracelet on my friend, Tracy Statler's Make Bracelets blog. The leather and beaded dangle wrap bracelet, I will be debuting a version of this bracelet soon in an upcoming jewelry collection, so stay tuned for that....but for now hop around and enjoy all the arm candy on the Bloggers Do it Better: Arm Party!

Simple Link Bracelet Tutorial

Happy Saturday! I recently had a fun time making these little link bracelets. They are so simple and easy to make, so I thought I'd share. I hope you enjoy making some of these for yourself or they would make great gifts, too! One of the nice things about this design, the bracelets can be made with an adjustable closure, so they are able to fit a range of wrist sizes.

What you'll need:

1 yard or 36" of 1mm Waxed Cotton Cord - Fire Mountain Gems

1 TierraCast Rhodium Peace Link - Artbeads.com
1 Silver Greek Chip bead - Fire and Fibers

Tools:
Scissors

Note:
The measurements given in the instructions below fit my wrist on the first loop closure.
This bracelet works best if it's fitted perfectly to your wrist, so you may need to adjust the measurements just slightly to get a nice fit. The adjustable closure helps with that a bit though!

It's simple and I love it. It looks really cute layered with other bracelets, too.
Let me know if you make one....or five. Trust me you'll be addicted!
Feel free to link to this tutorial, if you are so inclined.

And the Winner is...

The winner of the fabric and cotton cord covered beads is...

Martin Caraballo of Haegaerpr Jewelry!

Congratulations, Martin!
Martin, thanks for leaving me your email. I will email you to get your mailing address and I'll get your package right out to you. Thank you and happy creating with your new beads!

Also, thank you to everyone who entered and thanks to Wholeport.com for the giveaway items.

Fun Fabric Necklace and Giveaway

 

Last week I told you about the peace sign pendants I received from WholePort.com. I also got these fun fabric and cotton cord covered beads! I used a big eye needle to string the beads onto some pretty pink silk ribbon from Marsha Neal Studio. I also tied on a crimson glass link from Cindy Gimbrone and a bit of ivory dupioni silk from Ornamentea for more texture. What a fun piece to make...and wear!

    

And now for the giveaway...

I'm giving away these 8 beads as shown above courtesy of WholePort.com.  4 fabric covered beads in a colorful plaid fabric and 4 cotton cord covered beads in pink and white. These beads are light weight and fun to work with. You will love them.

To enter the giveaway, just leave a comment on this post by Thursday, July 21st.

Tell me what you would make with these beads if you won them. I will randomly draw one lucky winner on Friday, July 22nd.

Thank you for stopping by and GOOD LUCK!

And the Winner is...

The winner of the "Peace & Love" Giveaway is...

#1 Stefanie of Stefanie's Sammelsurium

Congratulations, Stefanie!
Please email me your mailing address and I'll get your package right out to you. Thank you and happy beading with your new wooden pendants!

Also, thank you to everyone who entered and thanks to Wholeport.com for the giveaway items.
Stay tuned next week for another fun jewelry piece, another giveaway and another chance to win!
Peace out.

A Necklace and the Peace & Love Giveaway

Recently, I received an email from the lovely gal, Jenny over at WholePort.com, inviting me to take a look at her website. I really appreciated the friendly, personal email I got from her. Wholeport is an online craft supply site and I was more than happy to take a look around. While there, I found a few things I liked a lot. The first was this wooden peace sign. Jenny was kind enough to send me some sample pendants to try out, along with a few other items that I will share in another post coming up.

Here's my "Peace on Earth" Necklace I made with my peace sign pendant from WholePort.com. For my necklace, I wanted to give the pendant a worn, vintage look as if the necklace had been around the neck of a flower child from the 60's and 70's. I distressed the wooden pendant with a piece of fine grit sandpaper. I really like the affect. It adds some extra interest and dimension to the focal and the light sanding also smoothed out any rough spots in the wood. My necklace also features handmade ceramic beads by the artists of Sedillo Hill Studio and some copper African trade beads. The beads are simply knotted on some chocolate brown waxed cotton cord and finished off with a loop and large wood bead closure. A perfect Summer necklace.

The "Peace & Love" Giveaway

Okay, now for the giveaway part!!! Jenny at Wholeport also sent me some extra items to host a giveaway on my blog. This will be the first of two giveaways. The second giveaway will be in a separate post coming up next week. The first giveaway package is this collection of wooden cut-out pendants I am calling the "Peace & Love" Giveaway:

You will receive the the item shown above: Two large cut-out heart pendants and three wood peace signs that are a good size for either a pendant or charm for a bracelet or even earrings, too.

If you would like to enter my "Peace & Love" giveaway, you can do one of the following:

"LIKE" WholePort on Face Book: www.facebook.com/wholeport

OR

"FOLLOW" WholePort on Twitter: www.twitter.com/wholeport
OR
If you don't have Facebook or Twitter, you can just visit the website: www.wholeport.com

Then, leave me a comment letting me know you want to enter.  

Leave a comment on this post by Thursday, July 14th. Then, I will randomly select a winner from the comments on Friday, July 15th.

Even if you're not interested in the giveaway, please feel free to comment without mentioning the giveaway in your comment.

Also, in addition to this giveaway, Jenny is happy to spread the love even more by offering 10% off all items at www.wholeport.com with coupon code: CRAFTFUN10 that's good until July 31st, 2011.

Good Luck on the Giveaway!

and 

happy shopping at WholePort.com for new beading or craft supplies.

Also, stay tuned for the second giveaway coming up next week.

Peace & Love, Baby!