May 2011 bring you good health, happiness and the same excitement for beads and beading, that 2010 did! Cheers!
Monthly Archives: December 2010
Face Down Tuesday: Eeeeek Spider!
12.28.10
Update: The leather cording and Pewter Owl Clasps are back in stock at Fusion Beads.
Have you gotten all your components for the FusionBeads.com Reader Challenge?
Better shop now!
Reveal date: 1/10/11
Submit your jewelry to magazines!
It can be quite intimidating, and daunting- the thought of submitting your jewelry designs to magazines. It took me quite a while to muster up the courage to try it the first time. But once you start doing it, it becomes easier and easier, and writing instructions becomes a lot easier too.
Each of the magazines has it’s own set of guidelines for submissions. You can generally find this information on the magazines website, or amongst the pages of a physical magazine. Read through the instructions carefully. Some publishers require you to send the jewelry in to them before they decide to use your pieces. Others only require you to send good quality digital images via email to make a preliminary decision.
One thing that is important, is practicing writing instructions. Depending on the publication, you will also have to study how the instructions are written for each. Some require you to write in more details, and some require certain wording when describing techniques.
Create designs that will stand out from the crowd, and definitely try to submit more than one design. Although some designs might be rejected, the more you submit, the more of a chance you have at getting some accepted. It’s also smart to submit earrings or bracelets that match your submitted necklace designs. Sometimes publications like to showcase these together, and sometimes separately but within the same issue.
Here are some links to some of the popular beading magazines and their submission guidelines:
Happy Holidays!
Wishing everyone a very safe, and happy Holiday season, and a beadiful New Year!
Flowers Dots and O Rings
One of my favorite new components to work with are Yvonne’s rubber O rings, and petal dots beads- both from her Etsy store MyElements. These bracelets seem to be quite popular, and people keep snatching them up. I love the pairing between the rubber and the Vintaj Brass jump rings. The color combination possibilities are endless- and they seem to work well with Green Girl Studios and Anne’s Gardanne Beads enameled rounds.
The green one above is tentatively reserved, but the Purple one below is now available at Big Cartel.
Fusion Beads Reader Challenge: Shopping List
Now, Don’t PANIC. I’m just showing this now, for those of you who might want to shop for these items ahead of time. I’ll show the list again in a few weeks and the deadline won’t be til January 10th. (that’s the reveal date: 1.10.11)
This time around, I decided to shop at an online venue, to accomodate all of my International friends out there! I chose a well stocked online shop, FusionBeads.com. However, I tried to shop for items that can be found at other online venues, just in case these things sell out, or become unavailable. If you shop at FusionBeads, enter the coupon code WELCOME to get 10% off your order!
For this challenge, You may create whatever you’d like. A necklace, a bracelet, earrings, whatever! You can use as much or as little of the items listed, I just show how many I chose to buy when getting these things. If you think 1 yard of leather cord is enough, go for it. If you don’t like the lucite leaves, don’t buy em. It’s up to you- but it’s more fun knowing that we are all starting out with the same components.
Feel free to add in as many components as you want, your own focal, beads from your stash, but just make sure to try to use these components in your final piece.
On reveal day, you will show your project on your blog, and if you don’t have a blog- please email the pictures to me and I will show them on my post. This will be a blog hop, so leave a comment on either this post, or the next reminder post, telling me you want to play along, and leave your blog link so I can compile the list. I’ll post the list the day of the reveal. Any questions, just leave me a comment! Happy Shopping!
(Links are down below the pictures.)
Olive leather cording (2 yards) Available!
Owl Toggle from Green Girl Studios (1) Available!
Transparent Green Luster Fire Polished Rounds (1 pack of 10)
Transparent Gold/Smoke Luster Fire Polished Rounds (1 pack of 10)
Matte Dark Hunter Lucite walnut Leaf charms (8) SOLD OUT you can also find them at BeadinPath!
2.8mm Matte Metallic Teal/Gold Iris Drop Japanese Seed Bead (1) 10 gram bag
5mm Tiger Kamagong Ebony Hardwood Round Bead (1) 16 in strand
Secret Santa
I participated in a Secret Santa swap, hosted by Nicole of Lillyella, and sent out my gift to my recipient a few days ago. I got my gift from a stay-at-home crafting Momma in Watervliet MI- I was thrilled to get an unexpected gift in the mail- there is nothing quite like it!!
Kailyn shopped at a local chocolatier and sent some tasty truffles, a girl after my own heart! 😉
She also stopped into her local bead shop, and sent along some gorgeous Owyhee Jasper, Turquoise bird shaped beads, a hank of gorgeous gold glass seed beads, and some Tulip shaped Unakite! All packaged in the sweetest little Christmas themed TIN!!
I can’t wait to find out what my recipient thought of the gift I sent! Hopefully she’ll blog about it.
THANK YOU NICOLE, for organizing such a fun swap!
Inspired by…
…a watering can…..
African glass seed beads
Tagua Nut
Shibuichi Bird- Green Girl Studios
Lampwork disc- Gardanne Beads
Polyclay Humblebead- Humblebeads
Lampwork nugget- Kelleys Beads
Kazuri round
Czech glass
teal Metal round, and flower- MissFickleMedia
Brass clasp- Vintaj Brass Co.
…a chair….
Silver pendant- Hint Jewelry
Faceted pearls
Czech glass rounds and navy petals
Floral metal rounds- Tierra Cast
…a dress…
Ceramic Gingko pendant- TashaMck
wood
Czech glass nuggets
Lampwork- Kelleys Beads
Ceramic rounds- Elaine Ray
Ceramic tabs- Keith O’Connor
Ceramic Flower bead- Spirited Earth
Goldstone
Inspiration can be found anywhere you look. Last night, I was surfing one of my favorite websites, and found some items that sparked my imagination in ways I didn’t know were possible. Fabric is a great source of inspiration, in the way of the dress and the chair upholstery. The watering can proved a bit more difficult, but I was lucky enough to find some color drenched metal components from MissFickleMedia in my stash that echoed the metal accents on the bird on the can, perfectly!
When looking at inspirational pieces like these, look at the color, the textures, and the shapes- and pair those things with color, texture and shapes of beads. In these instances it was easier to create simple beaded pieces, without a lot of wire working or other techniques.
Below are some more images that were inspiring me, but due to time, couldn’t get to this beading session. Maybe they’ll spark your creativity!
All products from Anthropologie
Christmas #1 and a Link Round Up
Joe and I celebrated Christmas with my family this past weekend. It was great to see each of my parents and spend some quality time with each of them. We came home feeling humble and happy!
For Christmas we’ll travel to Connecticut to celebrate with my husband’s family. Hoping the weather stays mild like it has been. After getting home last night, I was itching to get into the studio and will have 5 newbies showing up in one of my shops sometime today. In the meantime, click around and enjoy this past week’s Bead Blogger links!
A Bead A Day
If you are interested in chainmaille, Lisa had the opportunity to host Blue Buddha Boutique’s, Rebeca Mojica, as she kicks off her virtual book tour for “Chained”.
If you are interested in chainmaille, Lisa had the opportunity to host Blue Buddha Boutique’s, Rebeca Mojica, as she kicks off her virtual book tour for “Chained”.
About.com Jewelry Making
Tammy reviews an innovative new web-based magazines from Interweave.
Art Bead Scene
It’s the ABS annual Twelve Days of free art bead jewelry projects! Stop by and try out the Jingle Berry Lariat!
Beading Arts
How about an entire month of fast and easy tutorials for handmade jewelry gifts?
Beading & Books
Michelle shares ideas for beaded napkin rings to decorate your holiday table.
Carmi’s Art/Life World
Carmis makes a button pin much more attractive with a felted background!
Cindy Gimbrone aka Lampwork Diva
Inspired by the snow on the ground, Cindy created a new ring – the Flurry Flower!
Lorelei’s Blog: Inside the Studio
Lorelei has moved her bead studio, yet again!
Snap out of it, Jean! There’s beading to be done!
Jean is delighted to present one of her latest book reviews of a remarkable book called 500 Plastic Jewelry Designs. Come and immerse yourself in the fascination of the heights which can be achieved using this medium through the brilliance of a collection of fantastic jewelry designers!
The Writing and Art of Andrew Thornton
Want to win some luscious lucite components from The Hole Bead Shoppe? Seize your chance in this week’s Thursday Giveaway!
loreleieurtojewelry 