The power of beading and the power of the internet community!

I hadn't intended to blog again until after the finish date of the Power of Beading Contest & Charity Fundraiser as I thought it would make it easier for people to access the details. But ... I have had so much great support from my fellow beaders that I felt a little credit was due. So, in no particular order, here are the links to some of my 'bead buddies' who have kindly spread the word for me via blogs etc.

SuzyQ of Beadweaver

JoJo of Unique You

Alison of BeaDangles Jewellery

Bianca Velder of Bianca Velder Creations

Margot Potter of The Impatient Blogger

Tammy of Butterfly Beadwear

Christine of ChrisBeads

Caroline of Crafted Gems

Jo of Daisychain Designs

Lorraine of Lorraine's Place

Zoya Gutina of Gem and Beaded Jewelry and also Zoya's August newsletter

Jean Power of JeanPower.com

Susan of Clinkscales Arts

Smadar of Smadar's Treasure

Sarah of The Beaded Lily

Anna of A Rose By Name

Staci of Pink Pooch Designs

Marilyn of Grandma Marilyn's

Deb of Artistic Flair

Ileana of Enchanted Beads

A huge "Thank you!" goes out to each and every one of them and if I have missed you off the list, or you have blogged about it, or put a link on your website, and I don't know, just send me a reminder and I will add your link to the list.

Don't forget the instructions are still available to purchase via Beading Daily and ALL funds raised go to charity. The contest to win one of two pins beaded and donated by me runs until September 12th.

Other news is that the October issue of Bead & Button is now out and the instructions for my Double Dragon neckpiece are on page 50.

I have also been fortunate to have several pieces of work included in various Etsy treasuries and although it has now expired, I curated a treasury with the title 'Raising Awareness!' to complement my fundraising project and to highlight the many other Artists on Etsy who create awareness ribbon themed items to raise money for charity.

An exciting announcement!

Yes, I have some exciting news to share! From August 11th, my Awareness Pins project will be available on Beading Daily and there will be two aspects to this project - a charity fundraiser and a contest.

The instructions for the project will be available to purchase from Beading Daily and all funds raised from sales during August and September will be divided between two international charities - The Wellness Community and the American Institute for Cancer Research ( a member of World Cancer Research Fund International).

In addition, I have made and donated two Awareness Pins which will be the prizes in The Power of Beading Contest. The official entry form is on the Beading Daily website. Beaders will be asked to tell how beading helped them through a challenging time, I love this theme as I feel that without beads I probably wouldn't be here today! The two prizes are a Pink Ribbon Pin (to represent breast cancer awareness) with a 9ct gold stick pin, and a Teal Ribbon Pin (to represent ovarian cancer awareness) with a sterling silver stick pin.

Beading Daily have also added clear copyright details (which cover this project only) for me. I would like to encourage as many people as possible to get on board with this project and to make these pins in any colour they wish to represent the causes closest to their hearts. I am happy for people to donate them, raffle them, sell them to raise money for the charity of their choice - whatever, so long as the money goes to charity. I am hoping that this could actually be a lot of fun and a great way to raise money for local hospitals, hospices, education and support around the world. I originally created these pins to help raise some funds for the local hospital where Mum received excellent treatment for breast cancer, but which is chronically short of funds - it may be a drop in the ocean, but every little helps. However, I am really not comfortable with people making these for personal gain, as to me it is against the spirit of the whole project. I have given my time freely in designing, creating and helping to organise this project as it is ALL meant to be about charity, so I do hope that everyone will understand my aims and respect my wishes. If you have any doubts or queries, please contact me via my website.

Beading Daily is free to join and offers a wealth of bead related information delivered straight to your inbox! It also has on-line forums where like minded people can get to know each other and share information, and readers will have the option of sharing their personal stories and photos regarding their fundraising activities too.

If anyone has a blog and would be prepared to post about this project for me to help me spread the word, that would be great, and again if you need any more information, please contact me.

Oh and if anyone is wondering - I will be donating my designers fee to Cancer Research UK

Thank you for reading this;

Kerrie x

A gap in the blog!

Guilty as charged! I have not blogged for almost three weeks! This is mainly due to the fact that I visited my parents for the whole of last week as it was Mum's birthday on the 17th July - Happy Birthday Mum!

I forgot to take my camera with me on holiday last week and missed lots of wonderful photo opportunities - the Kent countryside is at it's best at the moment with green trees and golden corn fields, poppies and daisies in fields and verges, gardens filled with fruit and flowers, vast blue skies, butterflies, birds and nature everywhere. I had a very happy time. Whilst we were there we read a newspaper article about ancient trees, one of which is only about two miles from my parent's house and so we went in search of the Law Day Oak. This tree is reputed to have been around since the reign of Queen Elizabeth the 1st and it turns out we have actually driven past it numerous times, but never really noticed it as it's set back a bit. I wanted to hug it but it was quite close to someone's garden so I resisted the urge!
 

Talking of poppies and corn, I have several projects out at the moment, one of which is my Poppies in the corn choker which is in the latest issue of Bead magazine that is just out. I have two projects in this issue, the other one being my Dragonfly Pendant which is the final one in the series of three.

I have now received my contributors copy of the August/September issue of Beadwork magazine and I am thrilled with the way my Olive Earrings and Periwinkle Choker have turned out with some great photography! I was also very excited to see that the latest issue of the Bead & Button email newsletter shows a picture of my Double Dragon necklace in the 'Coming in October' section.

Apart from the published projects I had two more pieces of lovely news on my return from my holiday, both involving my wonderful fellow Etsy BeadWeavers Street Team members. One is that Sarah of The Beaded Lily featured me on her beautiful blog Sketchbook in this profile - thank you Sarah! And finally, Ileana of Enchanted Beads created a gorgeous black and white Etsy treasury west which includes my Supernova Choker - thank you Ileana!

Rebellion!

One of the problems with only blogging once a week, is that so much happens within a single week! This week has seen a wonderful mixture of Etsy treasuries, blog awards, publications and the odd bit of beading when I get chance. So this week, I have made a decision to be a bit of a rebel. I have been very fortunate in that I have received three blog awards this week but I have decided to buck the trend and NOT pass them on - gasp! There are a few reasons for this, firstly, I notice that some of these awards are doing the rounds within a relatively small group of acquaintances and they keep ricocheting from blog to blog. Secondly, it would take me a fair amount of time and space to add 15 links to other blogs here (especially if I wanted to spread them outside the beady circle) and thirdly, as much as I love finding that I have received an award, it is quite difficult selecting who to pass it on to without offending anyone and making anyone feel left out. So I am not going to be passing any of these awards on this time, but rather would urge you to follow the links on my side-bar to discover many talented people.

To be fair to the people that kindly passed the awards on to me though, here are the links to their blogs; I received the Arte y Pico award from two talented friends, Susan of Clinkscales Arts and Emma of Glitter Glow Beading who are both fellow Etsy BeadWeavers team members. I also received the Sweet Home Blogger Award from the lovely Lesley of Coburg Crafts. A big thank you to all three of them and I hope you follow the links to see their wonderful work for yourself.

 

My work was featured in a couple of Etsy treasuries during the last week and I managed to snag and create one myself too. I decided to try and show just how truly cosmopolitan the Etsy BeadWeavers team is and featured work from America to Australia and just about everywhere in-between in my World Wide Weavers treasury.  I was also very flattered that the Etsy BeadWeavers team ran a little feature on me this week in the team blog in their Meet the Members slot and also included a link to the interview I did in March of this year on the jewelry guide section of Zoya Gutina's website.

Finally for this week, I noticed that Beadwork magazine has updated it's website with the contents of the August/September issue. I have two projects in this issue, my Olive Earrings and also my Periwinkle Choker - this was originally named Precious Petals and I have included a picture of the gunmetal colourway below.

Beady Butterflies!

It's blog time again and unfortunately I haven't really got anything new to show you. I've been busy working on orders for my poppy cufflinks and poppy pins and also working on some interesting projects that I can't really share with you at the moment - but all in good time! I spent a very fitful night last night, half awake and half asleep with lots of weird and wonderful dreams but also with lots of new beady ideas flitting into my mind. Anyway, the result this morning, rather than being tired, is that I feel filled with enthusiasm and can't wait to get cracking with some of these ideas - trouble is, I might need to give up sleep permanently to be able to fit them all in!

One of the 'under wraps' projects I mentioned above needed me to take a photo of one of the butterflies I used to make. So as I feel a blog isn't a blog without some pretty pictures and I have nothing new to show you, I thought I would dig some of them out. I started out by using a mixture of cross-stitch cottons, silks and a few beads and stitching them onto plastic canvas before carefully cutting them out. Gradually as I got more and more addicted to beads, I made them using all beads and both Mum and I have a collection of them 'flying' on various walls in our houses. In my lounge, I have a beautiful hand embroidered wall hanging from Nepal that depicts the Tree of Life, it has a selection of my beaded butterflies and moths 'flying' around it - I find the whole scene very magical and soothing. I know these butterflies are quite different from my work today, but I still love them and it would be great to hear what you think!

Dragonfly Dreams

I'm still busy making a variety of small flowers for earrings rather than concentrating on any large projects at the moment. Life seems to be quite hectic just lately, and so these little projects are still satisfyingly beady but quick enough to fit in around other commitments. I have been branching out with my colour schemes a little too - I'm still using a limited range of colours in each piece (well it just wouldn't be me otherwise would it!) but the colours I have been putting together are a little bit more experimental. I have just finished a pair of earrings I made for myself, I don't often wear my own jewellery despite my friends nagging me to do so, and the inspiration for the colours in these is a pretty top I have - it's a busy mix of teal, turquoise, coral, bright red and yellow green and I absolutely love it.

We are going to a live music concert tomorrow night at the Lowdham book festival to see Show of Hands and so I thought I would wear my favourite top and make myself some coral and teal earrings to go with it. The only beads I had that were a good match to the top were some tiny size 15 seed beads that I once ordered by mistake (I normally work with the slightly larger size 11 seed beads) and so I have been experimenting with petal shapes using the smaller size - a success I think, but my eyes definitely need a break now and my purse is quivering at the thought of me possibly wanting to build up a collection of size 15's! The photo above shows the raw materials and the photo below is of the finished pair of earrings.

It's been a busy week on Etsy this past week too. I was thrilled to find my work in five beautiful treasuries and I created my first treasury too - Dragonfly Dreams. As I understand it, you are not supposed to feature your own work in a treasury that you curate, it is more to acknowledge and promote other Etsy members, so I created my treasury around a dragonfly theme with a mixture of beadwoven pieces from the Etsy Beadweavers team (of which I am a member) and other delightful handmade items I found - a couple of which also use my new favourite coral and teal colour combination! I enjoyed searching through Etsy to find items to fit my theme and discovered lots of wonderful talent in the process and I'm looking forward to 'snagging' a spot for my next treasury which also has a fun theme!

Lucky me!

Well I have been very lucky this past week; firstly I discovered that Helen of the beautiful blog MilesToSew has kindly passed on an award to me - this is my first blog award and I am both flattered and excited by that ... thank you Helen!

It is the Sweet home blogger Award for sharing beauty, love and joy - how nice, couldn't we all do with more of those things in our everyday lives? So, in keeping with tradition, I am passing this award on to five other 'bloggers' - believe me this was a tough choice as there are so many beautiful blogs I have come across and I am sure, many I haven't yet discovered.

So, in no particular order, the five blogs I have chosen are;

• Alison of BeaDangles Jewellery a good friend and an infrequent blogger - but when she does, it's worth waiting for, jewellery, photography and yummy recipes!
• Michele of Hedgelands Glass another beautiful blog full of interesting and varied crafty skills - follow the link to Michele's website and take a look at her stained glass!
• Chris of Kiamyka Gemstone Creations another multi-talented woman who also has a great way with words - her blog posts nearly always bring a tear to my eye!
• Valerie of Luz Bijoux who creates the most beautiful beadwork and has a real eye for colour - I also absolutely love the fact that she calls me 'a fairy beader'.
• Zoya of Gem and Beaded Jewelery a relatively new blogger, but a well known and talented artist who I am proud to call a friend.

I am sorry if I missed you out, as I say it was a difficult choice. These things can feel a bit like being the last to be picked for a school sports team (and I know all about that) but hopefully the above selection will provide my readers with some interesting links and will spread the word, the beauty, love and joy!

My next stroke of luck this week was split second timing when I was taking a photo of a foxglove in my garden. Well to be honest, I regard even having the foxglove as lucky, I didn't plant it, it just appeared in a prime space in the garden and has NINE very tall flower spikes on it. It's a real beauty and I count it as a gift from nature in return for creating my foxglove trio necklace. So, I thought I would take a picture of it in all its glory, spotted a bee hovering around one of the flowers and wondered if I could get it in the shot - as it turns out, I caught two (see bottom right of the photo) I'm sure I couldn't do that again if I tried!

My third piece of luck this week? My Poppy Cufflinks are currently appearing in another treasury - this time a wonderfully rich Treasury West entitled Le Rouge et le Noir created by Ileana of Enchanted Beads. Thank you Ileana!