2008 Best-In-Show - Sponsored by Fire Mountain Gems and Beads, Miyuki Sugimura, Hiroko Toda, Masako Kato and Akemi Hara, Early summer wedding bouquet

The competition is open to professional and amateur beaders from the U.S. and around the world. All work entered in the competition must be original.

Deadline: April 6, 2009
Bead Dreams contest information

Finalists will be on display at the Bead&Button Show, June 3-7, 2009 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

To enter the Bead Arts Awards – Fill in the online form

Post from: Jewelry and Beading

Post from: Jewelry and Beading

Now that is hot stuff! Lampwork and fused glass artists will want to check out the Second Annual Fall Tucson Best Bead Show this September running from the 7th to the 9th. Admission is free (refreshing to hear) and they have tons of classes from lampwork to bead crochet.

Post from: Jewelry and Beading

Post from: Jewelry and Beading

Pictured is an example of what I’m talking about, my Painted Paper Clay Pendant project. This is what I came up with after playing around with rubber stamps and using one to press an impression into the clay (see my Asian Paper Clay Stamp Charm Pendant project).

Granted it looks better in person, but there is still a very “hand-made” quality to the piece, and not necessarily in a good way. If you look at the paper charm closely, the paint job isn’t that good (probably should have used another coat or two) and the actual shape of the charm is a little uneven.

I’ve also been playing around with making paper clay beads, and that (so far) seems a little more doable. Pictured is a whopper 30mm bead I made after kneading paint into the clay and then just using my hands to form it. I’m thinking of making a bunch of smaller beads now so I could use this one as the focal bead and string up a necklace, though I wasn’t real keen on the paint into the clay thing – what a mess!

Post from: Jewelry and Beading

Open workshops are one of the best ways of learning when it comes to crafting jewelry. Most of us are pretty much self-taught for the most part. However, sometimes you get stuck and it would be great to have someone more knowledgeable step in and help you out.

The BeadBabe Store in Sacramento, CA (916-344-2323 or 800-270-4181) has an open workshop planned for Jan. 6, 2007.

If you aren’t close enough to head over there, consider checking in with your local bead shop or rock club to find out if they also offer open workshops or might at your suggestion.

Post from: Jewelry and Beading

I love making tree ornaments. Every year when we put up our tree and decorate it, I enjoy seeing all the ornaments I’ve made over the years. I also make ornaments as gifts, giving them out to editors, teachers, people who have helped me in my writing and jewelry career. Last year, I made the pictured shell and bead oranments.

I was thinking of making more shell ornaments this year, just using different shells, and I had planned to head out to the local shell shop (the other shells I found on the beach) and pick up some fancier shells. Unfortunately, the shop is still closed due to last year’s hurricane. So, I’ve been wracking my brain for weeks now.

Finally, it popped into my head one morning as I was waking up in bed: clay!

I’ve been having a polymer clay itch lately, and at first, I thought of making snowmen, similar to Heather Powers’ only 3-D rather than flat. But then I remembered that I had some paper clay left over from the mixed media book I recently wrote.

I have started working on a design, which I really don’t have time to do now since I have company coming for the holiday weekend, but of course, it’s amazing how creative you get when you have to mop your floors!

I’ll keep you posted on my progress.

Post from: Jewelry and Beading

When I first began seriously making jewelry, I was uneasy about sharing my (what I thought at the time) wealth of information. Just finding beads back then was a major hassel because there weren’t all these bead vendors around that you find now. Even Bead and Button magazine didn’t have ads back then, so it was hard to locate vendors. I found my first load of gemstone beads at a rock show, but those only happened a few times a year. So I had to make a ton of phone calls before I found a guy who had strands of those gemstone chip beads. I cut them up and used them for my jewelry.

Same story with learning techniques – lots of trial and error – lots of research. So, I felt at the time that I was a treasure trove of knowledge, that I had earned this knowledge in fact, and I wasn’t very interested in sharing. In fact, the first time I did show a “friend” how to make jewelry and where I got some of my supplies, she went out, found other suppliers, whom she didn’t tell me about, and started making jewelry and selling it hereself.

I think this idea of hoarding information is a common idea among some jewelry makers, especially those fairly new to the craft. The fear that if you tell someone else they may do what my “friend” did and the idea that you worked too darn hard to give away information is compelling.

I’m not sure if it because I just chilled out and realized that the way I learned a lot of what I know now is because someone, somewhere shared their knowledge with me or what, but I eventually realized that sharing is much more fun than hoarding what I know. Yes, I felt my “friend” sort of stabbed me in the back, but you know what? Her jewelry was totally different than mine, and I was much more driven and had much more experience selling than she did. So, eventually, it didn’t matter other than I got my feelings hurt a little. But, if it hadn’t been jewelry it would have come out in some other way that she wasn’t really (duh) my friend.

Cyndi at Mazel Tov! Jewelry Treasures as a similar philosophy when asked about why she posts free tutorials on her blog:

Whether I put tutorials out there or not, I am always running the risk that someone might decide to actually copy my designs rather than just be inspired by them.Shame on them. But, eat my dust if you do decide to copy me, because I’m moving on!

One of the reasons that I will continue to post tutorials and write articles until no one seems to care anymore is that sharing is central to my personal code. Fear of sharing says that if I help you, I might diminish my own share. What nonsense ~ share of what, exactly? There is more than enough in the world to go around.

Exactly! I love that “eat my dust.” This is so true. If you are a real jewelry designer, you will go on to learn new techniques and make new designs with those who can only copy will continue to copy and never grow as an artist. Also, I have found that by sharing what I know, in the long run I have benefited by emotionally and financially. Call it karma or what goes around comes around.

Post from: Jewelry and Beading

Post from: Jewelry and Beading

However, after that, what happens? Well, for me, much of the “fun” turned into “how do I make money doing this?”

Again, nothing necessarily wrong with that, but what too often gets lost is your original impetus for making jewelry in the first place. 

I’ll give you an analogy of sorts: As a young girl, I loved to read. I was a voracious reader. Much of it was crap, not the high-brow literature I wish I had been reading, but the whole experience is why I turned to writing. I wanted to write stories too. So, I did. I wrote stories, plays, and poems and eventually I went to college and wrote stories and poems there.

Finally, I graduated, and I kid you not, while in an interview for a techincal writing job, the guy who would become my future boss said, “You know. We don’t write stories here.”

Well, duh, I did know that, but it just shows me now a warning sign popping up even then. So, I was hired and I started writing manuals for the space shuttle at Kennedy Space Center, and it was a good job. Heck, after working as a bank teller and waiting tables, the money was fabulous. And, my parents were relieved that I finally had “a real job.”

Eventually, my technical writing lead me to write about jewelry, and here I am a freelance writer, writing about jewelry, and I’m actually doing okay, making some decent money, not 6 figures, but about two thirds of my income comes from my writing so that’s not too shabby.

But, about a year ago, I started writing what is probably my sixth attempt at a novel. On and off, I write it when I can, when the mood hits me. A few months ago, my school work was light, so I went at it again, and the old “you’re not going to make money at this,” just like with jewelry, started. I kept thinking I should work on one of my web sites or write a book proposal, and here I was wasting time on a novel! Shame on me!

And, now, I’m finally getting to my point – the real shame is that we have to feel like we don’t have permission to just do what we love to do because we love doing it.

So, today, I’m giving you permission to just bead, bend wire, hammer metal, whatever it is you like to do to make jewelry.

You don’t have to make a necklace with the idea of selling, and you don’t have to worry about the fact that you have X-number of beaded necklaces already. Just bead, enjoy, play, because I really think it’s important to remember why we started all of this in the first place.

Post from: Jewelry and Beading