Weekly Wanderings Around the Beadosphere

Today is the Mountain View Art & Wine festival and I'm really looking forward to visiting it. The weather will be cooler this year with a small chance of showers. Maybe that'll make it less crowded in the morning when we go. I love to visit all the jewelry crafting booths - they're part of the inspiration to make my own jewelry. I only get to buy their pieces once a year, but in the meanwhile I can create complimentary things on my own all year 'round.

It is also my son's 24th birthday today. Happy Birthday, Matt!

Well, I know you're not here to hear me ramble - you're ready to wander so let's get going!

• A Bead A Day: Colorful Cubes, Opally Lampwork Teardrops, Wrought Iron Links & more - every day Lisa shares something fun and wonderful.


• Just A Tish: September Birthstones, Rings & Things goodies and a new necklace (full disclosure - I made it), Green Man necklace tutorial (great pics!)


• The Beading Gem's Journal has been sharing a "series of wonderful jewelry display tutorials from blogdom from artisans who not only channeled their creativity in another way but also shared the results with everyone. A big round of applause!!" - Yesterday was necklace displays, Thursday was earring displays, Tuesday was ring displays. The Beading Gem's Journal is another one of those wonderfully helpful and informative blogs I try to read every day, hope you will, too!


• Deez Newz Dee is another gal after my own heart! Read about her re-worked necklace - love the design, Dee! And yesterday was a lovely post about her beautiful 91 year old mom.

• Earthenwood Studios - Melanie shows how she's used the Rings & Things Swarovski cubes. I'm glad I wasn't the only one to take my time figuring out what to do with them.


• ErtheFae's Wandering Thoughts: Turtle Talisman and Cthulhu's tummy getting its beads.


• The Lampwork Diva, Cindy Gimbrone has opened her ArtFire shop (yay!) for her jewelry creations and shows us some beautiful looking glass nuggets charms she's added to her other web store. I think I will have to add those to my stash very soon.
  


• Margot Potter the Impatient Crafter - Last week was a lot of fun on Margot's blog - a tutorial for a cool back to school denim book cover, lovely necklace patterns you can purchase from e-Patterns Central, her thoughts on the evolution of a design (which I read with great relief - she doesn't always like the first try, either!) and yesterday I got a thrill when I saw that she linked to my review of her wonderful Beyond the Bead book.
  


• SmuTopia was getting ready for this weekend's big show - I hope it went great for her! She also dedicated her Friday Finds to handmade display pieces she found on Etsy.


• Silver Parrot shared Back to School thoughts and a beautiful Nevada Lapis and borosilicate drops necklace, and a post I just loved about a number of fun and random things plus a gorgeous necklace and some "bead porn" as she calls it - you will love the beads she features and nothing is X-rated!


• I've just added a new blog to my follow list here at Blogger - Runako Designs by Dee. You'll probably be seeing some links to her blog in future Wanderings.

• You don't want to miss any of last week's posts from SoftFlexGirl - she took wonderful pictures of London and posted about them over several days (starting here). Then yesterday she had a guest blogger, Jennifer Wilson. Jennifer shared about working with her father to prepare some necklaces for an upcoming show. He looks like a fun dad!


• Congratulations to the winner of the Rings & Things "I Wanna Be a Blog Partner" contest - featured in the Rings & Things blog on Friday, Angela Bannatyne. A couple days before that they talked about "The World's Longest Beaded Necklace".


• Artbeads shares a gorgeous Swarovski and gold-filled chain lariat necklace from their customer gallery and a great "Using ICE Resin" video.


• Beadalon Blog has great info on Fall jewelry trends and their most popular tools.


• Not exactly a blog, but occasionally the founder of Blue Buddha Boutique, Rebeca Mojica, posts some relevant news on its homepage and this week they're asking folk to consider voting for them in the Shine A Light award from American Express and NBC Universal. They could be in the running to receive up to $100,000 in grants and marketing support. The deadline is today (Sunday, September 13th) so please visit the Shine a Light site to register and vote!

That's it for today - I'm sure this was a lot less exhausting than the Art & Wine wandering will be - but definitely easier on my pocketbook! See you for tomorrow's Monday Miscellany where I'll share some of the new work I've managed to get done between bouts of workroom clean-up (it seems to be a neverending task!).