Monday Miscellany - Gunmetal and Jasper Three Strand Necklace

Hope you're all planning on Tweeting Your Studio today - information about the contest is on my Thursday blog post of last week. Great prizes for three winners have been contributed from The Beadin' Path and me.

Over the weekend we had another warm spell and I didn't get as much done as I'd have liked. I did, however, start the necklace below.

I believe the stone is leopard skin jasper, a somewhat twisty, large rectangle bead, some long, thin rectangular tube beads, gunmetal bead spacers and Crystal Volcano CRYSTALLIZED™ - Swarovski Elements from Artbeads. The gunmetal mesh tube chain came from Michael's.

It's still kind of calling out for something else. Not sure what yet. I kind of have an idea about creating a connection between the two chains, but not sure how I'll accomplish that.

I'm looking forward to seeing all the entries in tomorrow's contest! Hope you will enter!

Weekly Wanderings Around the Beadosphere

Last weekend of September already. Nights are getting longer, it's barely light out when I have to get up to get ready for work. I think I'd love living in a much more southern latitude. Had a great visit on Friday night with some virtual acquaintances - I'd only met one of them before in person. I'd had a pretty awful day up till I sat down for drinks and great conversation. I may blog about that on my other blog one of these days.

Then Saturday was a lazy day, talked to both of my kids and watched shows on TiVo, took a long nap mid-afternoon. Cooked a late lunch for the husband and me, too - if you can call making salmon patties, nuking a tray of store-bought mashed potatoes and opening a can of peas cooking. It was very yummy nonetheless. Sunday will be a jewelry making day, I hope, because I've got a lot of ideas to work through.

Well, enough about me...this is about all my neighbors out there in the Beadosphere - so let's check 'em out!

• Just A Tish has had a banner week - posting every day! Start on Monday with this plea for info on knotting elastic thread, Tuesday about fall color trends, Wednesday and Friday she shows some of her beautiful work, Thursday on bead contests and other places to showcase your work, yesterday she shared her cool design package of beads from The Beadin' Path.


• A Bead a Day's week was also jam packed with great posts - Amber shell beads, Brown ceramic disks, rubber tubing for memory wire work, and see what she did with them in Saturday's post! Of course you want to check out the other days too.


• Welcome Carolyn Weir to the Beadosphere with me - see her posts Skysetter's Handmade Holidays.


• ErtheFae's Cthulhu is nearly done! I've been watching the progress and love the design. For some time now a pair of lovely earrings have graced the upper right corner of her blog - well, she sold them and there's a new piece in their spot - be sure to take a peek. Also worth a good long look is the gorgeous necklace "Elvensoul" she featured on Wednesday.


• At Brenda's blog, The Jewelry Box "a hodgepodge of beaded jewelry" she shows off the design created with her Artbead selection


• Check out the Staffordshire Hoard via The Beading Gem's Journal - fascinating stuff!


• Kelley of Kell's Creations shares pictured of the Renaissance Fair in Santa Fe where she had a lovely booth (visible in her first picture).


• On the other side of the globe and down to Australia - Deez News reports that Davinia visited her favorite bead shop for a beading lesson - lots of bead eye candy on that post!


• Daily Jewel shares the winners of the Paragon Lake Inspired Design contest.


• Silver Parrot shares more luscious beads and some chain and wire, too.


• SmuTopia has some Halloween themed finds to share


• SCDiva - I loved these gorgeous pendants the first few using an innovative technique, and others featuring her various polyclay designs, including image transfer, and then three fall color palette necklaces with beautiful image transfer pendants. I so admire her designs!


• Happy belated birthday wishes to Pink Pooch's Staci!


• Margot Potter shares about Friendly Plastic and if you comment on the post, you're entered in a giveaway drawing.


• WillowWalker's Fall Festival report, lovely Ember earrings and a gorgeous pendant/earring set, The Willows - I also received my beautiful dichrotic glass pendant and earrings this week as well as a beautiful pair of amber glass earrings. She does fabulous work so visit her ArtFire store, too!

Just one little plug for me - I finally broke down and started one of those 'fan pages' on Facebook. I'd love it if you'd become a fan.

• Soft Flex Girl shares Fusion Beads sale


• I think Dave's been too busy on the road with the Rings & Things Bead Tour (next one in my general area is San Mateo in November) to post this week - I look forward to the blog posts to come, though.


• Artbeads blog shared their top rated products, a visit to Boeing to see the new FedEx 777 freighter, lovely lampwork art beads and new free priority shipping for orders over $75.


• Dara's Weekly Beadditudes at The Beadin' Path chats about vintage beads at the Bead Forum.

Hope you're not too worn out from our little hike around the Beadosphere this week - lots of great places to visit. I highly recommend bookmarking or following the blogs mentioned so you never miss a post!

See you tomorrow for Monday Miscellany - I've got a good post planned! And if you're on Twitter, I hope you're going to enter the #TweetYourStudio contest - the contest runs tomorrow only and there are three great prizes being offered!