Color Challenge!

Been busy at work and tired in the evenings lately, so no new project to share with you today, but Art Bead Scene blog is sponsoring a color contest featuring Margie Deeb and a palette from her Spring/Summer 2010 color report:

According to the blog, "We have three judges who will select a winner based on creativity, aesthetics, use of color, and wearability. Our judges include Marcia DeCoster, Jane Dickerson and Lorelei Eurto."

Contest details are here. Deadline is April 1st and the entry must include an art bead, either one you have obtained from a bead artist, or one you've made yourself. Great prize, too: "Winner will receive a year’s worth (2) of Margie Deeb’s Color Report for Bead & Jewelry Artists and a $50 gift certificate from Humblebeads.com."

So, you going to enter? I'm pondering...

Valentine's Day Idea #6 - Coral and Bordeaux Bracelet

Today I'm bringing out a bracelet I made a while back but hadn't shared here yet. I think it's a perfect piece for Valentine's Day, though. The pattern uses alternating 6mm CRYSTALLIZED™ Swarovski Elements red coral bicones (can't recall where I got these) and 6mm Bordeaux Swarovski Crystal Pearls from Jewelry Supply.com around complimentary matte and clear glass rivoli's I found at The Bead Store in Redondo Beach last June when I was visiting my family. The spacers are gold vermeil daisies from Artbeads.

I was going for a more modern take on my typical bracelet style, which tends towards a vintage look. I can see wearing this with a red cocktail dress or with something casual. If I can find those saucer beads again I would love to make a necklace in this pattern, but I used up all I had.

I regret to say that I broke down and bought a few new things - I couldn't resist some great heart shaped items from Beaded Impressions - clasps, beads and pendants. I really am getting into the Valentine's Day projects and just couldn't resist.

Don't forget, if you'd like to win a cute Valentine's Day bracelet, all it takes to be entered is a comment! Say "Enter me in the bracelet giveaway" on any post between now and the end of the month. If you're on Twitter and RT any of my tweets this month you'll get another entry. If you're a fan or become a fan of Dawno's on Facebook and leave a comment on any post there with "Enter me in the bracelet giveaway", you get another entry - so there's a total of 3 entries you can make towards the giveaway.

Random drawing will be held on January 31st - and if selected, you'll get the bracelet in plenty of time for Valentine's Day!

Special Feature: Twitter Contest with The Beadin' Path and My Contest Finalist Necklace

Contest? Did someone say contest?

On Tuesday I blogged about finally organizing (well, mostly) my workspace with some pictures and shared about it on Twitter, too. To share it on Twitter, in less than 140 characters, you need to convert the URL of the post, which is very long, to something as short as possible. To do that, I go to a site called Cli.gs and create a short link. Cli.gs also tracks the human clicks (discounts all 'bots) on each cli.gs link created.

When I look at the metrics for clicks on that link, I usually see that I get anywhere from 10 to 20 clicks and sometimes 30 or 40 if I'm really lucky. On Tuesday's link - over 200! (If you are back today after first visiting me via Twitter yesterday and Tuesday, thank you for returning) The point, though, is wow, people must like to see other people's studios!

Well, I was tweeting (that's what you call the messages on Twitter, by the way) about it with Heather DeSimone from The Beadin' Path (@beadinpath) and she said:

beadinpath: @AWDawno We should try to start up a #TweetYourStudio day. It could be fun. And inspiring. And scary.

That got some re-tweets and positive comments, so we are going to have a TweetYourStudio day on Monday, September 28th, on Twitter. To enter you have to do two things.

1) Go to one of the Twitter photo sharing sites (I'm familiar with yfrog and twitpic, but there may be others) and upload a photo of your studio. These sites allow you to tweet the picture and a brief caption to Twitter right from the same spot. You register there with your Twitter name and password. Signing up for Twitter is free. There may be other ways to share your pictures that those of you who are more Twitter savvy know how to do, feel free to use them.

2) In order to complete your entry, you *must* put the hashtag #TweetYourStudio in the message you tweet with your picture (or we won't be able to find it). If you don't know what that means, here's a great explanation of hashtags and how to use them.

Update from Heather on prizes! (promoted from comments)

The Beadin' Path & BeadinPath.com will be ponying up 2 $30 gift cards to The Beadin' Path or http://www.BeadinPath.com for winners in the following categories.
*Most Organized
*Most 'Holy-Cow-I-Can't-Believe-You-Get-Anything-Done-in-that-Space' Studio

Submissions are open to any artist working in any media. Just tweet your space.

Judges will be 3 BeadinPath staff'ers (but not me, sorry Tweeter friends, no favoritesies :). And we'll announce the winners on Tuesday morning here on this blog as well as on Twitter!
Submissions must use hashtag #TweetYourStudio or we won't see them.
And also - all entries must be submitted by midnight West Coast time on Monday night (we don't want to miss anyone who submits too late).

Wahoo! This will be fun!
Thanks Dawn for the superb blog!
:) Heather
The Beadin' Path

I am also offering an "honorable mention" prize for best use of a small crafting space. If you're stuck with a corner, a closet or have to do your crafts on the sofa, tweet a picture of the space in use (if you're camera shy, just show the stuff you craft with at the place you craft - you don't have to be in the picture) and use the same hashtag but mention "small space" or "sm.sp." to keep it short. I'll send the winner a special prize, something that won't take up too much space either: a Bead Buddy Dual Lap Desk.

So you have the weekend to tidy up (or not if you want to win Holy-Cow-I-Can't-Believe-You-Get-Anything-Done-in-that-Space) but post your picture and use the hashtag on Monday to enter.

Speaking of contests...

Some time ago I got the news that I was one of the ten finalists in the Step by Step Beads magazine Colorworks contest held in the Spring. The contest finalists' pieces (including mine!) will be featured in the November/December '09 issue of Step by Step Beads with comments by Margie Deeb.

I have wanted to post a picture of the necklace ever since I heard, but I'd removed one of the copper chains to use for another necklace that I sold at BayCon, because I'd run out of that chain and didn't have time to order more. I'd put the necklace aside to wait for the replacement chain. Now that I've worked my way through the organizing (mostly) of my workroom to the point where I uncovered the necklace, I could replace the missing chain and take a picture for you:

The rules for the contest were to use the green, orange and purple triad of the color wheel. I'd already started what is the top beaded strand in the first picture, with those colors, so I used that design as my starting point for the final piece.

It went through several iterations before I finished it. I wasn't sure about it having five layers, but I just wasn't happy with it and kept on adding layers, until I had five.

So, there's the necklace and its story. Hope it was worth the wait...

My apologies for not being ready to review the Wubbers yet, nor having an interview ready - I need to carve out time to do some research and email good questions to the potential interviewee - hope to do so this weekend.

See you tomorrow for my Friday Pick!

PS - Picture credit: The picture at the top of the page is in the public domain in the United States. This applies to U.S. works where the copyright has expired, often because its first publication occurred prior to January 1, 1923. This image is available from the United States Library of Congress's Prints and Photographs Division under the digital ID cph.3b06083

Mid-Week Mutterings - Wubbers Tools

Wubbers. Got two pair with the gift certificate I won in the Rings & Things June/July Review a Product contest last month. I love the handles, they're very cushy, the length and shape of them is also quite comfortable.

I haven't used them enough yet to say how well they do - the primary selling point of Wubbers is the hand finishing to prevent marring of wire or jump rings. I am particularly interested in seeing how they do with colored wire, as nicks in that tend to reveal the color of the base wire beneath the finish. I have a flat nosed pair - something I've been doing without so far, but have wanted, and a bent nose pair.

Once I've used them for awhile, I'll talk more about them and how well they do. If you've used Wubbers, feel free to comment about them here!

I'm glad it's Wednesday - just a couple days to go before the long weekend! Come back tomorrow for a review of a very special book by one of my favorite people in the Beadosphere.

Midweek Mutterings - Challenges and Contests!

New monthly challenge is up at Art Bead Scene - Farbstudie Quadrate (Color Study of Squares) by Wassily Kandinsky. This is an abstract work, with so many colors to work from, it should be a fun challenge. I hope you'll participate. (UPDATE: here are the prizes)

The May Rings & Things raffle was won by commenters joia & Beadsophy. There will be a June contest announced today (they say it will be "a very exciting contest").

Speaking of contests, I got an email from Artbeads today about the Use the Muse II beading design contest which they asked me to share it with you, as they are sponsoring it.

I wanted to drop you a quick note to let you know that Artbeads is sponsoring the Use the Muse II beading design contest. We think this is a fabulously fun competition that you and your blog readers would enjoy.

What makes this so much fun is that every entrant receives the same assortment of components including beads, crystals, pearls, silk and seed beads plus a mystery muse component that they must keep secret until the “BIG REVEAL.” At that time, everyone gets to see what the muse is and photos of what the entrants designed with it.

The contest was created by Scarlett Lanson who has a regular column in Beadwork magazine and has won some prestigious contests herself. She placed first in the 2009 KGI Wordwide Design Contest and fourth place in the 2007 Swarovski “Create Your Style” competition. Scarlett’s goal was to create a competition for all types of beaders; stringers, bead weavers, and embroiderers, that had a shortened timeline and a big payoff. There are some very nice prizes including prizes for first through third place and ten category prizes. The cost for the entry kit is a very reasonable $30 plus $5 for shipping in the US and $10 for international entrants.

Scarlett is also holding a weekly giveaway just for bloggers who help promote the contest. To learn more and find out what the prize is for this week visit:
www.thebeadersmuse.com/blogger-rewards/

One important thing to note is that there are a limited number of kits available and they will likely be gone before the order deadline of June 27. So, if this sounds like something you would like to do or blog about please keep this in mind. Plus, the sooner you sign up, the more time you will have to work on your design before the July 18th entry deadline.

To learn more and check out what happened in the first Use the Muse II contest, visit Scarlett’s blog here:www.thebeadersmuse.com/use-the-muse-contest2.

UPDATE: just received this additional info from Artbeads - you can be entered to win a special prize if you blog about the contest:

I am excited to see the Use the Muse II contest kick off and am looking forward to seeing the new designs from all the entrants. Please be aware if you are entering the Blogger Rewards contest on the Use the Muse site you would need to have your blog posted no later than Friday June 5th to be eligible for this weeks prize, you will also need to contact Scarlett by email to inform her that you want her to track your traffic from your blog post. For info on the Blogger Rewards contest please follow the below link:

http://www.thebeadersmuse.com/blogger-rewards/

Good luck to the entrants!

Tomorrow is my Thursday Feature: Reviews and Interviews - please come back!

Mid-Week Mutterings - Featuring Rings & Things Product Review

What can you do with 2mm (size 1) black satin like (40% cotton, 60% polyester) rat-tail cordage (about a yard of it) and a foot long section of gunmetal hammered oval links? I was stumped. Then I saw Margot Potter's post about how she used these items, together, to create a fabulous mixed media necklace. She is the Beading Inspiration Muse-person of the Universe. First it was the choker forms, now this one. Thank you, Margot!

I'd posted back in March about some gunmetal colored metalized beads I'd found at Michael's, and these good sized, plain cobalt blue glass beads I'd gotten as a gift but couldn't figure out what to do with except that I wanted to use them together somehow. I'd gotten as far as deciding I'd string them on black Gudebrod Champion silk braided pendant cord. Well, the other day I swapped out that cord and used the rat-tail, which, by the way, made much nicer looking knots.

I kind of wish I had done some step by step photos...but I didn't, because once I got the inspiration, I just dove in and beaded to the finish. So, you'll have to imagine the steps as I describe them. I knotted the rat-tail between each of the gunmetal spheres and cobalt glass tubes and didn't use a repeating pattern (this is unusual for me, as I like symmetry) since the piece was going to be asymmetrical by virtue of having one side made from the oval link chain.

I used a gunmetal pendant for a focal that I'd found at Michael's during a different shopping trip, to facilitate the connection between the knotted beads and the gunmetal links. The back has a tubular loop, so I threaded the cord through that, used a half hitch knot to attach the links and took the free end of cord through the hole in the center of the disk and added a large gunmetal bead and a glass bead to tie off the loose end and secure the whole thing.

To finish it off, I made a coil and bent up the last loop, fixed it between two knots and put a split ring with a large gunmetal lobster-claw fastener* on it. Then, to fasten, you just clip the lobster to which ever link you want for the length of necklace you prefer.

Large lobster claw from Rings & Things - this is the size I use to finish my badge lanyards, it's where I fasten the snap loop that holds the badge.

Minor drawback to using this cord, had to enlarge holes in the beads a bit, so the reaming of same with a round file took a bit more time. Well worth the effort though.

For two more looks at how you can use the chain see JustATish and ABeadADay's creations.

Way back when I first was trying to figure out how to make this necklace I offered free earrings if I used a suggestion left in my comments for a focal piece. Although I didn't use either suggestion, I'd love to give those earrings to RockCreekCreations and Wombat1138 just for being so wonderful and making great suggestions - please email me if you want them, we'll talk about what kind you'd like.

I'm trying out a new online storefront application - ToldYa! So here's today's message from our sponsor:

Another Contest!

Each month for the past couple of months, Rings & Things has had a contest on their blog. Yesterday the April winners went up:

Congratulations to the winners of our April contest, “DIY Display Ideas“, who are:

• Mary Berg, who had several great tips (check them out!).
• Lyn, who shared from her 35 years of experience.

And, announcing the May contest on the Rings & Things blog, which is a free-for-all comment raffle:

• You enter by leaving comments — so visit often.
• You find out you won by…? Visiting often! (2 winners to be announced at the end of May.)

May the luckiest person win!

I don't win many contests, raffles, lottos, etc. Although, I've had some runs of very good luck with the Wheel of Fortune slots at the Las Vegas Hilton...anyway, I encourage you to visit the Rings & Things blog and comment often in May. You'll reduce my chances of winning, but it's worth it to get you over there to join the conversation.

Been busy getting new listings up on Etsy and Art Fire. Etsy is where I just list lanyards and the occasional matching piece, Art Fire is for my other jewelry. I've experienced a few minor frustrations with Art Fire - can't delete pictures, things I saved in the new product edits aren't there when I go back to change something, so I have to add them all over again. New site, glitches expected, just hope things improve. The niftiest new feature on Art Fire right now is the button to "tweet this item". If you see something of mine you like, I'd love it if you'd tweet it! Happy to return the favor, too.

Speaking of Art Fire, here's a message from our sponsor:

Dawno

Buy Handmade

My First Blog Review on Technorati and Thoughts About Marketing and Social Media

Ok, pictures first - lots of 'em today, so I hope you're not on dial up! Then the post.

Someone special I know has a May birthday, so I got out these emerald Swarovski rounds - not totally sure what I'm going to make, but it needs to be in the mail tomorrow...

My new assortment packs of aluminum jump rings from Blue Buddha Boutique (as mentioned in prior post) - very cool colors, light weight - going to play and play!

I was just going to order eye and head pins, but I saw these and had to have them, too - Angelite - what a lovely blue!

Needed these fire polished Czech Purple/Gold AB rounds in 12mm size to finish my Step by Step Beads Colorworks Contest submission. It's all done now, and I'm very excited to submit it. Just worried about whether or not I can get the photograph specs correct per rules.

OK, last picture! A while back Rings & Things sent me some brass frames during the Gluable Challenge month. I never used the square one, although I did try something new with one of the rectangular ones. So I got this punch to make perfect-fit squares of paper that I'll use in a collage inside the frame. I have 72 of these frames, due to a *duh* moment in making my order, so I should be able to experiment freely. Got the punch and other cool stuff from Alpha Stamps, which I had never heard of until I read about them on Barbe Saint John's blog.

That's it for the pictures today, on to the title story.

I recently wrote a very short post referencing Technorati. I've been registered there since October of 2004 with my other blog NVNC ID VIDES, NVNC NE VIDES and decided to register this one as well. In that little post I asked if you'd be so kind as to give my blog a review.

Last night I checked my page, and saw that a dear friend of mine had posted a review. The generosity of her comments left me speechless, honest. This was me: " ... "

I've been thinking lately about how a little-known indie artisan gets the word out that they have things they'd like to share, sell, say... Well, blogging is one way, but people need to know to read your blog. Not easy when there are eleventy gazillion blogs about every kind of craft imaginable. Ok, I Googled craft blogs and there were 19 million hits, beading blogs, 16.2 million hits. Not quite eleventy gazillion, but close enough.

Now, I primarily blog because I like to. I'm a social person, extroverted and the beading thing is pretty solitary, so it's my social outlet. (this explains why it may seem like I'm stalking you when sometimes I comment on your blog, or respond to your comment here, about 3 minutes after you post - it's just that I'm starving for conversation!)

I also like to think there are some people who read this and enjoy my posts. I also realize that there's a marketing aspect to this now. As I was talking to my daughter on the phone we got to talking about why that's important.

I don't think it's enough to just have good stuff out there and hope that people will find it; they won't unless you give them some breadcrumbs to follow through the wild forest of the internet. I think you have to go find people you feel are kindred souls, make connections, share jokes, links, help each other out, pay it forward when you can. It's not that I'm looking for you to be my customers, but that when we share in this online conversation it makes us more visible on the web to potential customers - for *all* of us.

Someone lands here, doesn't really like my styles, but is gaga over Tish's or Lisa's, or anyone else on my blogroll. And, I hope, vice versa. Blogrolls, links, reviewing each other's work...fun for us, good for us. It's why I'm going to do my Sunday Dawno's Wanderings Around the Beadosphere, and I hope that someday some others will share in the fun, too.

And, just for fun - I posted on my other blog about my internet addiction along with a fun video clip about Twitter. Would love it if you'd take a peek!

Hey, Another Contest with A Giveaway Attached...So It's Two Chances to Win!

Read about this giveaway to promote a contest first on Twitter: "@tammypowley New @ Jewelry Making Soft Flex Contest: Soft Flex has an interesting new contest running for.. http://tinyurl.com/cn5yqx" So I went over to Soft Flex Girl's blog and snerched the following from her post "Big Giveaway for Blogger Buddies"

Btw, if you aren't following me on Twitter and would like to, I'm @AWDawno - I don't post a lot, sometimes it's just chat with other folks I know from before Twitter, sometimes it might actually be interesting. One thing I don't do a lot of is push my wares - it kind of bugs me when that's all I ever see in other tweets.

Sure, you should promote your Etsy or ArtFire store, but every tweet is "see my beautiful new listing!" or "buy this!" - all the time? I have to admit it annoys me somewhat. Let's socialize and have some fun, too! Great examples of how to do just that are @beadinpath, @Rings_Things, @BeadGuy, @JustATish and @ABeadADay - to only mention a few. @Rings_Things posts links to articles, re-tweets other Twitterer's news and has made personal connections. That's what I look for in social media - being, you know, social.

Anyway, more about the contest and less my pet peeves. I've only ever bought a few rolls of Soft Flex, but because of the great color assortment they offer, and my new fascination with leaving long swaths of my stringing wire exposed, it's on its way to becoming staple for stringing. The black Soft Flex was featured in my bracelet a few days ago and the bronze Soft Flex in the necklace the following day. I want to get some bright colors next - red, green, yellow, turquoise.

OK, so, per the blog giveaway info, I'm posting about it here, adding a button on my sidebar and may post about it again for extra bonus entry goodness.

Just to tie up the loose ends - the blog giveaway is promoting a Soft Flex contest - two different things. You can enter the giveaway without entering the Soft Flex contest and vice versa (but why not enter both?) Deadline for blog giveaway is July 1, 2009 - enter by commenting at the post. Click here for Soft Flex contest details (link also found below). Everything below this is straight from SoftFlexGirl's blog - I take no credit for the content or art below.

Big Giveaway for Blogger Buddies!

Giveaway prize includes:
3 FREE Trios of your choice!
That's right ANY 3 Trios. You choose the colors!

Here's what you gotta do:

Help us get the word out about our new contest.

To enter to win, please blog about our new "Flex your Creativity" Beading Contest.

Save/Post details:

FIND OUT MORE HERE!
(link to: http://www.softflexcompany.com/BeadingContest.html)

Feel free to expand and say more if you like. The only big rule is that it must link to the details page on our website for your fellow designers to find out more.

In addition, if you use the fancy artwork that Kristen created in your sidebar, I will enter you again. 2 entries!

Grab the html code for the button artwork and display it on your blog at the bottom of the contest page. Then, leave me a comment with a link to your blog! I will enter you to win 3 FREE Trios in your choice of color combination! If you blog about it more than once, let me know. I'll enter you as many times as you mention and link to the details page.

All entries (comments) for this giveaway must be posted by July 1st, 2009.

Add This!

First, for those of you who will be having Passover seder tonight (and maybe tomorrow night as well) - Chag Kasher V’Sameach.

Next, I would like to plug Chocolate and Steel's blog, great pictures, fun information and on Mondays she posts a "Undiscovered Uncovered" feature about new Etsy shops, which is a wonderful way to support fellow artisans!

Next to last, I discovered on Chocolate and Steel that Lora, of Lora Hart Jewels, is having a giveaway on her blog. Beautiful precious metal clay designs (and another medium I'd like to work in, eventually - not really set up in my little back bedroom "studio" for using torches) and she's going to give one away next week - click the 'giveaway' link above to read and participate.

Lastly, the other day I talked about readers and blog traffic (The Long Tail post). Saw a great post on Simply Shiny today with a recommendation to use the AddThis button. (They've got a blog, too, in case you're also into reading about techie stuff).

I've had a number of little icons at the end of my posts that give readers the option to share with various services like Digg or StumbleUpon, but decided to switch to AddThis and see what happens. Mostly because they have analytics - if anyone was sharing my posts somewhere before, I had no clue. This way I can (I think) check the analytics and see if anything was shared.

So how does it work? When you hover over the AddThis button a list of options pops up and you can select from which ever one you want - the process is quite simple - AddThis does a lot of the work for you. If you've got an AddThis or other similar feature on your blog, I'll certainly return the favor.

One last thing - I just followed someone on Twitter whose tweets seem to be very funny - if you want to grin, follow @mkramer (Melody Kramer).

Giveaway Contest at Chocolate and Steel

Look here for a giveaway contest at Chocolate and Steel

Beautiful ring as prize. Wonderful jewelry at her Etsy shop.

Go, look! Tell her Dawno sent you :-)

Free Earrings Giveaway - Help Me Finish a Necklace

I want to make a pendant on black rattail satin cord with these beads. They are gunmetal beads in 3 sizes, largest is about 15mm and ~10mm cobalt blue glass barrel beads. I will probably put decorative knots on the cord but no other embellishments. I need a focal piece/pendant for it and I'm so brain tired from the weekend, I can't even contemplate searching right now without wanting to take a nap.

So, if you'd please leave some links to a focal or pendant - the specific item, please - that I can go see (and maybe buy) from Etsy shops, Artfire shops, other online shops, or bead suppliers of focals you think would look good with these.

If I buy the focal you suggest, I'd be happy to make you a pair of earrings as a thank you gift...either out of these materials or we can work out what you'd like via email. If I don't buy a focal suggested, I'll do a random drawing from commenters. If the winner doesn't want earrings, we can work something else out, but I really do want to give away a prize!

And yes, this may get me some traffic and comments, but it really isn't my intention. I'm truly so brain and body tired from last weekend that I can't seem to figure this out on my own right now and really would love your ideas!

Lines and Squares, Inspired by Curves and Circles

Dave from Rings & Things tweeted about a choker that Margot Potter (The Impatient Crafter and star of wonderful crafting videos) made using one of the choker forms from Rings & Things (see my earlier post and review of those forms). I went to visit her site and take a look at the necklace - it's gorgeous. (And she has a contest going on as well, be sure to leave her a comment).

As I mentioned in her comments, her design got me thinking about using the red choker form from Rings & Things to make something that radiated out around the neck, too, but taking a different stylistic approach. So I got out some beads and sterling wire and got started. Here's the work so far - still need to add a few more bits if I want to get that radiating look. It's definitely an 'apprentice' piece, where I'm learning more what not to do as I go than what works (so maybe I shouldn't have used that sterling wire, but it was the right gauge and handy)...but I think I'll get to something I can be happy with eventually.

At first I was thinking Mondrian was the inspiration, because I was going for a simple primary palette and angular design, but I'm not so sure that's it. My background is woefully limited when it comes to modern art and artists.

Editing to add: I just realized (after reading some back posts on her blog) that the wire wrapping part of my choker, above, came from JustATish - she showed one of her choker form ideas in this post where she does a beautiful design with copper wire (or is it something else?), lampwork beads and turquoise dyed howlite. I truly regret the curse of CRS that caused me to forget where the inspiration to use wire wrapping on my piece came from!

A Winning Design

Wow! I won the Beadfly Fall Design contest! Thank you to the Beadfly folks. I've enjoyed being a member of this new site and its forum. I blogged about the winning design here, too.

So, what is Beadfly? It's a very web 2.0 type of site for beaders. It has an interactive forum, a place to upload and showcase one's work and talk about the inspiration for it, it provides members with opportunities to give and get reviews. It's got a good look, some neat features and I'd love it if you'd join and be my "friend" on the site. I'd also love to get a group going - another fun social networking feature they offer. I was thinking either a regional group (Northern California) or one of folk who do vintage style jewelry would be fun.

Now if I could only find the time to really concentrate on getting my stuff in the public eye and sell some of it! I have a new domain but haven't figured out how to get it on the hosting site account (which is set up under my husband's name with the hosting co.) nor how to build a storefront website.

I've got some good Googlejuice on the search "beaded badge lanyards" since I blog here so often and make sure to tag nearly every post with that phrase, but other than that, I'm still floundering a bit as to how to market my work. I had really hoped to get into LosCon (as I've whined about before) and get a few more sales this year, but absent that opportunity, I'm just not sure what to try next. I tried Google Ads for several months, but tracked no sales from that investment so I stopped it. I love Etsy, but it's a huge site and unless someone knows about me specifically, I doubt if they'll just stumble on my site and make a purchase.

Not going to give up, though! Eventually I'll figure something out, and next year I'll contact some cons much earlier than I did this year.

To cheer myself up, I'm working on a new necklace - turns out these stones and colors I'm using are pretty close to some of the the "Pantone Fall 2008" fashion color report colors. I'm thrilled about purples being 'in' as that's one of my favorite colors to wear.

I'm using 20 gauge copper wire to 'string' and attach squares of hemimorphite, bright, fluted copper beads and antiqued copper bead caps, faceted amethyst colored rondells and oval beads in this one. May not take this pattern all the way around the neck, have some nice antique copper chain I can use, too.

New Names for My Necklace Lanyards

For the most part I've been giving my pieces names descriptive of the stones or colors in them. I've lately seen a number of bead artists giving evocative names to their pieces, either from quotes or, perhaps, lovely sentiments they've created themselves. I am charmed by and enjoy the thought that goes into the naming.

My pieces sold pretty well at BayCon, so I'm (as mentioned on this blog) hoping to be approved as a dealer at LosCon and am going to look into other cons I can attend. Since most of the people at the cons are SF and Fantasy fans, using SF inspired naming seems like a fun idea, and it represents something I enjoy personally, not just a gimmick. So I was pondering where to get my inspiration for the names of my pieces.

Flash forward to a post about day lilies I clicked on yesterday. There are varieties of day lilies that have been given Star Trek names. I'm a fan, and I got a kick out of looking at the beautiful Borg Technology and Cloaking Device flowers. I've named my most recent pieces with a Star Trek theme, with many thanks to Memory Alpha Wiki to help me find information and quotes.

Here's Tears of Elaan, a short-ish piece at 24" in frosted Czech glass druk beads and iridescent glass seed beads with a larger iridescent Czech glass bead at the ends, best suited for an eyeglass leash. I'm going to also pick a quote from the episode that inspired the name, for each piece. This one comes with the quote from Spock to McCoy at the end of the episode:

"The Enterprise captured his heart long before the Dohlman did"

And almost finished (still need to attach the hardware) this morning, is a longer badge lanyard necklace - approx. 30 - 32", with two sizes of clear glass bicone (diamond) Czech pressed glass beads, separated by silver glass and iridescent glass seed beads. I've named it Treasure of Rigel XII, and the quote, from a conversation between Kirk and Harry Mudd:

"You either believe in yourself or you don't."

First commenter to tell me the name of the Star Trek episodes the necklace names come from, can claim these earrings (Enterprise-A not included), if they'd like: