A New Tutorial And...

I have been a terribly absent blogger this year.  Lots of reasons, but the largest of which was taking care of my Dad, who has been off and on in the hospital for almost three years.  He's home again now, and doing great, and I am hoping to be able to do more posts again, as I used to.  Hopefully, at the New Year I will be back to blogging once a month.

I had a looooooong creative block as well as the blogging block, but I am so happy to be able to say that it has finally passed, and I managed to work out a new (although fairly simple) tutorial.  I must say, if I hadn't had some really awesome testers for this, it never would have happened - I don't think I've ever sent out a messier, full-of-errors tutorial draft before!!  But it's all fixed up now (thank you so much, Michelle and Mary and Valorie!!) and in the shop.  It's called Royal Herringbone Ropes, and it includes two necklaces, the basic instructions for a bracelet and a pair of pretty earrings.  The first part of the tutorial, the Crowns Rope Necklace, is going to be available to bead retailers from The Beadsmith, and I wanted to pair that rope up with one that I had made previously called Sceptres.  Then I had so much fun stitching that I decided to make the bracelet... and then the earrings just sort of happened... ;)  Check it out here in my Etsy shop.

I was honored again this year by having a photo published in Sabine Lippert's gallery in her glorious new book, Beadwork Evolutions.  If you don't have this book yet, RUN to get yourself a copy!!  The projects are just gorgeous and so inspiring.  I have included photos below to give you just a little glimpse of the beauty that awaits you in it's pages.  Sabine has kits for these projects on her website, TryToBead.

Anastasia Necklace

Bubble Ball Beaded Bead

Round Cube Beaded Bead

Thank you so much for including me, Sabine!  Your book is completely fabulous, and I can't wait to make some of these beauties.

Thirdly, I am taking part again this year in the Art Charm Swap, hosted by Jennifer Cameron (for more detailed information, check out Jen's blog here).  We all make charms to swap, but each person makes one extra charm that will be sold via auction, with all profits going to Beads Of Courage. Last year, we were able to send $1500 to BOC!!  This is especially important and special to me this year, since my Dad was diagnosed with lung cancer, which precipitated his surgery.  Beads of Courage is for children, of course, but my Dad's cancer brought this closer to home for me and made me take more time to consider what happens to the kids (and adults as well).  If you can, please come to the auction on November 24th and bid as high as you can, and come back here for the reveal blog post on November 25th.

This year's theme was 'soar' and it was a little challenging for me, but I did manage to come up with what I hope is a cute charm.  :)  I can't wait to see what everyone came up with, but I know already that these charms are going to be awesome and incredible - and perfect for using in your own jewelry,  with the great feeling that you're donating to a very worthy cause.