Check out Bead Art Originals Items of the Week! Every week some of our members offer a special deal on an item from their Etsy shops.

My offering this week, in light of the recent Democratic Convention, is the Obama beadwoven cuff. Purchase this cuff during the week of September 1-7 and receive free shipping on your entire order.

Keep your eyes peeled on this blog later in the week, too... I'm going to be having a giveaway for a special Etsy occasion.

:-)






Visit the Bead Art Originals blog to check out the other great offers! Here's a preview:

Saturday was a great mail day! The postman arrived with a package of goodies I ordered from Lisa Peters, and I could hardly wait to open it to see everything in person. I've been drooling over Lisa's work on flickr for awhile now, and I was soooo disappointed that I wasn't able to visit her at the Bead and Button Show this year in Milwaukee. It figures that she was there the ONE year I wasn't able to attend. Drat!

Lisa listed a few of her beads in her Etsy shop, but I figured she'd have lots more of them; so I shot off an email and then proceeded to hunt through her photos to choose beads and buttons. Do you know how hard it is to choose when everything you see is beautiful!?!? Somehow I managed, though, and Lisa was nice enough to add some new pictures of pieces she had on hand. She also answered a bazillion questions along the way. My friend and fellow beadweaver Carol Dean (SandFibers), who's been creating beautiful things with Lisa's beads and buttons for awhile, told me I'd love everything and she was absolutely right. I just couldn't stop staring at all those goodies, and I have TONS of ideas floating around in my head now. If only there were more hours in the day...

I'll take photos of some of the goodies in that box later (when the sun comes out). In the meantime, I'm busy taking notes and sketching ideas for how to use them. Want to see some of Lisa's work combined with beadweaving? Check this out! This is Carol Dean's work that she's showing off on flickr, but you can also find some pieces in her Etsy shop.

Yesterday I had just enough good weather (between rainstorms and helping my husband move our canoe around several times as he was trying to paint it and avoid the rain) to photograph my newest beadwoven bracelet design, Little Vine. It's so much fun creating these designs and then creating the bracelets. After I chose the colors for the first version of this design, I thought of a whole bunch of different combinations. I think for the next one I'll use a light background and do the vine and leaves in a dark color.

And a nice surprise this morning! Smadar (SmadarsTreasure) included Little Vine in this beautiful treasury!!
The treasury is brand new, so you can click the picture to go visit it and see everything up close. There are some beautiful pieces in there by some of my fellow Etsy BeadWeavers. Smadar herself is VERY talented, and I'm always oogling the pieces she creates. I really love this 3D Gold Trapezes necklace, but then I love pretty much everything in her shop.

Marilyn (aka GrandmaMarilyns) also featured one of my newest pieces in her patriotic treasury.
We're a patriotic bunch, aren't we!? Marilyn's Caribbean Blue bracelet would fit in there nicely, too.

Now it's time to go do something productive! And no, that doesn't mean dishes, laundry, cleaning, or anything of that nature. Those things can wait while I play with my beads!! :-)

Barack Obama and beadweaving? How do those things go together?

Quite well, actually. I'm not political. I rarely even watch the news. But somehow the fact that a senator from Illinois (where I live!) is running for President of the United States in the 2008 election has sunk in, and somewhere along the way I realized that the Obama logo is a neat bit of artwork.

That was enough to inspire me to create a beadweaving pattern featuring the logo. I just listed the Obama Cuff in my Etsy shop, so we'll see if there are any Obama supporters on the site. Judging by what I've been seeing, I think there are. Who knows, maybe Barack will visit Etsy and decide this is the perfect accessory for his wife to wear on the campaign trail!


In other news, I'm honored to report that I've received the Arte de Pico award from two different people, Lizzy T and Smadar. Smadar gave me the award at the end of May, but I didn't ever get around to passing it on to some of my favorite bloggers (one of the requirements for the award); and Lizzy just awarded it to me today!


I guess I'm going to be "that person" who breaks the chain. I really intended to pass the award along, but when I went in search of the blogs I like to read I found that almost every one of them had already received it at least once. I hope no one's too upset by my decision, but I'd really rather continue to follow the blogs I love to read without requiring that they choose five recipients of the award. Sorry. It really is a nice gesture, but to me it's a bit too much like a chain letter. I'm also "that person" who deletes chain letters. What can I say?

So, thanks to Smadar and Lizzy. I really am happy you chose to present me with the award.