Featured on Beaders Showcase!

I received an exciting email yesterday. One of my photos was chosen for “This Week’s Showcase” on Beader’s Showcase! There are over 10,260 photos on the site and my Silicone Valley Bra photo was chosen to be one of the 9 featured this week! It was chosen based on the ratings from other members. I’m proud that others enjoy the bra as much as I do and I’m already coming up with fantastic ideas for next year.

My First Herringbone

The first beading stitch I learned using a needle and thread was the herringbone stitch. I followed the directions in a kit sold by Tapestry Beads and I loved it immediately! I never finished that bracelet from the kit because I got so excited about the possibilities of patterns that I moved on to make my own design. I made my first bracelet a couple years ago in which I used colored pencils and blank herringbone graph paper to design the pattern. I actually wore the bracelet today which made me think back to how excited I was to take an idea from my head and see it come to life. Here are some pictures of my Coral Over & Under (yep, I know it’s a catchy title)



I ended up making the same design in pastels for a Spring Fever bracelet and converted the pattern to peyote for the bracelet I made to donate to the Graphic II event.

Art Fire

I’ve recently opened a new shop on Art Fire. Art Fire is a fairly new, started in 2008, handmade venue online that really focuses on the seller and the handmade community. It is growing and changing with feedback from the artists that use the site. The founder was a seller on another large online venue and knows first hand what is important in a site to a seller of handmade goods. The people in the forums have been so nice and welcoming. There is a ton of good info and help coming in from all the other sellers. One thing that I have liked so far is the eagerness and willingness of everyone to help promote each other’s shops. I think I’ve found a new home for selling my items!

Please check out my Art Fire studio frequently for new items and also shop around the rest of Art Fire to buy handmade!

We decided to take advantage of this overcast day to do some much-needed work around the house. So Ken is finishing the lofts in my studio and I’m posting to my blog, obviously not getting much work done :)

The big Graphic III event was one of the most wonderful nights this year! We sold out and packed the venue with about 500 guests. Click here to see a brief video about the evening and you can see me up on the stage with the auctioneer. There were 19 models/breast cancer survivors that walked the runway in gorgeous art bras. Six of those bras were auctioned off live immediately following the runway show. I wore my creation Silicone Valley in the runway show and it was auctioned off live for $600! Here I am right before walking down the runway in my art bra.



The night was a huge success and we raised over 40% more than last year! We weren’t sure what was going to happen due to the economy. I made a beautiful herringbone bracelet for the silent auction. I used metallic pink Delicas and hematite drops to add some depth. Here is the bracelet.