Archive for June, 2010

A couple months ago I had my first ever Spring Designer Challenge. I gave away some great beads sets for first second and third place. I only had three entries so everyone who entered got a prize, how cool is that!

During the process I also learned that not everyone has the competitive spirit that I do, and some people are just not comfortable with putting their work out there for others to scrutinize. I’m cool with that, but here is a little food for thought…maybe you are not comfortable showing your work, maybe you are worried that someone will steal your ideas or maybe you are just plain shy. However, if you ever plan to sell your work to more than just your friends and family, you need to get over that and work the Internet! It’s FREE, anyone can use it, but it will only work if you work IT. Every time someone mentions your name or posts a link to your site that’s a little bit of free search engine love. But, you have to get out there and bring in the links they will not come to you. That is really what my challenge was designed to do. To give other artists a chance to advertise themselves on my blog as well as getting a little attention for my own beads.

The following is some FREE advertising!!!!

Kim Forrer of Kim Forrer Designs won first place in the challenge! She just recently sent me pictures of the pieces she made with the beads that she won. They are just spectacular. I really love seeing what others have done with my beads. I don’t consider myself much of a jewelry designer so it’s really exciting to see my beads used in new and interesting ways that I would never have thought of!

This is the set of beads that Kim won:

and here is what she made with them:

Thanks Kim, for sharing those images with me!

Well today is my day for the BIG BEAD SOUP REVEAL! Ta DAAAA! My Bead Soup partner was Tari Kahrs of Pearl and Pebble and she sent me the most wonderful mix of ingredients. The color theme of the ingredients was predominantly green. Green is not a color I normally work with so the challenge was on. I just had to get some orange in there somewhere, so I decided to try using copper wire instead of my usual silver and I just fell in love. Throw in some large carnelian rounds and the color combo is just to die for, if I do say so myself. Tari sent a couple different pieces that could be used as a focal so I picked the one that I thought best fit the color theme of the necklace. I have a bracelet and some earrings in the works with the rest of my ingredients but I just didn’t get time to finish them up before we went on vacation. You can read all about that on our New Lassini Light Works Blog.

Well I won’t hold you in suspense any longer….

Today is the start of the Bead Soup Blog Party! Since we have so many participants Lori has decided to break us up into groups to make things a bit more manageable. I will be posting the piece I made on Tuesday June 22nd. Make sure you check out Lori’s blog for the daily groups.