Featured Designer of the Week - Lori Anderson

Each Monday we feature the Designer of the Week. One of our editors pick their favorite from the Monthly Challenge entries.

This week I picked Lori Anderson's bright and cheerful bracelet.

"I love how she has let the art beads shine in the piece by picking accent beads that match them perfectly.  The funky clasp also adds a playfulness to the design that I enjoy.  It's a great use of complimentary colors."

To see more of Lori's work you can visit her blog and website.

Want to see your work here next week? Enter our monthly challenge today!

Sunday with Cindy

Good morning, Beady Readers! Wondering what's going on in the bead and jewelry world? Take a peek at our links and see.....


A Bead A Day
Do you buy beads for their "coolness" factor? What is your definition of "cool" when it comes to beads and jewelry?

About.com Jewelrymaking
Tammy has taken her net and collected some butterfly crafts for you in plenty of time to participate in The Butterfly Project at the Holocaust Museum Houston.

Art Bead Scene
The October Art Bead Scene Challenge gets folksy.

Cindy Gimbrone aka Lampwork Diva
Cindy shows off her new buckle charm necklace but what should she name it?

Earthenwood Studio Chronicles
Melanie brightens up her beading palette with some spring colors for her second Art Beads crystal blog post

Jean Campbell
Jean shares her delight with Cynthia Thornton's new book, "Enchanted Adornments"

Jewelry & Beading
Bring home a souvenir, and figure out how to wear it!

Katie's Beading Blog
Katie's mixing polymer clay with beads again - check out this new design!

Lorelei's Blog: Inside the Studio
Come join in on the fun of the 6th Enchanted Adornments giveaway, it's FROGS! Ribbit!

Snap out of it, Jean! There's beading to be done!
Jean is swooning over the newest Crystallized Innovations from Artbeads!

Strands of Beads
Melissa is proud to be Soft Flex Company's Spotlight On... Designer for October!

Studio Saturday - Starry Nights

Welcome to Studio Saturday! Each week one of our contributors gives you a sneak peek into their studio, creative process or inspirations. We ask a related question of our readers and hope you'll leave comments! As an incentive we offer a free prize each week to bribe you to use that keyboard. The following week we choose a random winner.

Last weeks winner is s_baghaii. Congratulations! You have won one of Creative Impressions in Clay new toggle buttons from the studio of Tari Sasser. Send Tari an e-mail with your address and she will get it right out to you.

Welcome to the Humblebeads Studio!  What have I been up to lately?  I have been making beads, beadmaking, creating beads, working on beads and did I mention that I've been making beads?  The last few weeks have been a flurry of marathon beadmaking sessions.  My husband is now afraid to enter my studio, he knows I'll put him to work rolling beads. 

I did two trunk shows last month, one with Ornamentea and one at Galena Beads with the Vintaj girls.  One thing I did for each of these stores was to create limited edition beads that I thought would work well with their style.  For Ornamentea I worked on vintage inspired floral patterns that would fit their altered art/mixed media vibe.  For Vintaj, I sent fall themed beads and new Van Gogh shapes. I think my Van Gogh beads look wonderful with the warm glow of the Vintaj brass. 

So that's what I've been up to the last few weeks.  I'm loving the new Van Gogh beads but it has me curious. Since I now have them in almost every shape of bead I make, (including 6-hole spacer beads, disk beads, wafers, long beads and lentils) what is your favorite shape of art beads?  Do you have one?  Does the shape matter to you?  Leave a comment and one lucky winner will receive one of my new Van Gogh wafer beads, like the one pictured here.

Book Winner

Michelle is the winner of Contemporary Copper Jewelry by Sharilyn Miller. Thanks for playing along everyone! There is still time to enter for Tari's Studio Saturday post and my blog drawing for free beads and subscription to Bead Trends. Good luck!

From Heather's Sketchbook - Chinook Pendants

I love Mellisa's designs from Chinook Jewelry. Her ceramic pendants offer an earthy color palette in intricate designs. She also has some color pieces with no texture, that are perfect for layering with charms. I love pairing Chinooks work with my branch disks, they work so well together. Click on the sketches to see them larger.

For Art Bead Scene readers:

Receive 10% off your orders from Chinook Jewelry through the rest of October. Enter coupon code: OCT09ABS at checkout.

Art By Heather

I found a cool shop on Etsy called ArtByHeather.

I found Heather's shop recently as I was flipping through the art beads section and I immediately fell in love with her little house charms.

Heather loves old photos and ephemera, and she's always trying to find new ways of preserving these little treasures. She started creating these little house charms because she's always loved what "home" represents. I have noticed houses popping up in jewelry all over the place. Heather does custom orders for an extra charge, and will use subject matter that you request! ArtByHeather has been open since September of 2007, and it's where she also sells all kinds of cool and funky artifacts, like altered dominoes, cards, mini-collages, charms, magnets and whatever else she can create from scratch!

I think it's cool that you can buy single charms or a set of charms. And the little Halloween charms are just perfect for the season!

Written by Lorelei Eurto,

http://www.lorelei1141.etsy.com/

http://lorelei1141.blogspot.com/

The Motherlode Giveaway Round-up!

First, let's start with a little book review and a surprise giveaway here at the Art Bead Scene!

Contemporary Copper Jewelry by Sharilyn Miller

Love the look of wire jewelry? Want to learn great metalworking techniques and complex wire-wrapping? Then you'll want to pick up a copy of Sharilyn's newest book.

This book is filled with helpful step-by-step photos for the projects, clear instructions and a great chapter on the basic techniques. The projects are both modern and ancient in influence with beads used throughout the projects. With each project Sharilyn has included extra tips and ideas to take your design to the next level.

I have a copy, compliments of Interweave Press, to giveaway to one lucky winner. Leave a comment to this post for a chance to win. I will draw a random winner on Friday, so don't delay! (Be sure to leave your email address if you don't have a blog, we'll need to be able to reach the winner.)

And now, here is a round-up of blog giveaways that you don't want to miss this week!

*Nancy of Round Rabbit is giving away a ring featuring her ceramic work. Check them out!

*Art Bead Scene editor, Lorelei Eurto is sponsoring a Green Girl Studio giveaway on her blog, ribbit.

*Vintaj has gone prize crazy and will be drawing 5 winners each week and all you have to do is a leave a comment on one of their blog posts during the week. Check out the details here.

*On my blog I have teamed up with Bead Trends to celebrate being their Featured Designer for October. The prizes are a $30 gift certificate to Humblebeads.com and a 6-month subscription to Bead Trends magazine.

Good luck and happy beading!