Weekly Wanderings Around the Beadosphere

If today's post seems a bit abbreviated, it's because I have so much to do before I leave for my show in L.A. Also, my daughter is here for a holiday visit, so I'm a bit pressed for time this morning. I'm just going to highlight just one post at a few of my favorite Beadosphere stops today.

There's a very good chance that because of the show, I won't be able to post a Wandering's next week at all, but we'll see.

As ususal, there's something fun and fabulous every day at A Bead A Day, but Lisa's post about her book is the one you absolutely must not miss! Congratulations, Lisa!

After Hours Art Glass shares a collage of new items

Beading Arts - necklace (work in progress) inspired by "Lady of Shalott" by Tennyson

The Beading Gem's Journal is another one that's hard to choose just one post from, since it's full of wonderful ideas and links each week, but I think this one about contemporary style earrings is a good representative sample. Plus, I really need to work on more earrings, so any bit inspiration helps!

BunnyBlogs - I think this is the first time I've mentioned this blog - and this post is a must read. Drea's friend is fostering two girls from Alabama and their story, until now, was heartbreaking.

See Wendy's creation Time Flies from her Rings & Things blog partner items at Craft Dinner.

Davinia shows off the great finds she made the other day and wonders how to seal the finish on some cool beads. If you have a suggestion about that I hope you'll leave a comment on her post at Deez News.

Earthenwood Studios' Melanie shares how she used the Rings & Things wooden chain and Idea-ology clasp in a wonderful necklace

It's hard to pick just one post from Just A Tish this week to feature, but since I seem to be sharing a number of Rings & Things blog partner posts, here's her very cool design using the Idea-ology antiqued plate and chain for a dramatic brooch.

Over at Silver Parrot this week she's been sharing the entries to a design contest (entry deadline is today at 5pm Pacific) she's having, and it's nearly impossible to feature just one post - but this is my favorite entry so far, so it's the one I'll link to.

Nikon Sniper - What might the picture in this post inspire you to make?

Willow Walker asks what you think of her ideas for a name for this gorgeous dichroic glass pendant.

Artbeads blog - Artbeads featured in 2009 Best of Stringing

Beadalon blog - beaded decor

The Beadin' Path - Weekly Beadditude by Dara: Oxidize your own jewelry

Friendly Plastic - I was skeptical until I saw the finished piece

Objects & Elements - announcing their new ICE resin site

Ornamentea - Thrifty & swiftie gifties

Rings & Things - 5 Favorite Things

SoftFlexGirl November Spotlight - and a "Double Feature", read about The Beadin' Path, their featured store!

In case you don't visit again beforehand, Happy Thanksgiving! I'm thankful that you share some of your time with me and doubly thankful for the great friends I've made around the Beadosphere this year.

Weekly Wanderings Around the Beadosphere

Another beautiful fall Sunday here in Silicon Valley. It's cool and clear outside, the leaves on the little pear tree out back have changed and are starting to fall. Here's hoping the talented residents of the Beadosphere are having a similarly lovely day. Let's see what they've been up to this week!

A Bead A Day kicks off a week of sharing her Rings & Things blog partner items with "Forevermore" and wraps it up with a really beautiful bracelet she made using a number of the goodies.

Bead Origami made it to the Rings & Things traveling bead show.

Beading Gem's Journal - the week's "bookends" were Fabric Jewelery Tutorial links and Wire Wrapping Cabochon Tutorial links but in-between are some incredible designs using Swarovski, LED lights and a lovely pair if earrings to go with a leopard skin patterned wood bead necklace.

Wendy at Craft Dinner has been having a winning week! First it was cool goodies from HHH Enterprises, then the Rings & Things Guest Blog Partner drawing! She's also a regular Beadin' Path design partner and shared about the cool Lucite beads she just received.

Also Mrs.B at The Daily Whine posted a while back and I missed it, but she's planning to compete in the Rings & Things "Your Designs Rock" contest

Across the ocean at Deez News, Davinia's creating new earrings with interesting materials and her usual flair.

ErtheFae's "ArtBead" day, Elvensoul featured at the Art Bead Scene, and a coupon code you can use from Artbeads.com.

Just A Tish found inspiration on Sesame Street, had an idea in her head work out perfectly using her Rings & Things blog partner goodies - the wood chain creating the perfect backdrop to copper chain and gorgeous stones, very early morning beading, "life saving" memory wire and a reminder that the Bead Trends May deadline is nearly upon us!

Ladybead talks about Twitter.

Silver Parrot got her Rings & Things goodies, shares a lovely pink lampwork bead necklace, and the Friday bead porn post should definitely be on your weekly reading list.

Smutopia explains her recent lack of posts - it's *very* good news, congratulations Jessica!

WillowWalker's been very busy! Check out every day, but my favorites were Ice Queen, Eclipse, and Aurora. It's not only that she makes gorgeous dichroic fused glass focals, but the wire work she finishes them with is so beautifully done.

Artbeads Blog - A cool program for beaders with Nintendo DS, beautiful fairy themed necklace by Andrew Thornton using one of the lovely painted onyx focals.

Beadalon Blog - a great idea for finishing off a multi strand necklace.

Friendly Plastic - Contest going on, ends the 18th.

Objects & Elements shares cool texturizing techniques & a great torch safety post.

Ornamentea's Shiny Little Things blog challenges you to try mixed metals.

Rings & Things blog featured "shellies" last week.

SoftFlexGirl announced the winner of the drawing, shared a "how to" post link for "Lucky Earth" necklace, and shared some fashion clips featuring designer love for yellow this fall.

Can I Have Your Vote?

Just click on the picture and look for Dawn O'Bryan-Lamb's designs - 5 to choose from!

Weekly Wanderings Around the Beadosphere

Have you adjusted to Standard Time yet? Even after a whole week I'm still taken aback somewhat when it gets dark early. I've never been a morning person so taking advantage of the extra light at 6 or 7 am really doesn't work for me. Driving home in the dark from work isn't much fun either. Fortunately, there's no need to worry about the time of day around the Beadosphere, it's always brightly lit!

A Bead A Day went 'froggy' to kick off her week! I remember learning about frog closures when I was 11 or 12 and living in Taiwan. Many of the traditional Chinese clothing had lovely, embellished frog buttons on them. I may have gotten my fascination with macrame from thinking how cool it would be to learn how to create the knot buttons! It's been Arts & Crafts Week all week, so be sure to check each day's fun post on a different crafty topic.

I loved this week over at The Beading Gem. Read about bead addiction (I'm not addicted, I can stop anytime...yeah, right), neutral jewelry design and don't miss her post on the Maharaja Exhibition - lots of great pictures of the dazzling gems of India's Maharaja's.

Over (Under? Davinia's in Australia) at Deez News she expresses her dislike of "the drawing board" as in, back to the...how well I know that feeling! The lovely earrings from bits of a disassembled garland are gorgeous - a bit of ink, a smudge of 'silver rub and buff' (I need some of that!) and the result is delightful.

Wish a happy belated birthday to Melanie at Earthenwood Studios and check out the lovely ceramic art beads she's created. She also posted about the latest Art Bead Scene challenge and her "double challenge" offer which is a sweet prize of some of her latest beads!

Speaking of the Art Bead Scene challenge, ErtheFae's been inspired to submit this month - take a peek at her submission which uses one of the darling elf faces from Earthenwood Studios.

An Intergalactic Bead Show! As a nearly life-long fan of all things Science Fiction, (started in second grade, officially but probably got hooked earlier, or else why did I buy The Lost Race of Mars from Scholastic Book Club at school that day?) that would have definitely been my destination last week, if I lived near enough to go - Just A Tish got to visit, so I'll have to just enjoy it vicariously! Tish also shares her latest Rings & Things blogger review package (mine's not here yet and I'm so sad!) and lovely Beadin' Path design partner results, too - love what she's doing with the carnelian!

Ladybead's blog was new last week to my weekly round up and this week you can check out some special items for weddings - like custom invitation designs and wedding garters.

Margot Potter is so energetic I get a great workout just clicking through her posts! (Wouldn't that be wonderful if you *could* burn hundreds of calories reading blogs? I'd lose 30lbs on my Sunday postings alone). Margot and her daughter got featured in an ad, tells how she made the adorable Mom & Daughter shirts you see in the ad, gives a sneak peek at two of the designs she'll be doing a PBS Creative Living show segment about, is doing a subscription to Totally Creative Magazine giveaway (post your comment before Thursday!), and then she was off to QVC! *whew*

Orion Designs shared a necklace the other day with a very unusual (to me) focal stone - 'stitchite' That led me on a merry chase (via Google) looking for suppliers selling that stone.

Silver Parrot took the Humblebeads challenge and shared her work last week. Check out her use of ribbon as a bail, unusual use of findings and horizontal focal posts. As a bit of an interlude hope you enjoy her adventure at the deli counter as much as I did, and of course, bead porn! I wonder if she looks at her analytics to see what kind of searches end up on that post when she does them... :-)

All week long WillowWalker has been sharing her lovely "Create Art Every Day" challenge posts - do go look at her beautiful glass work (I love these adorable pink earrings)!

I'm sorry to report that there have been no posts from Smutopia or Shoozles last week - hope they come back soon!

Over at Artbeads there's a lovely "I Remember Summer" charm bracelet and some Holiday Card inspiration.

Beadalon is offering a giveaway if you comment on the Swarovski flatback + gluable bail post - ends either today or tomorrow, so get over there. Yes, even if I lower my chances to win, you should check it out. Also, there's a Katie Hacker's post about color as beading inspiration.

The Beadin' Path's Dara has a great post about the history of La Peregrina Pearl, from Mary I of England to Elizabeth Taylor.

Clever new uses for Friendly Plastic are shared at The Art of Friendly Plastic blog. Even if you don't use the product, it's got inspiration, especially around color.

Jeanette Blix (Fundametals.net) talks about riveting.

Objects and Elements - PEPE tools for dapping and cutting metals and simple and stunning designs.

Ornamentia (aka. shinylittlethings) shares Elaine Ray designs and a lovely pearls and ribbon necklace tutorial.

Rings & Things - Do you know about CERF? Now you do! Plus, snowflakes and *sigh* Swarovski price bump is coming. But the best post is about the winner of their guest blog partner drawing - Wendy Gibson! Congrats, Wendy!

SoftFlexGirl featured guest blogger Jamie Hogsett's DIY paper box instructions, shared their banner ads for the Flex Your Creativity contest (lookie! My design got on one of the ads!!*faint*), reminded you about the giveaway drawing for new Soft Flex Trios variety packs (winners announced on Nov 9th, so hurry!) *and* a contest for designing with recyclable materials!

Well, that's it for this week. I keep adding new blogs to follow and trying to share interesting posts with you from each of them, hope it's useful! Let me know if you have a blog you follow I could mention next time.

If you like keeping up with the Beadosphere here, do consider becoming a follower of this blog (there's a handy button at the top left of the page in the blue blogger banner, that says "follow blog" just click!), I'd love to reciprocate as well, so mention it in the comments so I can.

Also, on the right side of the page, in the sidebar, is my Facebook widget. I'd love it if you'd be a Facebook fan of Dawno, too.

Weekly Wanderings Around the Beadosphere

November already! Seems like it was Summer just yesterday. I can certainly tell it's Fall, the evenings start sooner and last night we set the clocks back an hour, too, so my time sense is going to be all wonky for the next week or so. It's gotten cooler here, but still not what most people (outside of the southwestern states) would call cold. I've seen in the news that some folk have been getting significant snow. Hope it wasn't snowing on your Halloween! Well, I'm sure you're here for the Wanderings, and not my verbal meanderings - so strap on your snowshoes if you need 'em and off we'll go around the Beadosphere.

A Bead A Day started the week off with some "edgy chain" and wrapped it up with cute "arts & crafts" bracelets. Be sure to check out the rest of her posts. On Fridays she does a featured designer, too.

Beading Gem's blog did a great week of Halloween themed posts with links to "how-to's" you'll want to bookmark for next year.

Deez News "When Designs Go Pear Shaped" - Davinia re-worked a bracelet into a necklace but thinks it's boring. I disagree! It's lovely, elegant in its simplicity. Check out the cool earrings, too!

Melanie at Earthenwood Studios has a new line out (which you can follow at the Now Showing Studio blog)- read about it starting last Tuesday and check out the "Seed of Chucky" bracelet she posted yesterday.

Tish from Just A Tish has been showing off her Beadin' Path goodies in some really lovely designs, starting with this beautiful "Cremescicle" design - that fire crab agate is really cool, I'm going to have to grab some for myself! These bracelets are gorgeous showcases for side drilled and center drilled vintage Lucite spheres in the most lovely colors. I really love how Tish shows how versatile and dramatic copper jewelry can be. Oh, and while she calls this one an "epic fail" it's still lovely, and I'm sorry that I giggled a bit at the trials she went through, but...well, read it and you'll see what I mean.

Ladybead's blog is new this week to my weekly round up with her beautiful designs. And her niche? Beach jewelry - adornments for barefoot glamour, especially beach weddings! But with the cooler weather coming up, there's also boot jewelry (what a cool idea!) Met her via Twitter, by the way.

Margot Potter talked Halloween most of the week, but wanted her readers to share this particular post about Haiffaa Ali so I do hope that you'll read Margot's post and then follow the links to Haiffaa's story and feel compelled to pass it on.

I haven't mentioned Nikon Sniper lately, but this post...well, if that gorgeous scene and those amazing colors aren't inspirational, I don't know what is!

Check out these gorgeous earrings featuring Swarovski briolettes from Artbeads at Orion Designs. What a great eye she has for colors that really grab your attention.

Here's a design from SCDiva in polymer clay - and I bet you'll have as much trouble as I did believing it's clay. I swear I'm going to start *any day* figuring out how to make great beads, too. Any day!!

Shoozles: Wear Your Art blog has a lovely thought piece "Giving- The Creative Contiuum"

Silver Parrot had a guest blogger - Dr. Frankenstein! When I need a good giggle, I can usually count on Silver Parrot's blog.

Over at Artbeads they show this lovely "Quality of Mercy" necklace and announce the winner of the treasure hunt.

Beadalon announces the winner of the Katie's Beading Secrets drawing and shares a crystal web necklace designed by Margot Potter

The Beadin' Path's Dara talks about pricing your jewelery.

I'm not sure if this goes above in Artisan blogs or not, but The Art of Friendly Plastic blog is another new one on my reading list - it's amazing what beautiful designs they come up with.

Jeanette Blix (Fundametals.net) shares "The Down Side of Stamping" and a "Fabulous Art Exchange"

Objects and Elements - winner of the "Put Me In a Bezel" contest and Preserving Nature tutorial

Rings & Things - this week they gave us Christmas lampwork beads, The Spokane Keychain Experiment, and "Ten Tips to Top Designs".

SoftFlexGirl announced a great give-away (new Trio's!), talked about the CPSIA “Statement of Policy: Testing and Certification of Lead Content in Children's Products” and shares a Halloween greeting and sale


Well, that's it for this week. I keep adding new blogs to follow and trying to share interesting posts with you from each of them, hope it's useful! Let me know if you have a blog you follow I could mention next time.

If you like keeping up with the Beadosphere here, do consider becoming a follower of this blog (there's a handy button at the top left of the page in the blue blogger banner, that says "follow blog" just click!), I'd love to reciprocate as well, so mention it in the comments so I can.

Also, on the right side of the page, in the sidebar, is my Facebook widget. I'd love it if you'd be a Facebook fan of Dawno, too.