giveaway anyone?! or three? or fourteen?!

Who doesn't love a giveaway??? The thrill of seeing something new, the chance to get it free . . .

I hit my 250th sale last night, whoohoo! So I'll be hosting a giveaway here, as promised! More on that in a second.

The Bead Art Originals Team is having 12 days of Giveaways! Yay! You can enter to win each gift, but be sure to keep checking back so you don't miss one.

1st up, some major coolness, a 3D beadwoven necklace, from SmadarsTreasure. The winner will be drawn tomorrow! Go here to enter! And be sure to read the directions . . .

Up next! This fabulous crystal creation by MistyRidgeBeads! The drawing will be held Sunday, enter here to win!

A little break for my latest treasury: Pirate Rats and Windblown Manes

It's live so compliments, er, comments, are welcome!

Now as promised! A celebration giveaway! Half way to 500 sales, can you believe it?! Can you believe how many people out there have creations by yours truly? The mind boggles.

I've asked for suggestions here and gotten, sadly, no feedback. *tears up, pitifully*

Which just means I'm not really sure what to offer. How about this? It's a 250th sale celebration, so we'll go with $25 toward anything in my store. And I'll do the celebration drawing on December 6th.

What do you do to enter? Hmmm.

Visit my shop. Find whatever you think you'd wear the most, come back to this post and tell me what it is and how to contact you if your name is picked!

That's it, you're in!

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Remember December 1st is yet another drawing, but that one's only for my newsletter subscribers! Subscribe on my blog (top, right hand corner) before the 1st!

everybody wants a deal, an invitation

It's an Open House! From "Black Friday" through "Cyber Monday" (November 28-31)-- that's this weekend-- the Bead Art Originals team is offering even more of a good thing. In addition the the Items of the Week, these deals are on the table:

Anna (ARoseByName): free shipping
Lisa (LisaPetersArt): free surprise gift (at least $5 value) with any purchase over $30 (note that this special is being offered through the end of the year)
Mak (MAKUstudio): free shipping + 10% off purchases over $50 and 15% off purchases over $100
Dee (Malodora): free shipping
Swanee (MistyRidgeBeads): free shipping
Janice (Naftali): free shipping
Melody (SalamanderHouse): free shipping
Carol Dean (SandFibers): free shipping and a set of Sand Fibers coasters ($12 value) with every order
Smadar (SmadarsTreasure): free shipping + 10% off the second item purchased
Sarah (thebeadedlily): free shipping
Darcy (thejadedog): free shipping
MaryLou (time2cre8): free shipping on entire order with the purchase of anything with the "bao team" tag

If you purchase from one of these shops during the Open House weekend, make sure to include the code BAO OPEN HOUSE in the Notes to Seller when you check out.

I've added several new pieces in the past few days-- be sure to check them out!

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Remember Decemeber 1st is fast approaching! Please sign up for my newsletter on my right blog sidebar so be entered to win a $20 credit toward anything in my shop!

Keep an eye out here for a celebration of 250 sales giveaway too! I'm 2 sales away!

And there's something awesome *whispers giveaway* in the offing if you signup for the Bead Art Originals newsletter!

treasure hunting or the way I work

One of my least favorite part of beading is that feeling right after I've completed something. The 'oh, no, what's next' feeling.

One of my absolute favorite parts of beading is matching up beads with each other.

So I go and find a bead or strand of beads to work with and then it's a treasure hunt from there.

This is a short version as I don't remember everything I picked up and discarded, but I'd say that I only keep one out of four things that I look at.

But it goes something like this . . .

These amethysts were great in that last necklace but I pulled too many off the string can I use them? With what . . . Ohh this fabulous Lutrick tab, didn't I buy that for me? . . . oh well, but what goes with it? These purple glass? Too dark and clear and modern.

More raku? Sure.

This raku lampwork? Too dark.

What's this down on the bench? Red (forgot I had that), silver leaf agate (these go together and I should put them with the other sla I had out earlier) green! Ooh soft serpentine. Nice. (Smiles are a good sign. Means it's a sure thing, a definate go, a must do.)

What about this last rhococrosite bead? Prettiest I've ever seen, and I bought them for me, but I used some of them already. This one was left over. In the hand it goes.

Must have silver. What about this darker loner and the shiny ones?

Bone? Too something . . . (a grimace or a wrinkly nose is a bad sign . . . back up it goes)

One of my all-time favorite porcelain beads from Egypt, running low and hoarding now.

Blue agate? Too blue.

No chips . . .

Ah! That bowl of ancient Roman beads I bought a few weeks ago-- four of them work.

Mother of pearl from my beading tray. Nice banding, works great with the cream. Why not the pearls too?

One big verdigris round to match this swirl.

Moonstone? Maybe. A couple floating pieces of rose quartz (floating around the tray, on the table, on three of my work mats that is. Translation. I'm bad a putting stuff up.)

Missing something . . . something rustic and purpley. Turkish wound glass.

I put it together and I have beads here that I've had for *years*, so long I don't remember when or where or why I bought them. Beads that I bought on sale. Beads I bought for me. Beads I bought for friends wedding projects. Beads I bought because they were old. Beads from around the world. Beads from friends. Beads I got in assorted packages. Beads I hand picked in bead stores I'll probably never see again.

I love that part. If you want a closer look at Treasure, it's here.

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Remember Decemeber 1st is fast approaching! Please sign up for my newsletter on my right blog sidebar so be entered to win a $20 credit toward anything in my shop!Keep an eye out here for a celebration of 250 sales giveaway too! I'm 2 sales away!
And there's something awesome in the offing if you signup for the Bead Art Originals newsletter!

pretty as a picture

Bead Art Originals Items of the Week (Nov 24-30)
Originally uploaded by Sand Fibers

Check out the great BAO Deals for the week here. While you're thinking about it, sign up here for a BAO prize drawing! Yay!

Remember Decemeber 1st is fast approaching! Please sign up for my newsletter on my right blog sidebar so be entered to win a $20 credit toward anything in my shop!Keep an eye out here for a celebration of 250 sales giveaway too! I'm 4 sales away!

And, now, word from our sponsers . . . .

njema's Snow Queen Choker

njema's Dots and Chevrons Peyote Cuff

calloohcallay's Grape Glow Vintage Button Pendant

Always TACKY CorkBoard Pushpins from UNCORKED

aurorafedora's blue bird of happiness all occasion card

ErtheFae's Soaring Wyvern

gypsyeyesjewelry's Boa Snake Collar

aspeerstudio's Brown Bunny Cup

Insect 01 by KupKup

grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

I'm not so hot at this technology thing. I muddle. I get a tip here and there. I labor to grasp things that everyone else under 45 seems to breeze through like they were born to it. And I blog.

I've learned a lot from the blog actually, and recently I decided I just had to have three columns because the single side bar was just getting too crowded. How hard could it be?

I tried. I gave up. I tried again. I downloaded this. Copied that. Gave up. Tried again. This has been going on for quite sometime. And I've been very careful to back everything up so I wouldn't loose anything. Or so I thought.

Yesterday, languishing on the couch, tired of beading, too icky feeling to do much of anything I decided to try again. And I succeeded! Sort of. I downloaded another try that worked, but left all of my widgets behind. I uploaded my old template, only to find out that my widgets were lost for good. I uploaded the new one and it didn't work. I deleted it, redownloaded it, reuploaded it, and it still didn't work. I reuploaded the old template and stumbled on some super clear instructions (I'd already played with super unclear instructions more than once) on how to edit your pre-existing template to get three columns. Yay! It's done! I have no idea where those instructions came from-- classic Sarah-- lost the site.

Lost all my widgets. My beautiful blog role will have to be recreated from scratch, one blog at a time as I remember you or come across you again. If I had your link up, comment so I can find you again! I'm working backwards through my posts now, and comments, to get some of you back.

Also gone is my Twitter feed. Who knows how I got that there in the first place. I don't remember! Gone are my buttons leading to this blog and that-- I can't figure out buttons! I figured out one, but can't seem to get the others to work.

Gone are the badges from sites that feed my posts into their pools to be picked up by this subscriber and that-- I hope my Feedburner feed is intact!

So, I feel like I hit my blog with a wrecking ball and now I'm recreating it. Oh well.

Recommended Daily Dose of Art: Dandelion Rock

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Remember Decemeber 1st is fast approaching! Please sign up for my newsletter on my right blog sidebar so be entered to win a $20 credit toward anything in my shop!
Keep an eye out here for a celebration of 250 sales giveaway too! I'm 4 sales away!

And there's something awesome in the offing if you signup for the Bead Art Originals newsletter!

sickday

I really don't feel well. Woke up not feeling well. Did make it to the post office, didn't work out, cancelled a dinner engagement. Did bead, and list.

Kismet

shine

a bit of bedu

Enough words today. Hope I feel better tomorrow.

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Remember Decemeber 1st is fast approaching! Please sign up for my newsletter on my blog sidebar so be entered to win a $20 credit toward anything in my shop!
Keep an eye out here for a celebration of 250 sales giveaway too! I'm 6 sales away!

And you'll soon hear about another giveway from the Bead Art Originals Team!

the green project: a beading journal

I know that this isn't the first day I've worked on this. Beadwork begins with the conception of an idea, it's refining and shopping for beads-- even if the 'shopping' is all from your own stash.

As it happens I got the idea to create a beaded scarflette in a grocery store parking lot and then selected several hundred dollars worth of gorgeous green seed beads to work it up in. Since I don't have that kind of cash I enlisted sister mine to help me narrow it down it a bit less that a hundred dollars with of gorgeous green seed beads which arrived and sat for weeks.

Today I put needle to thread and began in earnest. I even have green 'thread'! When I wrote Beadalon about their giveaway offer they sent me two colors of their new WildFire beadweaving thread. One was a green that I had no idea what to do with. This of course!

I started by semi-randomly pulling 8 greens and pouring beads into two lids and stringing, again semi-randomly, just over 5 inches of beads. Then I used peyote stitch-- mostly single drop, but some 2 drop and one 3 drop area.

I started with a size 12 sharp, which I poked myself with several times and which ate a hole in the WildFire, which turns out to be a coating over tiny white fibers. I had to cut my thread and I switched to a 10 long, which broke the second bead I tried to put it through. Then I switched to a 13 long, which I broke very soon after threading. The dull end doesn't get caught in the WildFire though, so I'm still using it.

I got all of three rows done in a bout an hour of work, but it's a start. I do like the WildFire, it's easier on the skin than FireLine. And I had sistermine over and held the strip up to her neck and it looks like I've started the widest area first so I'll be decreasing here and there. I may throw in some herringbone, and I'm sure to throw in holes and larger beads-- which I'm already collecting.

This is certainly on of the largest projects I've started and I hope you enjoy watching it develop as I'll enjoy making it and sistermine will enjoy wearing it!

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Remember Decemeber 1st is fast approaching! Please sign up for my newsletter on my blog sidebar so be entered to win a $20 credit toward anything in my shop!

Keep an eye out here for a celebration of 250 sales giveaway too! I'm 6 sales away!