100 Days of Beads Challenge

I decided to challenge myself to make a new bead everyday for the 100 days. I love a good creative challenge to keep me on my toes. 

I've had this tiger lily idea in my sketchbook for a few weeks and wanted to see it come to life. I may revisit it again soon.

Tiger lilies are my favorite flowers. I love to see them growing wild along old country roads.

I created these pendants last week, lilies have been in my mind! 

This is my current inspiration, a little watercolor in a juicy summer palette. Let's see what I make tomorrow. 

Follow my 100 Days of Beads challenge on Instagram at: 

http://www.instagram.com/humblebeads

#100DaysofBeads - jewelry and beadmakers feel free to jump in too and use the # so I can follow along! 

Beads will be listed daily in my Etsy shop:

http://www.humblebeads.etsy.com

Bead Soup Mix Challenge

I don't know why, maybe I'm feeling whimsical or maybe it's because my bead stash is currently in a crazy jumble but I have had bead soup on the brain all weekend. I have a design floating around in my head but time is short this week. (How does that happen on Monday!)

So let's play together. Create a bead soup piece of jewelry with at least one Humblebead in the mix.

• Post a comment below with a link to your creation by Friday. 
• On Saturday I will draw a winner for a $50 gift certificate from Humblebeads. 
• Link can be from your shop, blog, Facebook page, Instragram, Pinterest but it has to be a new creation and it has to your link. 
• Make sure you leave an email if it's not in your profile. 

Grab those beads and let's create!!!

Here is a great blog post I wrote last year for my Mojo Challenge will all sorts of tips for creating a bead soup piece of jewelry.

And if you have a copy on your shelf pull out the Bead Soup book by my friend Lori Anderson. It's awesome and deserves a re-read. In fact I'm going to pull out my copy to read over again this week.  (That's an Amazon affiliate link above.)

Micheals Beading Challenge Blog Hop with a Twist

Are you ready for a big dose of color and bead inspiration? I'm so exited to announce that Lorelei Eurto and I are co-hosting another Michael's Beading Challenge Blog Hop.

And we want you to play along!

Go to your Michael's craft store and buy these beads. This week, for an extra incentive to play along, the Bead Gallery beads are 40% off! There is an extra 25% coupon off even sale items today. Check the coupon page for details.

The bead details:

So here are the rules: 

You must have a blog to participate. It's a blog hop! 

Don't have one but want to start one? Lorelei has a nice ecourse on setting up a blogger blog from start to finish. Get it here. 

Use the beads shown here, and you can add in up to 2 additional bead types to your design. 

And the twist? Let's also support small businesses. 

If you are able, have your +2 types of beads from a beadmaker, local bead store or indie bead seller online. Your +2 beads can be ones you pick up for the challenge or ones in your stash. Make sure you include a shout out to the small business that you are supporting in your blog post.

Create any piece of jewelry you like, with the beads, using your own choice of focal.  If you want to make a necklace, and some matching bracelet and earrings... the sky is the limit.

Choose any design you like, using any technique - that'll be the fun part of the whole thing- to see what different things you can do with these same beads.

Not to worry! If you find similar beads somewhere like Hobby Lobby, go ahead and use 'em.  Seeing what everyone does with similar beads, is half the fun. If you can't find a particular bead strand at Michael's you can substitute a similar one. 

Reveal Date: December 18th

If you want to participate -  Come to my blog the morning of December 18th (reveal Day) and use the Link Up tool to add your blog links. I find this to be the easiest way to keep track of all the participants. So mark your calendars, buy the beads, create beautiful things, and get your blog posts ready for December 18th for a great hop. 

We know it's a crazy busy time of year - use the challenge to make a gift or two. You'll have an interesting blog post and an item checked off your holiday gift list - get two things done at once! 

Please feel free to leave comments on this post, or questions too.

Psst...like that color palette above? Check out the new issue of Step by Step Wire to see my contribution to as the new Color Canvas guru! 

(In case you are wondering, this isn't a sponsored post by Michael's or Halcraft Beads. Just two creative girls looking for a way to connect with our beady friends and share some inspiration!)

Michael's Beading Challenge Blog Hop Reveal

So a few weeks ago I teamed up with my beady friend Lorelei Eurto for a Michael's Challenge Blog Hop.  Above are the beads we used for the challenge that I picked up from Michael's. We invited anyone who wanted to join in the fun to play along. Today we are sharing the results. I can't wait to see what everyone made!

This was my inspiration palette for the challenge. I really wanted to make a necklace to match the shirt in this photo.

My dear friend Erin made the pendant for me a few years ago, I have wanted to make myself a necklace with it since but just never made the time. Yeah for the blog hop, finally something crossed off my to-do list! 

I paired Erin's pendant up with the the pink beads knotted on teal waxed linen along with the window glass beads and white turquoise beads. The second strand of beads are looped together on steel wire and mixed with etched brass jump rings. That strand has Czech glass and those boho-inspired inlay beads. A Vintaj Arte Metal chain finishes the design with a simple toggle clasp.

A close up of Erin's pendant - she has the heart of a poet and includes the most beautiful sayings on her designs. You can see more of her work at Tesori Trovati. 

For the next necklace I pulled back the palette and selected only a few strands of the beads to work with for this design. The wood and ceramic beads from Micheal's Bead Gallery are mixed with a few of my new butterfly wing beads and an etched butterfly pendant. (Those were made for my retreat class projects.)

The necklace is knotted on brown waxed linen. I seem to always underestimate the linen to knot ratio and ended up having to redo one side when I realized I was going to run out of cord before I finished. This happens to me often. 

Both designs capture a great summer bohemian feel that I'm digging right now. I loved using the waxed linen and tried very hard to remember the knots that Erin Siegel showed me on last Bead Cruise. I'm still trying to perfect them! 

If you played along include your link using the InLinkz tool below. 

Have fun visiting the other participants today. 

If you are stopping by early in the morning, 

you might want to check back this afternoon or evening to see more links/blogs. 

Happy Hopping!

An InLinkz Link-up

Starry Night Challenge

Vintaj's next design challenge is Starry Nights - how could I not be all over that!

Van Gogh and Vintaj - throw in some chocolate and I'm in heaven.

Read all about the challenge here.

Order Van Gogh beads here.

Get the best chocolate in the world here.  (Thanks Erin!)

Need a Challenge?

Okay, I'm so totally jealous that I didn't get a chance to participate in the Bead Soup Party.  But not to worry, there is an abundance of beady challenges/blog hops happening right now and here is a round up of my top picks.

Vintaj Design Challenge: Lover's Bouqet, deadline is this Friday, 2/12 by noon!

Elements and Objects: Ice Resin Blog Hop - Posts need to be up by 2/12.

Art Bead Scene Monthly Challenge: Luna Park, deadline 2/28

Treasures Found: Inspired By Challenge: The Solar System, deadline 2/28

Beads of Clay: Complimentary Color Challenge, deadline 3/5

(pictured above - art beads: bird pendant and nest bead, green girl studios. ceramic leaf, every heart crafts, ceramic houses, jubilee. ceramic round beads, elaine ray. egg, humblebeads.)

I have been working on a surprise Art Bead Scene challenge that will be revealed on Friday - you heard it here first!

Monthly challenge at ABS

Free beads and a creative challenge, what could be better?

These are the beads that I'm giving away in our grand opening Art Bead Scene Monthly Challenge. Each month we will pick a theme, it's up to you to create a piece of jewelry, fiber art or whatever your imagination can conjure up that fits the theme and incorporates art beads. We'll pick a winner randomly from the qualifying entries. Go on now, you have some creating to do...