Once a friend of mine who is hooked on making dichroic glass gave me a few cabochon-like articles. The idea of my future creation came to me immediately when I took those beautiful pieces of glass sparkling with different colors. Far more precious than a handful of loose diamonds, I decided that it should have been something night, mysterious and enigmatic...


I added to dichroic glass cabochons seed beads, bugle beads, accent beads, Swarovski crystals, Czech crystals, faceted black onyx rounds, and almost black dyed freshwater pearls.


The most painful work was to bead around cabochons because their shape differed from the shape of regular cabochons with sharp edges. I applied on the necklace my lovely Russian leaves and three-dimensional flowers of different colors with crystals and pearls in the middle. I filled the space between flowers with coral-like branches, and the necklace seemed to be finished. My friends told me, "Great work!", but I felt not satisfied, and put my creature aside for a while.


Only in about a month I realized what else needed to be done! I added the third layers to the middle bottom flowers and covered a little bit cabochons with the coral branches, it was the last touch!


Midnight Flowers was submitted to the Fire Mountain Gems and Beads 2008 Beading Contest held by FMG (Seed Beads Category) and won Judge's Favorite Award. Here is the full slide show of creating my necklace:

Midnight Flowers

"Maybe it was a dream about summer? The bright, golden sun and rich clear-blue sky embraced me with their tender warmth," those were my muses on the creation of my lovely seed-bead necklace Mermaid’s Garden.


Probably for the first time I have tried to combine a blue color scheme with copper-lined seed beads. I felt that choosen materials will allow me to achieve at once the cool touch of the ocean with the warmth of a summer sun!


I have woven a base using netting stitch, and created a lot of leaves of two colors, my favorite components.


The finishing touches were created with freshwater pearls and aquamarine gemstone chips – perfect for a maritime theme.


Mermaid's Garden is 2008 First Place winner of the "Your Designs Rock!" Jewelry Design Contest held by Rings & Things magazine (Glass Category). Here is the full slide show of creating my necklace:

Mermaid's Garden

Celebrating Beads, the journey of... First Annual International Juried Jewelry Design Competition is over, bead artists from over 14 countries and 33 states participated in the contest. The culmination of the competition was The Passion for Beads Gala held at the Naval Heritage Memorial Center in Washington, DC on Saturday, September 20th, 2008. There I met one of my readers - The Lone Beader, and I was happy! We talked a lot and we are like old friends now!


The Lone Beader, an extraordinary bead embroidery artist from Boston, MA, and me

It was really exciting event, where the contest winners were announced, and the World Premier of Diana Friedberg's final documentary in her award winning series World on a String, Part V: A Passion for Beads took place. This documentary features bead makers and jewelry designers from around the world and was the perfect touch for that evening Celebrating Beads and the designers who make and use them.


Rafael Matias, California, USA, a guest artist from the documentary

I met many wonderful people at the Gala: four of contest jurors, editors from two national beading magazines, and a lot of contest participants. It was my first such an event, and I can say that the entire experience was necessary, fun, and interesting.


Slide show: The Passion for Beads Gala

WooooooooHoooooooo!

Last night at the Bead Gala in the US Navy Memorial and Naval Heritage Center in Washington, DC my necklace Mid Summer Night's Dream was announced as the First Place winner of the 2008 Celebrating Beads, the jorney of... International Juried Jewelry Design Competition (seed bead category)! I'm happy! :)

FMG 2008 Beading Contest winners were announced a couple of weeks ago. Not gold, not silver, not bronze, I got just Judge's Favorite Award for two necklaces (Midnight Flowers and Shahrazad), and Golden Rose Necklace made FMG final.

Here are the links to these items:

Midnight Flowers Necklace
Shahrazad Necklace
Golden Rose Necklace

People say that the Bead & Button Show is the most popular bead show in the whole world. And they are right! Students and exhibiters from more than 30 countries came this year to the Midwest Airlines Center in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It was a full week of beading, jewelry making, shopping, and talking about beads.

The main event of course was the Bead Dreams exhibit. Works of all finalists were on display in the show’s lobby area. The winners in six categories received award ribbons and the outstanding piece among category winners received a Beast in Show trophy

There were two additional displays this year. One was the Japanese exhibit which presented the top award-winning pieces from the beadwork and jewelry contest held in the Hakone Open-Air Museum. The other one was the Out of the Box exhibit of glass beads.

Bead Dreams 2008 pictures

At the very end of April the winners of "Your Designs Rock!" 2008 Jewelry Design Contest were announced. I'm happy to tell you, that the second year in a row I won the First Place in Glass category (necklace "Mermaid's Garden").


Besides, my another necklace "Egyptian Nights" won Honorable Mention Award in Gemstones and Pearls category. Thank you, Rings and Things!