A Year of Amazing Beading!

I wanted to make a kind of 'year in review' post but with so much going on at OTTBS where would I start? As the monthly challenges are a big part of this blog, I decided that I would choose a favourite from each month's glorious entries. This turned out to be far more difficult than I had envisioned! But after much deliberation I managed to whittle it down to one entry from each challenge.

Remember, these are my personal favourites, we'd love to hear which pieces you liked from this year's challenges so please do comment below and let us know. I'm including a link to the challenge reveal posts for each month so that you can take a look and decide for yourselves. Don't forget, you can click on the photos below to see them larger and in slideshow format :)

From January's Favourite Paintings challenge I've chosen Esther's beautiful cuff, inspired by Monet's Waterlillies...

Our February challenge was Red, Black and Metallic Gold. This was a tough one - we had a fantastic 49 entries for this challenge - but I've gone for Helena Tang-Lim's bold oriental inspired necklace...

March's challenge was to create something inspired by an Ancient Civilization. Another tough one but I really loved Mary Kearney's version of an original Ancient Egyptian piece...

In April we asked you to create a piece in Shades of One Colour and I've chosen Kathy's vintage style charm bracelet...

May's challenge was the first of the tough challenges we had this year, Men's Jewellery! I really liked Jaime's copper and turquoise wirewrapped bracelet...

June's colour theme was Blue, Green, Orange and Copper and I've chosen Dawn's beautiful polymer clay necklace and earrings...

I handed over the reins for the July challenge to Catherine Chinoy and she chose the challenge Scientific Subject, another of our tough challenges this year! My favourite from the entries was Aryd'ell's honeycomb bracelet complete with bee...

Purple, Pink, Silver and Grey was the colour theme for August. Another tough one to choose from but in the end I've gone for Carol Passaro's star-filled handbag charm...

The September challenge theme was Outer Space and I've chosen Agnieszka's beautiful galactic earrings...

I thought October's challenge would have scared most beaders away as we asked you to use only opaque Jet Black beads in your entries but it was a very popular challenge! Another tough one to choose from but I've gone for Sarah Gordon's beautiful netted collar...

As December's challenge is still ongoing I'm ending this post with November's Winter challenge. Another tough one to choose from with 40 entries but my overall favourite was Lynsey's delicate flower necklace...

I hope you've enjoyed seeing my favourites from this year's challenges :)