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 :)

The December Challenge

Welcome to the December challenge. We hope that you've enjoyed this year's challenges and felt inspired to join in with some of them. We're finishing 2014 with a choose-your-own colour scheme and we're inviting you to be inspired by a DESIGN SEEDS PALETTE of your choice!

Images by Design Seeds

You do not have to choose from the the images above, this is just a very small selection of the many palettes available. Click here to go to the Design Seeds website. Once you've chosen your Design Seed, use the palette as your inspiration using as many or as few of the colours as you wish and try to get your beads as close as you can to the shades. You may compliment the shades with lighter and darker tones if you wish but please do not use any colours that aren't in your chosen palette.

THE PRIZE:

This month our sponsor is Valentina and she's offering £25 to spend in her shop Beads and More by Yashma!

HOW TO ENTER:

Simply email a photograph of your entry, AND the photo of the Design Seed you used, to Liz at ottbs@live.com. The challenge runs until Midnight on Wednesday the 31st of December and the winner is drawn and announced on New Year's Day. The challenge is open to beaders worldwide.

RULES & OTHER INFORMATION:
Entries must have been started on or after December 1st 2014.
You can make any item, it does not need to be jewellery.
You can use any craft technique but it must include beads.
Findings are exempt from the colour challenge.
Your entry must be a finished piece.
If your entry isn't your own design you must credit the original designer.

If you have any questions at all please email us!

Good luck everyone and happy beading!

The November Challenge - And the winner is...

Thanks to everybody who participated in our November challenge, we hope you had fun creating with the Winter theme! Here are all of the beautiful entries we received. As always, the winner of the draw is revealed at the bottom of the post :)

Everyone's names were put into the list randomizer at Random.org and the lucky beader who's name is at the top of the list is...

MARY MARSHALL

Congratulations Mary, you're the winner of the £15 voucher to spend at Old Bicycle Shop! 

The new challenge for December will be posted later on today so don't forget to check back :)