The February Challenge - And the winner is...

Thanks to everyone who joined in with our February challenge. We had an amazing amount of entries this month and as predicted, we have a luxuriously rich collection of beadwork to show you today, all with our colour scheme of Red, Black and Metallic Gold.

The winner's name is at the bottom of the post but please take a look at all of the beautiful entries first...

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

Congratulations Caroline, you're the winner of the £15 voucher to spend at www.Jencel.co.uk!

There'll be a brand new challenge for March posted later on today so don't forget to drop by :)

Stashbusting for BB&B - Beads in Motion

Last weekend I decided to have a tidy up of my stash, what a wake up call! I have been mostly buying what I fancy without really considering what I am going to use it for and the result is that my storage is very overstretched. Yes, I could go out and buy more storage (and let's be honest, we have probably all done that), but I really think I'd like to get back to stashbusting.

I'm going to be doing a series of "Stashbusting for" specific topics and what better way to kick it off than tying in with Clair's Bead, Book and Bounce Challenge? I decided to go through my stash, identifying where I have a surplus of riches, matching them up with projects from the book and making up little kits to work on during the next month. There were some cases where I needed to improvise as I didn't have everything specified, but I'm not allowing myself to buy new stash for these projects.

While deciding what projects to make, I did hit on a little snag as the projects in this book use lots of 2mm and 3mm crystals, but I don't tend to buy a lot of them. I still did manage to kit up for two projects though!

The first kit is for the Revolution Ring, as I said, I don't have a lot of 3mm crystals, so I substituted some FP and will adapt the ring band to use seed beads.

The second kit is for the Swing Dance Earrings, I have lots of 15s and 11s, so that was no problem, but I did need to substitute beads for the edging and I don't have lots of chain, so I will need to improvise for the dangles.

See how I got on when Clair posts the reveal for BB&B.


Happy beading!

Sarah

February Challenge Last Chance Saloon!

Many of you will already have completed and sent in your February Challenge pieces but some, like myself, will probably have left it till the last minute. I made mine last Friday while watching the Rubgy and just playing with some beads in the right colours that I grabbed quickly out of the stash. Because I had no plan in mind, my entry doesn't have the twist. Since then though, I have had a few ideas for quick and easy herringbone straps that you just need to add a clasp to and voila, a bracelet that fully meets the challenge specs! I thought that I would share those simple ideas here to help anyone who has not yet had chance to join in with the challenge, you should still have enough time time to whip up something!

If you aren't familiar with herringbone stitch, Liz wrote some great instructions which you will find on the right of the blog. I have made up some small samples (shown below), using the colours in various simple patterns to show how easy it is to use this stitch in combination with a few different colours. Feel free to use any of them, or even better use them as a kick start to inspire your own pattern. So spill those seedies out on your bead mat, pointy needle at the ready and get herringboning :-).

All of these samples use Miyuki size 11 seed beads and are six beads across, which results in an 11mm wide bracelet.

Happy beading!

Sarah