Busy, Busy!

It's been a busy week full of new things.

We announced the new Bead Maven's Challenge....Vernal Visions!

I think we're all really excited about this one as there are so many ways to take it...and, we're really thrilled to have the new category.

"What's this?" you say....

Well...being teachers we know that everyone isn't at the level of designing a fully original piece and so they get excluded/scared away from a lot of competitions. We Mavens know from our own personal experience that challenges are one of the best ways to take a learning leap forward so we've set up a new category in our challenges.

Best Adaptation of a Bead Maven Tutorial/pattern.

Obviously, due to copyright it has to be from our tutorials but you can blend any of the Maven's tutorials, tweak and expand to comme up with your own variation.

I introduced a new thing to my Artfire store...Pattern of the Week.

As I now have some very wonderful beading elves to work up my flatwork designs it means I can offer more of the designs that swirl around in my head but that I just didn't have the time to bead. So, each Saturday there will be a new pattern featured and for that week it will be offered at 10% Off, $6.75 rather than the regular $7.50.

I put five new patterns into BeadTool yesterday all ready for my elves, Suzanne and Katie to bead up....I love my elves!!!  Suzanne even came up with a fabulous colorway for next week's Pattern of the Week, Chichen Itza.

I also created some new herringbone leaves and I'll be making that pattern available as soon as I write it. Ditto for the new rope which I haven't even named yet. I will also be writing a Basic Bezel tutorial for the Bead Mavens blog...this is a new thing we started at the end of last month with Linda's Bead Embroidered Brooch. The tutorials will be up for three days free to our readers and then they will be taken down and sold in our stores.

Always lots to do in the land of beads.