My beady friend Nifty has started a blog at niftycreations1.blogspot.com, and I am inviting those of you who read my blog to take a look at Nifty's. She is making some wonderful beaded goodies and you can see some of them in her Nifty's Creations page at Facebook. Great work Nifty. Good luck with the blog.

Busy Editing the Connect Newsletter

Time for me to edit the Bead Society of Victoria newsletter for the March Quarter. So much has been happening - we have a very full report of the Bead Expo back in November 2011 and some other great articles. Pity you have to be a member to get one!
You can see some of the wonderful designs entered into the Bead Challenge 2011 on the BSV website by going to the Challenge page and following the links for the 2011 competitors.
I can't really put anyone else's design up on my blog and I am ashamed to say my entry was pretty ordinary this year. Having had such a busy year, with Daughter's engagement and forthcoming wedding, plus a long holiday for us and four issues of Connect, I was lucky to finish anything. My Bead Challenge was therefore a very simple strung necklace using some extra gorgeous glass czech beads from Cranberry.

Ceramic Cabochons

Today was my class at the Bead Society of Victoria's annual Bead Retreat. It was a fun day although I was a bit challenged by having made a couple of typos in my instructions. It's not really easy to write instructions with enough clarity for all students to follow them without reference to the teacher. That's why they attend classes no doubt! I have done a bit of editing now though and hopefully the instructions are now "clear as mud" to everyone. Here is the finished result. The black one is the one I did today and the orange one is the sample. Thanks to Natalie at Peruzi for the wonderful ceramic cabs.

Prize Winning Entry!

The Melbourne Bead Expo is over for another year and I have spent the week recovering. The event is totally run by volunteers from the Bead Society of Victoria. Whilst the Show is tiny compared with those in the USA, it is one of the biggest bead shows in Australia. As such, organisers start preparing for 2012 almost as soon as 2011 is over. The members of the BSV do a wonderful job of running the show and the exhibitors are always very complimentary about the professionalism shown in its organisation. As a BSV Committee member, I am very proud to be associated with the Show and hope it continues to attract exhibitors and beaders from all around Australia into the future.

An exciting aspect of the Show for me, was being awarded Third Prize for my bracelet "Regatta 3" in the Elly Feldman Award, which is the major Member Only competition run by the BSV each year. Elly Feldman made some very nice comments about the bracelet during the award presentation and I was honoured to be one of the top five in a field of amazing entries.

Chocolate Orange

The wonderful burnt orange beads matched this cabochon so well that I just had to put them together. One of my fb friends said she thought it looked all choclatey and swirly and this lead to the title. Beading has been slow this year and I didn't feel that I was accomplishing much, but the past couple of weeks have seen a resurgence in enthusiasm. With the Melbourne Bead Expo coming up in a week's time I hope this continues.

Outback sunset

The weather during our trip to the Flinders Ranges in South Australia was not great and we finally got a few sunset pictures towards the end of the trip. I was inspired to use the gorgeous lampwork bead from Bellissimo Jewels which I bought at last year's Melbourne Bead Expo. The necklace is a spiral rope with flower embellishments. We did see a lot of wildflowers in the ranges.

Camoflage

On our recent holiday to the Flinders Ranges we saw many groups of Kangaroos and Emus in the wild. They are not always easy to see and have a bad habit of suddenly appearing on the road side and jumping out in front of the car if you are not concentrating. This picture shows two kangaroos feeding in the bush with the ranges in the background. They were fairly unconcerned at us staring at them and taking photos. There was also a faint rainbow in the distance.


The emus were often easier to see and were in much larger groups. Some had chicks at their feet. Watching an emu kneel down to wash and drink at a waterhole is an amazing sight.