Eri Attebery, the talented designer behind Jewelry Making Professor, is offering a free Swarovski crystal snowflake pendant video on her website through December 31. It uses a combination of 4mm and 5mm Swarovski bicones and sparkling seed beads, and makes a wonderful sparkly addition to any holiday ensemble. It also works up easy enough that it makes a great gift!

In addition to the free crystal snowflake pendant, Eri also offers several other free video tutorials on her website. There are free tutorials for a crystal bunny rabbit, Christmas tree earrings, twisted crystal necklaces and bracelets, and a sweet daisy necklace.

If you are as impressed by the free videos as I was, you can join Jewelry Making Professor as a Platinum Member and have access to all the online video projects for only $8.95 per month. Eri also offers kits for most of the projects that include all the materials necessary to create these beautiful jewelry projects.

Laura McCabe, the author of Creating Crystal Jewelry with Swarovski and the forthcoming Embellished Beadweaving, is re-working her website and her business to focus mainly on finished one-of-a-kind wearable art and patterns for sale. Once the new website is launched, the kits currently offered on the site will no longer be available. (However, her kits will still be available through BeadsEast.)

From now until December 24th, Laura is offering an additional 15% discount plus free shipping on all items purchased from Just Let Me Bead, her current website. This includes the seed beads, Czech glass beads, Rivolis, and crystal beads she offers for sale on her site. Laura also offers great vintage items and some kits on her eBay store, HighEndBeads.

If you can't get enough of Laura's work, she's one of the four 2010 Designers of the Year for Beadwork Magazine, so we can look forward to seeing six great new designs from her.

The Jewelry Lessons website, run by Eni Oken and friends, is sponsoring a new contest called "Overcoming the Economic Crisis". The idea behind the contest is to allow participants to use whatever materials they have on-hand to make a beautiful piece of jewelry and enter it without having to purchase any additional materials or pay an entry fee. The winners will receive their choice of jewelry making tutorials from Eni's website, Jewelry Lessons.com.

The deadline for entries is January 31, 2010, so you have plenty of time to create your entry. To enter, follow the directions on the website to simply upload a good photograph of your entry into the contest gallery. Entries posted to the contest gallery will also be available to view in the main gallery.

I think this is a great way to challenge yourself and maybe win a cool tutorial in the process! It's just one of many great ways to stretch your beading budget.

Have you started your holiday beading yet? Don't worry, neither have I! The holidays can really sneak up on you, especially if you have a family with small children like I do. I've got a few great patterns in the works for next week, but until then, if you want to get started, here are some great free beading patterns for the holidays:

Tiny Beaded Candy Canes - These little candy canes work up super quick and are great for earrings or to add as a final touch to gift wrap.

Christmoose - This is a free beading pattern from Jeanette Shannigan, author of "Beaded Adornment".

Holiday Earring Patterns - These patterns cover Christmas, Chanukah and Kwanza with angels, santas, candles and a Dreidel.

Beaded Pointsetta Ornament - This lovely ornament will also make a wonderful holiday pendant.

Winter Steeples - A beautiful charted peyote stitch pattern by Suzanne Cooper to get you into winter.

Winter Storm Necklace - A simple strung necklace that sparkles like a winter storm.

For me, the holidays mean the start of my favorite season - winter - when snuggling up with my beads and my family next to a roaring fire is just about as good as it gets. Happy beading!