In addition to the many, many other things that I have going on this week, I am finishing up my entry for Scarlet Lanson's Use the Muse III competition. Here is a sneak peek:

That's all I can show you right now! The space in the center between the two flowers is where the Muse component will be placed. If you like the flowers, you can try your hand at making your own Russian style netted flowers.

I'm very happy with the warm colors I chose to use in this project. All of the beads came from my shopping spree at the Beyond Beadery booth at Bead Fest Philadelphia this past August. (Can you even call it a booth? It's more like a portable seed bead and Swarovski crystal store!)

Scarlet was nice enough to extend the deadline so that the international participants in the competition would have enough time to complete their entries, and that worked well for me, since the extra time allowed me to meet my other deadlines and still have time to finish my design.

Since I'm not allowed to reveal the beautiful Muse component that is the focal point of the design, you'll just have to wait until The Big Reveal on Scarlet's website, The Beader's Muse, when she announces the winners of the competition.

I hope Scarlet has a fourth Use the Muse competition - check her website often for updates!

A new beadwork competition has been announced at the Land of Odds, the creative folks that bring us the annual Ugly Necklace Contest.

The Illustrative Beader: Beaded Tapestry Competition is now looking for entries. This will be a bi-annual competition and the final deadline for acceptance of entries is August 31, 2011.

The theme for this year's Beaded Tapestry competition is mystery book covers. Beaders and artists should create a beaded mystery book cover using fabrics, fibers, and of course, beads. The piece must be made of at least 70% beads, and will be judged on insight, technique, use of beads as an artistic medium, visual appeal, and the quality of the required written artist's statement.

Guidelines for the Beaded Tapestry competition can be found on the Land of Odds website. Two prizes awarded will be a $1,000.00 and $400.00 shopping spree on the Land of Odds website!

Don't forget that you can still enter the Ugly Necklace Contest sponsored by the Land of Odds until March 15, 2010.

Some great new updates to my favorite beading blogs this week:

BeadedBear's Nonsense and Complete Waste of Time - Sig Wynn-Evans

Beadazzled of Oregon - Dini Alves

Beady Eyed Women - Jeanette Cook

Ramblings on Jewelry Making and Life - Jean Campbell

Contemporary Beadwork by Kerrie Slade - Kerrie Slade

MAD Designs - Marcia DeCoster

Tapestry Beads - Jill Wiseman

Artisan Clay - Kristie Roeder

Happy Halloween and Happy Beading!

Progress is being made on the freeform peyote necklace! I really love the colors in this one. The creams with the browns and other Earth tones are really the colors that have spoken to me since I started beading more than ten years ago. I always find myself drawn to these colors when designing and shopping for beads.

The piece looks a bit lopsided right now, but it's only because I was so anxious to attach the beadwork that I had done for the left side of the piece. I needed to get an idea for where the beadwork was going so I could judge how much more I needed to do on the right side.

I've been having great fun with this technique because it really lets me stretch my skills and my creativity as I figure out how to incorporate each element as I go. That's one of the many things I love about freeform peyote beadwork!

More pictures and updates will come next week after I return home, along with some great tutorials on how to do freeform peyote beadwork. Get your beads ready!

Some of you may share my obsession with beading kits. I can't explain why I love them so much, but I think some of it may be the idea of sitting down with a given set of materials and working my own brand of magic to transform them into a stunning piece of beaded jewelry. I am actually in the home stretch of finishing a set of kits by Rachel Nelson-Smith from her new book, "Seed Bead Fusion", and they are keeping me up at night way past my usual bedtime.

So this week, I was thrilled to discover that School of Beadwork, the collaborative effort of Carol Wilcox Wells and Melanie Potter, is having a fall clearance sale on some of their most beautiful beadwork kits. Some of the kits have been marked down more than 50%, and mixed in with the sale kits are some gorgeous new offerings.

Nikkia Angel's Buy the Kit also has some great new kits that have been just added to the website. The Venezia Cristal Pendant uses Swarovski crystals and a crystal hexagon centerpiece. The new Bellagio Cristal Pendant also uses a sparkling crystal hexagon centerpiece, includes instructions for making matching earrings, and comes in five different color palettes. Both kits are priced very reasonably at $33 for the Venezia and $27 for the Bellagio - perfect gifts for the upcoming holiday season.

It isn't too often that I get excited about the contents of my post office box two days in a row, but that's what happened this week with the arrival of the two special issue magazines by Beadwork Magazine and Bead & Button Magazine.

Bead & Button's "Jewelry Designs With Art Glass Beads" showcases twenty projects from the collaboration between the magazine's editors and the International Society of Glass Beadmakers (ISGB) and a special article about the collaborations of jewelry artist Maggie Roschyk and lampwork artist Kristen Frantzen Orr.

Beadwork Magazine has come out with what is their best special issue yet - "Beadwork Presents 41 Favorite Jewelry Designs". This is one collector's issue that you absolutely must get your hands on. In addition to the beautiful beaded jewelry projects, there are more than 50 tips from professional bead artists, editors' picks for cool new beading products, and a handy pull-out reference card that has basic instructions for all sorts of beading and jewelry making techniques.

These two issues will be more then enough to tide me over until the next regular issues of the magazines come out in a few weeks, and the projects are sure to keep me busy for much longer than that. Check your favorite book store or newsstand at the end of October for these issues, or order them directly from the publisher's websites.

I recently accepted an order for a custom necklace from someone on my Etsy shop. She requested a freeform peyote necklace with a bead embroidered centerpiece. I don't do freeform beadwork very often, but I love the whole process, so I agreed to make the piece, and as I am working on it, I am preparing a series of tutorials for the site on how to do freeform beadwork.

I started by assembling a palette of seed beads in the colors that the customer requested.

The next step was for me to raid my bead stash thoroughly to find as many different types of beads that fit with the customer's request and the color palette. Since the customer had requested an embroidered centerpiece, I also got to raid my stash of cabochons.

And then I started to bead!

I have to admit, the piece is taking a lot longer than I expected it to. What I have pictured here represents about 5 hours worth of work. Although I know some artists are speedy beaders when it comes to freeform work, my freeform work is more meditative. I tend to bead slower when I don't know where I'm going.

If you have ever tried freeform beadwork, why not post a picture of it in the Show and Tell Your Work in the Forums? I'd love to see other freeform work by readers!

For your weekend blog-reading pleasure, here are some of my favorite bead-related blogs for this week:

Artisan Clay - Kristie Roeder - Kristie shares her beaded necklace entry into the Art Bead Scene Challenge for October.

Beadedbear's Nonsense and Complete Waste of Time - Sig is taking her show on the road to Halfmoon Bay, California.

BeadLust - Robin Atkins - Robin shares her adventures in Tuscon, Arizona.

Beady Eyed Women - Jeannette Cook - Jeannette is off to Ohio for a trunk show and class.

Etsy Beadweavers Blog - The winner of the Super Power Jewelry Challenge has been announced, and all the entries are gorgeous.

Good River Gallery - Hannah's reflections on the month of October.

Jean Campbell Beads - Jean talks about her experiences working with Wendy Ellsworth and Wendy's new book.

MADesigns - Marcia continues her thoughts on process vs. project in beadweaving.

Try-to-be-Better - Sabine has a new book coming out in November. It looks incredible!

SandFibers - Carol showcases her Bead Art Originals Item of the Week.

Tapestry Beads - Jill is in the thick of it at the Houston Quilt Show.

The Lone Beader - See how a bead embroidered tank is designed and embroidered, one stitch at a time.

The Fascinating Beadwork of Rachel Nelson-Smith - Rachel shares her experience showing her work at the Santa Cruz Open Studios event.

Happy beading and reading!

This is the day that I usually post a list of bead-related blogs, but today I have something else that I think my readers will like much better: a link to a free eBook from Beading Daily that has instructions for five beaded necklaces.

The necklaces in this eBook cover all the bases - simple stringing, bead stitching, chain maille and more. And they are easily adaptable so that you can use your favorite beads in place of the ones illustrated. The necklaces look like perfect weekend projects - make one up on your day off and wear it to the office on Monday!

All you need to do to receive the book is sign up to become a member of Beading Daily. It's free, and you will receive their daily emails with all sorts of wonderful information about beading, beadwork and beads.

I downloaded their last free eBook, which was five free projects made with right angle weave, and it was fabulous. I'm still working on some of the projects from that book, but I'm very anxious to try the chain maille project in this latest collection of free projects, thanks to my new love of wire work after working up projects by Rachel Nelson-Smith.

Beading Daily is the online community of beaders and jewelry makers run by Interweave Press, publishers of Beadwork magazine.

Eri Attebery, the founder and owner of the website Jewelry Making Professor, is offering four free jewelry making and beading video tutorials for the month of October in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness month.

The free projects include pink ribbon earrings, a charm necklace, a beadwoven puffy heart and a pink ribbon brooch made with Swarovski crystals. The videos take you through each step, and Eri includes information on where to get the components needed to complete each project.

Eri is herself a breast cancer survivor, and she now does all she can to raise awareness of the disease. She and her husband are also participating in a 3-day walk in Philadelphia to raise funds for breast cancer research.

Don't miss out on this chance to make some beautiful beaded jewelry and raise awareness about a very important issue at the same time!